Today in Digital Marketing - Facebook Engagement is Now 1/16th of 1%. And Dropping. 📉

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Thursday, February 23rd. Today, 1 16th of 1% and dropping. Engagement on social media is at an all-time low. Also, big updates to Google Performance Max campaigns. Agencies are losing confidence in MetaZad platform. We have your get out of Facebook jail card and Instagram's embarrassing porn problem. I'm Steph Gunn sitting in for Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:00:26 That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. Google is giving advertisers a bit more control over its most automated campaign type called Performance Max. Several new features are coming soon, including campaign-level brand exclusions. This will provide added control to ensure performance max campaigns won't serve for branded queries advertisers may want to avoid on search and shopping inventory. Applying these exclusions will also help block traffic from most brand misspellings and searches in foreign language. Advertisers will also be able to exclude

Starting point is 00:01:03 their brand terms and choose from a list of other brands to exclude. Page feeds. This feature lets advertisers send traffic to specific website landing page URLs and will be rolled out in the coming months. Advertisers can also use labels to group URLs by theme to make them easier to use in a specific campaign or asset group. Easier video creation. This is a welcome addition. Integrated video creation tools inside the campaign setup and editing workflows. Previously, this feature was only available in the asset library. New reporting and insights.

Starting point is 00:01:41 Soon, asset-level group-level reporting will include conversion value, cost, and a handful of other metrics. And finally, Google is also of other metrics. And finally, Google is also introducing budget-pacing insights, which can help advertisers optimize their budget allocations, including where to shift budgets between campaigns for better conversion rates. How is your brand's social media performance stacking up compared to the rest of the industry? Social media analytics company Rival IQ recently published a new social benchmarks report, which examines how brands are performing across major platforms. Starting with Facebook, the average engagement rate per post across all industries is pitiful,

Starting point is 00:02:20 0.6%. That's 1 16th of 1%. And that's actually down from last year's report. To be clear, we're talking about people engaging with a post here. These are not organic reach numbers, though those are also depressingly low. Engagement on Instagram is higher, coming in at half of 1%, but it's also declining. Last year, engagement on the platform was 0.7%. Meanwhile, Twitter engagement is at just over a third of 1%, which is also down from last year's report. As for TikTok, the platform remains social media's current golden child. Brand videos on the app have the highest engagement rates of all platforms, coming in at 5.7%. It's also worth mentioning that brands post less to TikTok than on other platforms, averaging about two posts per week, which could of course affect these results.

Starting point is 00:03:12 But as Social Media Today points out, the comparative performance is significant. If you can get it right, TikTok can generate big reach. While engagement continues to slide down on Facebook, brands and agencies also appear to be losing faith in the platform as a marketing channel. Yet, they continue to put their marketing dollars in. A new survey from Digiday found that Facebook is the top marketing channel among agencies. Despite their spend, the report found agencies are becoming less confident that the platform can drive marketing success for their clients. Just 1 in 10 agency pros said that they were very confident in Facebook this year, compared to 2 out of 10 last year. Last year, 40% said they were confident in Facebook,

Starting point is 00:04:01 compared to less than a third today. Meanwhile, brands' confidence in Facebook's ability to drive marketing success has fluctuated even more. Only a quarter of brand pros said that they're confident the platform drives success this year, compared to last year when nearly half said they were confident in that. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

Starting point is 00:04:38 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at ZenSurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Getting thrown into Facebook jail is a rite of passage for social media marketers. But here's some welcome news for you bandits. Facebook jail is changing. Earlier today, Meta announced it's reforming its penalty system

Starting point is 00:05:01 to focus less on penalizing end users by restricting their posts and more on explaining why it removes content. The company said it will still apply account restrictions to repeat offenders. However, the new system won't enforce strict penalties until the seventh violation in most cases. Previously, Facebook jail could prevent users from posting for 30 days at a time for relatively minor offenses. With the new system, users may still be restricted from certain features, such as posting in groups following a strike, but they will still be able to post elsewhere, while 30-day suspensions will be

Starting point is 00:05:36 reserved for a user's 10th strike. The company, however, may impose more restrictions for severe rule violations. Facebook users will also be able to view their past violations and account restrictions in the account status section. Meta explained that nothing is actually changing about its decision-making process in terms of content removals, but it will increase the transparency of its decisions by explaining its policies to users when violations occur. And that will bring us to the lightning round. Snapchat is adding some new audio features.

Starting point is 00:06:12 First, brands and users can now find relevant audio to match with snaps where a lens has been added. And SoundSync lets users create montage videos that sync to the beat of audio tracks from the sounds library. Meta has confirmed it is internally testing a BeReal-like role call feature in Messenger. The feature invites users to add a photo or video to a prompt to share what they're up to at the moment. Similar to BeReal, only people who add to the role can see other responses. Google has confirmed that it is blocking some Canadians from viewing news content in a test run of its response to the Canadian government's online news bill,

Starting point is 00:06:51 also known as Bill C-18. The Online News Act would require platforms to pay news publishers for their content. TikTok has partnered with Mercedes-Benz. Their new E-Class model will feature direct TikTok integration and a selfie camera. And finally, someone at Instagram hit the wrong button this week and accidentally reinstated Pornhub's account. That account promotes the adult website, but never has any adult nudity or porn on it. Nevertheless, Instagram permanently banned the account last September. A spokesperson for Instagram told TechCrunch that it was a mistake and that the account has been permanently disabled for violating its policies. Again. For its part, Pornhub says it

Starting point is 00:07:38 got an email apologizing and saying that the previous ban had been a mistake. But that message too was apparently sent in error. For those of you wondering, Todd is okay, just recovering from some eye surgery yesterday. So I'm in the hot seat today. He should be back tomorrow. Although he did have holes poked into his eyeballs with the laser.

Starting point is 00:08:05 I can't even function after I have my eyes dilated at the optometrist. Don't forget, our LinkedIn newsletter is called The Top Story, and it will send you our top digital marketing story each day directly to your inbox and in your LinkedIn feed. You can sign up at todayindigital.com slash top story, and it's completely free. There's also a link in the show notes thanks for listening i'm steph gunn we will talk to you tomorrow

Today in Digital Marketing - Facebook Engagement is Now 1/16th of 1%. And Dropping. 📉

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