Today in Digital Marketing - Goodbye Alexa. We Hardly Knew You.

Episode Date: December 11, 2021

Finally, Facebook adds live chat support — but you don't qualify for it. Also: One of the OG SEO tools is being killed off. Why digital ad buyers are more willing to accept poorer results for brand safety. A WordPress bug potentially exposes a million web sites to hackers.Go Premium! No ads, more stories, and expert livestreams — https://todayindigital.com/premiumADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/adsShowcase your marketing tool for free! https://todayindigital.com/showcase  JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal.

Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, Facebook finally adds live chat support, but you don't qualify for it.

Also, one of the OG SEO tools is being killed off. Why digital ad buyers are more willing to accept poorer results for brand safety. A WordPress bug potentially exposes a million websites to hackers. And on the premium podcast with more stories, no ads, and expert live streams, does Apple have a secret deal with Facebook and Snapchat to bypass the data limitations we're all struggling with? It's Friday, December 11th, 2021. Happy National Aviation Day, Venezuela. I'm Todd Mathen from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 524. Facebook is now offering live chat support for people who get locked out of their account.

That's the good news. The bad news is you and your brand probably don't qualify for it because this is just for creators. You know, influencers. Oh, and only for American creators. Oh, and only for a handful of American creators. The announcement came as Meta announced it's testing new updates for moderation as well, including new controls that will help you more easily moderate comments, live chat support tests to troubleshoot account issues,

and a webinar series on how to stay safe on Facebook. Currently, creators cannot access basic support if they face troubleshooting issues, are locked out of their account, or have payment questions and so on, which, of course, is a big problem. Here's a look at the creator support tools that are being tested in the US.

On the Facebook website, a dedicated support site when logged into Facebook and a live chat support agent for help on various issues, including any issues with Instagram. On the Facebook mobile app, live chat support for some English-speaking users who've been locked out of their accounts. The company, as I mentioned, is also testing more comment moderation controls, including improvements to blocking a user and any new accounts that that user creates, updates to keyword blocking, a new moderation assist, which is similar to admin assist for groups to help reduce

time spent on comment moderation, and additional tools for creators that use Facebook Live. The platform also announced it will be launching a safety school in the new year, where Facebook will cover policies, resources, and tools available around account security, impersonation, bullying, and harassment. Now that Facebook has offered more support to its creator community, the platform has also announced new tools for livestream creators, including featured links in livestream broadcasts. This means you'd be able to link out to your store or a landing page. Also, new ways for creators to interact with fans, additional funding for rising stars and more.

Here's a look at some of the new creator features announced today. Facebook Live has been redesigned for desktop and mobile. The new format simplifies the navigation menu, makes it easier to access insights and tools. This redesign of live also comes with new features, including, as I mentioned, featured links. So creators will be able to share multiple links during the broadcast and viewers can visit the links without ever leaving the live video. It's a nice touch. Polls, also available on mobile. Previously, this is only available on

desktop. Live with, meaning that creators will be able to go live with up to three additional guests. Live in stories, giving creators the ability to share their live broadcasts direct to Facebook Stories. And front row, this feature is still being tested. Some viewers will show up in a dedicated front row section of a live. They also have redesigned the badges

to more clearly recognize fans that support the creators. Facebook said it also wants to help live streamers engage in more conversations by enabling them to react and respond to comments directly from the notification panel. According to the company, we have also introduced improved comment ranking features that help creators find and engage with the most relevant conversations. These features include elevating comments and replies from creators to the top of the discussion thread on a post and decreasing the visibility of spammy or repetitive comments. And finally, the platform has also announced its new Spotlight Conversations feature. The format will include two separate comment sections, one for those mentioned in the chat, and one for all other comments. And while, yes, these changes are aimed at accounts that have indicated they're for creators,

I don't think you need to be a psychic to see that as these tools mature, get put through the ringer a bit, they'll move these over to the live streams for brand accounts. After all, the digital world is embracing live streamed commerce, and these tools are a solid addition. Amazon is killing Alexa. No, not its voice assistant, its SEO tool. Amazon acquired the tool Alexa.com years ago. Today, the company announced it will be retiring its services.

