Today in Digital Marketing - Here's What FaceTok Will Look Like
Episode Date: June 16, 2022Facebook plans to change its algorithm to become its biggest threat... What marketers need to know about the Data Privacy and Protection Act... How to market your brand on the anti-Instagram... Is del...eting comments on your Facebook ad pulling your ROAS down?... Go Premium! No ads, weekend editions, story links, audio chapters, better audio quality, earlier release time, and more.Get each episode as a daily email newsletter (with images, videos, and links).HELPFUL LINKS:ADS: Reach thousands of marketers with our ad options.CLASSIFIED ADS: Only $20 — more infoMORE CONTENT: Email newsletter, expert interviews, and blog posts.HANG OUT: Join our Slack communityEnjoying the Show? Tweet about us • Rate and review • Send a voicemailFOLLOW US:The Show: LinkedIn • TikTok • FB Page • FB GroupTod: Twitter • LinkedIn • TikTok • TwitchDEALS:Jyll Saskin Gales — Inside Google Ads Andrew Foxwell — Foxwell Founders Membership • Scaling After iOS14 • All CoursesOthers — AppSumo lifetime marketing deals • Riverside.FM podcast recording siteCREDITS:Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin and produced by engageQ digital on the traditional territories of the Snuneymuxw First Nation on Vancouver Island, Canada. Our associate producer is Steph Gunn. Ad coordination by RedCircle. Production coordination by Sarah Guild. Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.(If the links in the show notes do not work in your podcast app, visit https://todayindigital.com )Some links in these show notes may provide us with a commission.Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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Today, Facebook plans to change its algorithm to become its biggest threat.
What marketers need to know about the Data Privacy and Protection Act.
How to market your brand on the anti-Instagram.
And is deleting comments on your Facebook ad pulling your ROAS down too?
It's Thursday, June 16th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing.
Well, competing with TikTok has been Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's MO for quite some time.
Now we have new information about how Facebook plans to change its algorithm to compete with social media's current golden child.
Yesterday, as we were putting the show together, Facebook employees were receiving a new directive.
Make the feed more like TikTok. According to an internal memo from Tom Allison,
the executive in charge of Facebook, the goal is to shift the platform into a discovery engine,
which would rely heavily on AI-recommended content based on overall engagement and popularity,
just like TikTok's For You feed. Recommendations would mainly come from unconnected content,
including reels, and users
would see fewer posts from personal connections. This is particularly interesting since Facebook
has always said that is its strength, surfacing content from brands and friends and family members
that you are most connected to. In fact, more than a disconnection, this turns that essentially on
its head.
Also interestingly, the memo states that the social network plans to streamline content sharing by bringing Messenger's inbox back into the Facebook app, which again is a massive reversal after they spun off that app, much to everyone's chagrin several years ago.
Quoting Allison, the home experience will balance both connected content and unconnected content. We're working to clean up top of feed and make it just as easy to see
stories from friends as it is to discover new content in reels. We're also exploring a community
panel to give direct access to the communities you care most about. Finally, we're testing a
product to give you predictable access to your connected feed
with the ability to sort in chronological order and filter by groups, pages, and friends.
Internally, we call this Mr. T.
And I am excited about the progress the team is making, unquote.
But as the A-team's Mr. T famously quipped,
I pity the fool.
As a reference to the sucker that's been targeted for a beatdown,
in this case, I'm not so sure that sucker is TikTok.
Well, the on again, off again Elon Musk purchase of Twitter appears to be on again. He showed up
today for an all hands meeting with Twitter staff. Among the leaked takeaways, Musk said he'd
probably modeled Twitter's future product direction more like WeChat, the super app in China that does everything
from messaging to commerce to ride hailing and more. He said, quote, you basically live on WeChat
in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we'll be a great success, unquote. Andrew Hutchinson
has a snarky but solid take on this today in socialmediatoday.com, quoting him,
Wow, what a stroke of genius this is.
This approach totally hasn't been attempted by almost every other messaging app in every other region.
Indeed, Meta's been working on this template for years, first trying to get Western users more hooked on Messenger via the addition of a range of expanded functions and tools, then pushing to do the same with WhatsApp in India and other Asian markets. It's never worked. For whatever reason,
Chinese users have adopted messaging apps in a much bigger way than those in other markets.
And while Meta is still hopeful that it can make WhatsApp the key connective tool on India
and Indonesia specifically, the chances of US.S. users increasing their reliance on a messaging
platform and definitely on Twitter are not high. But Elon seems to believe he's the first to notice
this and that this is some hidden gem that no one has stumbled upon yet, which again underlines the
concern that he's a little naive in his approach to managing and maximizing the platform, unquote.
Andrew's piece is definitely worth a read. It's on socialmediatoday.com.
It's called Musk's Twitter Plans Remain Vague After First Q&A With Company Staff.
Kurt Wagner from Bloomberg also tweeted some info from the session, quoting his tweets.
He was just asked about layoffs and replied that the company needs to get healthy without rejecting the idea of layoffs.
Quote, anyone who is a significant contributor should have nothing to worry about, unquote.
Was also asked multiple questions about employees working from home.
He said priority would be in-person work, but also carved out an exception for employees who are, quote, excellent contributors, unquote.
Elon was asked about being CEO.
He didn't say yes or no.
Quote, I'm not that hung up on titles, but I do want to drive the product in a particular direction.
There are a lot of chores if you want to be CEO. He said he doesn't care about title, but people, quote, do need to listen to me, unquote. And finally, again, quoting Kurt Wagner here, somehow the discussion then turned
to aliens. Elon said, quote, I have seen no actual evidence for aliens, unquote,
which is exactly what an alien would say to avoid detection. I'm just saying.
