Today in Digital Marketing - From TikTok to Tictuk.

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Pizza Hut buys TikTok. I said TikTok, not TikTok. A new study says Google is keeping two-thirds of searches for itself, Snapchat is creating a duets feature, the Wix platform adds an incredible new integration, and why most consumers think you should be more active in social issues. It's Thursday, March 25th, 2021. I'm back. Welcome to those of you joining us from TikTok. We do this podcast every weekday. Happy Independence Day, Greece. I'm back. Welcome to those of you joining us from TikTok. We do this podcast every weekday. Happy Independence Day, Greece. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageU Digital, and here is what you missed today in digital marketing. A stunning study released this week found that 65% of Google searches ended up without a click. How is that even possible, you ask?

Starting point is 00:00:43 Because Google is getting better at putting what you're searching for right on the search results page, instead of just listing pages that might have that answer in it. If you Google, how old is Justin Trudeau, it'll just tell you, no click needed. He's 49, by the way. Needless to say, this caused some levels of consternation among people who do SEO for a living. If Google's only sending 35% of searches to actual website, what is even the point of SEO? Last night, Google responded to the study calling it misleading. It said, quote, Google search sends billions of clicks to websites every day, and we've sent more traffic to the open web every year since Google was first created.

Starting point is 00:01:22 And beyond just traffic, we also connect people with businesses reformulate their search query after getting a zero-click result. Quoting again, They might start with a broad search like sneakers and, after reviewing the results, realize that they actually wanted to find black sneakers. In this case, these searches would be considered a zero-click because the search didn't immediately result in a click to a website. In the case of shopping for sneakers, it may take a few zero-click searches to get there, but if someone ultimately ends up on a retailer site and makes a purchase, Google has delivered a qualified visitor to that site,

Starting point is 00:02:00 less likely to bounce back dissatisfied, unquote. One thing to remember here, Google considers its first priority for user experience to be searchers. SEOs and businesses come well after that. Another day, another company cloning TikTok features. This week, it's Snapchat. Again, the company confirmed it's working on a duets-like feature in Snapchat. Duets, if you're not familiar, give people a way to react to another video. The original one plays on one side of the screen, and you riff on it on the other side.

Starting point is 00:02:34 Sometimes this is used as a way to amplify a video, since there isn't really any kind of reshare feature on TikTok. Snapchat will be calling these remixes, which itself is a rip-off of the name Instagram used when they ripped off duets also. Last fall, TikTok said it would expand the OG duets to include a top-bottom layout, a special layout just for reactions, and a three-box layout. Predictably, Snapchat seems to be considering those as well. They would not estimate when this would roll out publicly. You know, I swear I'm going to just rename this podcast today in Who's Copying TikTok. Next up, the granddaddy of photocopiers, Instagram.

Starting point is 00:03:16 They say soon their users will be able to save their stories' videos as drafts to publish later. You know, like TikTok. You've been able to save regular posts as drafts since forever, but they've always dragged their feet on similar functionality and stories. Amazing what a fast-rising competitor will do for your product roadmap, eh? Interestingly, they never mentioned reels in their announcement. That would be TikTok's most direct copy. They say one-third of the most watched stories comes from businesses, and one in five stories

Starting point is 00:03:44 gets a direct message from viewers. But the more impressive number, I thought, was that more than half of all business accounts now create at least one story every month. We move from TikTok to TickTock, a completely different firm that has developed a conversational commerce engine. TickTock has been acquired by the company that owns KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut, continuing a trend of end-user brands, snapping up MarTech companies faster than M&As within the industry.

Starting point is 00:04:15 The technology integrates social media and messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, SMS, and email. They've already been using it in about 900 locations outside the U.S., but now plan to use it globally. The parent company, which is called Yum Brands, earned a record $17 billion in revenue last year. That's an increase of 45% compared to the previous year. They say they plan to deploy the technology to increase takeout and delivery orders. Good news for those of you whose websites are on the Wix platform. They announced this week an expanded partnership with Google that now directly integrates Google My Business into the Wix admin dashboard. So now brand managers can access GMB data, customer interactions,

Starting point is 00:05:00 and manage their profile directly within the Wix dashboard. I think it's hard to state how big a deal this kind of integration is. Google My Business, for better or worse, powers today's Yellow Pages. I don't literally mean the Yellow Pages brand. And boy, did they ever miss this whole, you know, internet thing. I mean, people search for restaurants and hotels and plumbers and everything through Google Maps these days. That business data comes from Google My Business.

Starting point is 00:05:26 And this integration is deeper than you might think. Almost everything you can do on the native GMB platform, you can do within Wix now. Update business hours, add photos, create posts, add attribute labels like delivery or LGBT owned, respond to reviews, share Q&As, and even message with customers. Also there, analytics, including number of views on search,

Starting point is 00:05:48 and a breakdown of use of the CTA button. If you work for a more conservative brand, you may have been quietly sitting out the recent trend of brands taking a stand on political and social issues, and that, according to a new study, might be a mistake. Almost half of consumers polled in a recent study by Pipsley say they think brands taking a stand reflects positively on them. Only 17% said it looks worse. As for why they think brands are doing it, well, that's where consumers are a little more jaded. While 31% said they thought

Starting point is 00:06:23 those actions would bring change, the same number said they thought brands were just cynically cashing in on the culture war to improve the bottom line. When asked for specific examples, people in the study were most likely to remember PepsiCo's renaming of the Aunt Jemima brand to the Pearl Milling Company, followed by Hasbro's recent decision

Starting point is 00:06:41 to drop Mr. from its Potato Head toys. Two big takeaways, I thought. More than half, 58%, said brands taking a stand has changed their purchasing behavior or brand impression, and men were 10% more likely than women to view brand activism positively. Twitter is considering adding a Reddit-like voting system to tweets. On Reddit, the algorithm is largely determined by people using upvotes and downvotes to indicate how much they like the content or comment. Twitter is also polling some users to ask about expanding the heart

Starting point is 00:07:18 icon to be a set of reactions, much like Facebook. This isn't the first time they've considered this. Six years ago, they experimented with reactions before deciding to not roll it out. They also played around with this upvote-downvote idea in 2018, but again, never did anything with it. Socialmediatoday.com wrapped it up perfectly. Quote, does anyone remember what happened when Twitter changed the favorites star to a heart instead? This change will no doubt also be welcomed with open arms by Twitter users, and we'll see no negative overreaction whatsoever in response. And a handful of items in the lightning round today. First, Google My Business is blanking out when some people try to verify or update an address, so if you've experienced that, it's just a bug. They're working on it. There are now 2 million podcasts in Apple's directory, only 37% of which have published at least one episode in the last 90 days. Facebook

Starting point is 00:08:11 is building an app designed specifically for people who just got out of prison and are re-entering society because we all want Facebook to be their first glimpse at how we've progressed. And shocker, Facebook is having problems with the delivery side of its ads platform today. At the time of this episode recording, the issue was still ongoing. Yes, a big welcome to those of you who found out about this podcast on TikTok. My account there is at about 18,000 followers now, which is mind-boggling because it was less than half that only a week ago. If you haven't ventured over there, the account name is Digital Marketing Secrets, and I'm posting about twice a day, live streaming the recording of each show, and doing a 60-second summary of what's in each day's

Starting point is 00:08:54 podcast episode. On the show tomorrow, details of an Instagram engagement study that looked at 102 million business posts. Very interesting findings there. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - From TikTok to Tictuk.

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