Quoting the announcement, After two decades of helping you find, reach, and convert your digital audience, we've made the difficult decision to retire Alexa.com on May 1st, 2022. Alexa.com provides a full suite of search marketing tools, which, you know, to be honest, not a lot of people even knew about. Most marketers will probably miss the Alexa rank, which is the metric that measures a site's popularity. Maybe if it's marketing suite, which actually was pretty comprehensive, included content exploration, competitive content analysis, site audits, and much more.

Maybe if it was better promoted, we wouldn't be saying goodbye. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N.ca. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. A new study from Advertiser Perceptions has found that 81% of marketers say corporate responsibility and brand values are playing a greater role in media purchasing. The report suggests that marketers are more willing to compromise marketing performance for ad placement if it ensures their ads appear in brand-suitable environments where they have more control.

The report also found that 4 out of 5 respondents want greater control over where their ads appear, as well as information into who profits from placing them. 60% of marketers are willing to downgrade or drop media partners who don't meet their standards, regardless of how well they perform. 54% cited disinformation and hate as motivations for withdrawing, while 51% said underperformance of campaigns. Marketingdive.com also covered the story today, saying the findings signal that marketers are potentially willing to sacrifice some of their reach as consumers ramp up pressure on companies to live up to their stated values. You might start to see something new in your Google Ads account soon.

Some advertisers are reporting seeing the Asset Library within Google Ads. This tool is currently only available in Ads Creative Studio, and this new expansion is in closed beta. A user's asset library will display any existing image assets they have in their account. Advertisers can use this view to search through existing assets or create new ones. Google has not officially announced a date for when it will be available to more advertisers.

And finally, a peculiar bug in a popular WordPress plugin is said to have potentially exposed one million websites to security threats. The WPS Hide Login plugin's job is to, as the name suggests, hide the regular WordPress user login page, which is almost always at slash WP login. This plugin changes the page name, making it harder for bots and hackers to find it. This bug, though, apparently exposed the location of the hidden login page, defeating the entire purpose of the plugin. The vulnerability was publicly disclosed on the plugin support page. It has been patched, but users affected may want to update to the latest version.

Michelle and Elliot, thank you both. You were the two people who showed up to the happy hour today. Hey, two is better than zero, which has happened before. Happy hour is a weekly thing that we're doing starting, well, I guess now, essentially. So every Friday at 12 noon Pacific, which is 3 p.m. Eastern, put in your calendar. Just hang out with us.

The URL is todayindigital.com slash happyhourlive. We get together. We chat about marketing tools, things we find interesting. We bitch about Facebook. It's therapeutic, really. I mean, you could probably even write it off

on your insurance. I don't know. Anyway. Also, what I noticed was that Elliot subscribes to the premium newsletter and thought that that was the same as the premium podcast. So if you are that person as well, there are two things. There is the premium newsletter, which is daily and the premium podcast feed. So if you're listening to this on the free feed, you will get obviously this with some ads. The premium podcast feed, though, is no ads, extra stories in it. It's a little bit longer in every episode. We have more stories and we'll come with extra live streams, two of which are going to be next week. So there are two things. There's a newsletter and a podcast, and there is a premium newsletter and a premium podcast as well. You can learn all about the premium options at todayindigital.com slash premium. Well, that's it for the week.

Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of the Tsunamic First Nation on Vancouver Island. Scripting and promotional support by Steph Gunn. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio. And our theme composer, Mark Blevis, has fire in his eyes, and his words are really clear. So beat it. I'm Todd Mappin. Have a restful weekend. I'll talk to you on Monday.

When we hit 85 I watch you scream inside I'm the only one I know