Yesterday, the U.S. Congress discussed the finer details of a proposed federal privacy bill showing some progress on a long-promised effort to give Americans more control over their personal data.
According to the legislation, the American Data Privacy and Protection Act would take effect six months after being passed.
Though its regulations are not finalized, Adweek has a piece up today on what marketers need to know about this proposed upcoming bill.
First, people can file a private right of action. This bill gives U.S. consumers the right to sue tech companies that violate it.
Second, people can opt out of targeted ads. This law gives people the right to opt out of that advertising, thus preventing their data from being sold without their consent. Opt-in consent will also be required for sensitive data, like tracking an individual's online
activity across different websites. Geolocation data is also subject to opt-in consent.
Three, companies will be mandated to adopt privacy by design framework.
Fourth, firms need to designate data privacy officers. And fifth, walled gardens will
enjoy more power. The targeted advertising section of the bill favors walled gardens, including
social network sites and e-commerce companies like Amazon. For example, if a consumer visits
Amazon and searches for a pair of sneakers, Amazon will be able to retarget that person for those sneakers. 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.
While Facebook tries to be TikTok, the social media app BeReal,
which seems to be anything but like Meta's platforms, continues to gain momentum.
According to Apptopia, Be Real is enticing
almost 3 million daily active users. The new kid in town, Be Real, is designed for users to
showcase their real life. Users receive a notification every day at a different time,
prompting them to post, and they have only two minutes to take a photo using their camera,
capturing both the front and back of the camera.
I have tried this out. I have to say it's oddly refreshing content.
Like TikTok, there are two main feeds, one that only shows your friends.
The other is a discovery feed. No idea how it's picking what to show you there.
But the content is beautifully unvarnished and normal.
A guy watching his friend put a sleeping bag out.
Someone waiting for a bus outside a hotel,
an institutionally drab wall at a doctor's office. It is truly the anti-Instagram,
at least for now. Feel free to follow me there. Of course, my username is just Todd Maffin.
But as a consumer-driven app between friends and connections, how can your brand capitalize
on the forthcoming Be Real platform? Well,
the app currently doesn't offer any ad options, but MediaPost reports how early adopters are
indeed using the app to promote their brand. One fast food chain, for instance, used Be Real to
share a limited promo code for free food with its users. Due to Be Real's ethos of transparency and
authenticity, as the company puts it. Media posts suggest that brands
interested in marketing on the platform should tell an authentic story instead of sharing the
polished narratives we sometimes see on other social platforms.
You know, I was thinking the other day, I wonder who could be benefiting from Apple's app tracking transparency.
Could it be TikTok? No.
Meta? No, definitely no.
Oh, what about Apple?
So it turns out Apple Insider is reporting today that Apple could bring in $6 billion in revenue from mobile advertising by just 2025. As a result of the release of iOS 14 and the introduction of app tracking transparency, Meta, on the other hand, allegedly lost $10 billion in
revenue. One analyst claimed that Apple's change drove headwinds for incumbent advertising platforms,
and those headwinds will force advertisers to reallocate advertising budgets,
including on Apple search ads. Analysts also predict the mobile advertising market
is expected to exceed $400 billion in 2024, which is about a third of an increase
from the $288 billion it claimed last year. While many big brands are busy marketing themselves as LGBT allies for Pride
Month, new research from Data for Progress has found several companies are also backing anti-LGBTQ
plus legislation. At the same time, they're promoting how great an ally they are. This year,
lawmakers in the U.S. have introduced nearly 300 pieces of anti-LGBTQ plus legislation,
including a number of measures targeting trans youth.
Data for Progress has compiled a database showing which brands publicly oppose those bills,
but also fund lawmakers who sponsor them.
Those brands include AT&T, Toyota, Comcast, and Amazon.
According to the analysis, all four marketers sponsored pride celebrations this month, but also collectively gave more than a million dollars to the lawmakers responsible for anti-queer campaigns this year.
Reddit advertisers will now have access to DoubleVerify's measurement and verification tools.
Reddit announced the exclusive partnership today and said it will use the tech to help advertisers ensure campaigns are viewable,
seen by real people, served in a brand-safe environment, safe from fraud, and appear in the intended geography.
The full suite of solutions is expected to be available in 2023.
And finally, I report this with a bit of hesitation
since it is anecdotal data.
It is only based on the report of one person,
but it comes from Andrew Foxwell's
great Foxwell Founders Group.
So I do put some weight in it.
Someone in his group is reporting
that every time they delete a comment
from a Facebook ad, their ad performance on that ad set dips, and dramatically so,
from a blended ROAS of 4 to under 1.3. The person says it's happened already three times,
and they could see the correlation based on the time and date. So I bring it to your attention
just in case it's something you may want to look into. Maybe test at your end, deleting a comment.
Does that actually have an effect on your ad campaign performance?
If this is something that you think is a thing or has happened to you, please let me know.
Just tweet me or use the contact information in the show notes or something.
It seems like a strange signal that Facebook would be using for ad performance.
But, you know, they're not exactly always the A-team over there.
Just got the Vets bill for, well, Vets quote, I guess,
for dental care for our aging mini schnauzer.
She's 14 years old, has not had dental work in a while has some
extractions to do anyway uh the price you know it's bad when the quote comes with a range right
at the low end it might be this at the high end it might be that low end 1700 high end almost 2200
dollars oh my god she is worth it, though.
We have a special needs cat as well
who has a special diet with
of course only the most expensive food.
It's a good thing we don't have kids.
I'll tell you.
Anyway, that's it for today. I'll talk to you tomorrow.
You trademarked the phrase, I pay the fool.
Exactly.
So what happens if someone uses that in a commercial?
Oh, oh, oh, my people are going to be on them.
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
That's part of Mr. T's retirement fund.