Today in Digital Marketing - Facebook... Start Your Photocopiers!

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

Twitter's new podcast might shed some light on its inner workings... TikTok bolsters its geo-targeting... YouTube's got an interesting second-screen ad product... and the decision's in: Is Trump coming back to Facebook?Get the entire show content, with links and images, as a DAILY email newsletter! Subscribe at TodayInDigital.com/newsletterAdvertising: Ads • Classifieds • Brand TakeoversJoin the Community: Slack or DiscordEnjoying the show? Rate and review us!Follow Tod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTokPodcast PerksLeave a VoicemailToday in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital. Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Today, Twitter's new podcast might shed light on its inner workings. TikTok bolsters its geo-targeting. YouTube's got an interesting second-screen ad product. And the decision's in. Is Trump going back to Facebook? It's Wednesday, May 5th, 2021. Happy Liberation Day to Denmark and the Netherlands. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital,

and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing. The year is 2004. Our focus is on the next release of Mac OS X, which is called Tiger. Steve Jobs is on stage at Apple, revealing the next version of the Mac's operating system called OS X Tiger. People in the audience are watching, nerds at home are watching, and likely a whole bunch of engineers and executives at Microsoft's office in Redmond, Washington are also watching. And as Jobs talks through the feature list, outside the convention center room where it's all happening,

dozens of Apple staff are racing to hang giant banners from the ceilings. Banners with the OS X Tiger logo, and above it, what I think remains the single best headline Apple has ever written, Redmond, start your photocopiers. Indeed, Microsoft did borrow some inspiration from time to time, but in the history of technology, I don't think any company has been as shameless, as brash, as unrepentant as Facebook. Instagram stories? Direct rip-off of Snapchat. Reels? Direct rip-off of TikTok. Live audio rooms? Direct rip-off of Clubhouse. And now, Facebook's cranking up its photocopiers for yet another successful app, Nextdoor. Nextdoor has emerged as the kind of anti-Facebook.

It's a collection of semi-private, hyper-local social networks where people can chat, sell things to each other, and so on. I actually wonder if Facebook's move into this space is itself an admission that its group's product has become too bloated, and in some cases, too toxic, to provide a good hyper-local experience, which is part of the reason they were created in the first place. Anyway, Facebook's version will be called Neighborhoods. It will be in the main Facebook app.

They say it's available in Canada right now, but I'm in Canada and I couldn't find it in their app. Interestingly, Facebook says it will do some of the moderation work itself, with a set of moderators dedicated to neighborhoods. This is different than groups, which Facebook always intended to be self-moderating. For us digital marketers, the application is obvious. Facebook will use the information it gets there for stronger local targeting and, likely, a new placement or two. Twitter has launched a new podcast it says'll discuss how they use user data and other research to develop the platform. It's called I Wish I Knew, and each episode will be hosted by a different pair of researchers.

But as compelling as that headline was, digging a little deeper into the news release, we find it's probably going to be a fluff piece. They say the topics they'll specifically talk about include, quote, how the team is elevating conversations above the company through insights, explore why research matters, and celebrate the people and culture surrounding the work, unquote. Yeah. Okay. I mean, we'd rather have more about the algorithm, but you never know.

Episode one is out now. The two hosts talk about their careers, how the experienced research team at Twitter operates, and how the team measures impact within the product development process. They're also hosting a space from their Twitter research account this Friday at 12.30 p.m. Pacific. Again, the name of that podcast is I Wish I knew. TikTok has added a couple of things to its ads platform. First, a partnership with Nielsen, which will let advertisers use Nielsen's industry standard DMA targeting.

That's designated market area. This basically improves their existing geo-targeting. And they've launched a new club on the live audio app Clubhouse. It's called the TikTok for Business Club. Sounds like it'll be a weekly conversation with a handful of small business owners talking about how they've used TikTok to promote their brand. It'll happen every Friday at 8 a.m. Pacific. TikTok, why so early? This Friday, they will be talking to the owners of a tea shop, a barber, and a lemonade brand.

Incidentally, if you've created a TikTok ad account and you are in the US or Canada, check your email or spam folder because this morning we got a $20 ad credit for completing a survey about what we want on the platform with the promise of a $100 ad credit if we're selected for an interview. It's been quite the ride for streaming video platforms. This year, an important tipping point happened. There are now more streaming households in the U.S. than pay TV households. Or, as YouTube says, to look at it another way,

more than 40% of linear TV ad supply has disappeared in the last four years alone. YouTube, of course, wants to exploit that trend and yesterday teased a new ad product called Brand Extensions. It's kind of interesting, actually. This will let people who are watching an ad on one screen send a URL to their phone or another screen so they can check out that brand's website or shopping site or landing page. Also coming soon, browsable product images in direct response video ads.

Quoting marketingdive.com, YouTube, like the other digital video platforms, has benefited immensely from the pandemic, with ad revenue jumping 49% to $6 billion in 2021's first quarter. The windfall has been mirrored at rivals, including Amazon, which also touted a surging streaming audience and its ability to link those eyeballs to shopping carts as part of its New Front's debut earlier

this week, unquote. New Front's is the annual video industry announcement fest. They also talked briefly about the TikTok-like format Shorts and says that format is getting more than 6.5 billion daily views and confirmed they expect to roll Sh shorts out globally by the end of the year. A few small items for you. Google says starting May 18th, you will no longer be able to sell or advertise digital books on the shopping ads platform. Also, this afternoon, Twitter announced it would stop cropping images in its feed so aggressively. So now even your tall images should show most of the picture. And yesterday, I mentioned Facebook's hand-picked oversight panel would rule today

on the Trump suspension. It did rule this morning and has sort of upheld Facebook's original decision to remove the former U.S. president, but also kicked it down the road a bit. They said the indefinite suspensions, which it handed Trump, should be stopped, and Facebook should decide in the next six months whether they're going to permanently close his account or let him back on. And meanwhile, did you know Trump actually has his own social network now? It's true.

Actually, he's had it up and running since mid-March. It's called From the Desk of Donald Day Trump. And he is the only user. He's the only person who can post there, which he has been doing in what are essentially very short blog posts or maybe somewhat long tweets. Even a couple about China. This weekend, the episode some of you have been waiting for, a full interview with a Facebook ad support rep. This person is one of those that you interact with in Facebook's chat support. For obvious reasons, they are staying anonymous,

but we have confirmed that they are legit. In that interview, we cover what really happens with appeals, how much information those reps actually have about your account, what you can do to stay on Facebook's good side, and so on. Here's a clip. All of those are basically reviewed by the system. Nobody's sitting there reviewing ad accounts all day unless it's an appeal. So what would be your advice then in terms of what people write in that form when they're doing an appeal?

Short, precise. All right. And like, if someone reads it, yeah. Yeah, definitely polite. It's like, I don't know if people, but I don't know. It's like, definitely, you don't want to be rude to someone that is deciding on your account.

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