Today in Digital Marketing - He's Nervous, But On the Surface He Looks Calm and Ready

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Tuesday, July 25th. Today, branding blunder. Will Elon's latest gamble help the beleaguered company? Also, Threads moves fast to capitalize on Elon's latest fumble. TikTok finally gets ready to launch its e-commerce platform. And on the ad-free premium podcast, which you can learn more about by tapping Go Premium in the show notes, how to close the deal when your meta shopping campaigns only tickle the bottom end of the funnel. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, Today Digital Marketing. Elon Musk's sudden rebranding of Twitter to X has erased 15 years of brand recognition, leaving the platform in a challenging position as it starts again from

Starting point is 00:00:43 scratch while its competitors forge ahead. So what's next? Research firm Forrester foresees a grim fate for X, releasing a paper last night predicting X will be shut down or acquired within the next 12 months. Quote, nine days ago, Musk tweeted that the company has a negative cash flow because of a 50% drop in ad revenue plus heavy debt load. This is far from a position of strength from which to attempt what is essentially an app relaunch, a move that will only alienate more users and more advertisers. While Musk's vision is to turn X into an everything app, this takes time, money, and people, three things that the company no longer has disenfranchised twitter users will increasingly turn to threads while musk's company continues to lose money simply put x's runway is coming to an end unquote doug zarkin is a retail brand

Starting point is 00:01:39 marketing executive most recently cmo for a major eyewear retailer and was vice president of marketing at victoria's secret i spoke with him earlier today. The challenge becomes how the users of the platform are going to react. There seems to be more negative reaction than positive reaction. The work that needs to be done with that platform has absolutely nothing to do with the visual language. The challenges that marketers have faced since the change in leadership is the change in behavior and values that the platform has put out into the market.

Starting point is 00:02:13 Limiting what you see as a user of the platform inevitably changes the value proposition because you are now really looking at a finite audience for exposure for your message, for your product or service. Doug Zarkin has a book called Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone. It will be out later in the year. A couple of random items overnight that I thought were sort of funny. It doesn't appear that the platform controls the username X.

Starting point is 00:02:38 It is on a locked account, which claims to be in San Francisco. As of this afternoon, it had about 27,000 followers. Of course, if it's not owned by the platform, they'll probably just bump whoever has it out. They also didn't get the trademark for X. In fact, and this is kind of hilarious, its arch rival Meta appears to hold that trademark for, quote, online social networking services and social networking services in the field of entertainment, gaming and application

Starting point is 00:03:05 development, unquote. The Meta X looks a little different. It's the former logo for Mixer, which I know this is complicated, was a Twitch competitor owned by Microsoft before they shut that streaming service down and came to some kind of agreement with Meta. Also, for a while last night, a screenshot of Twitter's help page was circulating saying that the right way to refer to a post is no longer a tweet, but a zeet spelled X-E-E-T. It turns out that was fake. And finally, yesterday, Twitter workers started taking that name off their building in San Francisco, only to have the police shut them down because they didn't have a permit for the crane. For the last few months, Twitter's logo actually read Titter, because Elon is a 12-year-old edgelord.

Starting point is 00:03:48 Now, it just reads Err. Meta's rival app, Threads, on the other hand, is gaining momentum by rolling out one of its most requested features today, a following tab. For those of you with the update, tapping the threads icon at the top of the app screen let users toggle between for you and following. Like the former Bird app, these feeds appear at the top of the page. The update also includes new categories to sort the activity feed, letting you filter by follows, quotes, and reposts.

Starting point is 00:04:23 A new follow button can also be found on the followers list to make following other accounts easier. And users with private accounts can approve all follow requests in one go with a new approve all function. The company plans to offer a like posts section in settings and include translation features soon. Do you have business insurance? section in Settings and include translation features soon. 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.

Starting point is 00:05:16 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. There have been rumors about TikTok's online marketplace launching for some time, and now it seems the wait may be over. The Wall Street Journal reporting today that the company is planning to launch its e-commerce business in the U.S. in August. TikTok's online marketplace will be called, somewhat awkwardly, TikTok Shop Shopping Center. It will store and ship products from China-based sellers, including clothes, kitchen gadgets, and electronics. The marketplace will offer different channels for consumers to browse

Starting point is 00:06:17 and buy products. According to the report, TikTok will handle the marketing, transactions, logistics, and after-sale services, while users will be able to leave reviews for products shipped by TikTok and external sellers. The report noted that TikTok will only pay Chinese suppliers once they find buyers in the U.S. and return unpopular items to avoid being stuck with inventory. The company also reportedly plans to expand its program to merchants outside of China at a later date. While reports initially anticipated the launch of its marketplace this month, the Wall Street Journal says TikTok delayed its release. Chinese retailers have grown

Starting point is 00:06:56 concerned about the app's future in the U.S. due to recent legal actions, including a law in Montana banning the app starting next year and lawmakers pushing for a federal ban. So while it plans to give consumers more products, TikTok's also planning to give its ad partners more data on customer acquisition through new partnerships with post-purchase survey providers, no commerce and fairing. The new offering will let brands gather direct input from TikTok users through in-app surveys that prompt previous customers for responses. These surveys can provide advertisers with insights like where customers are coming from, how long it took them to convert and which channels are most effective. This kind of surveying has gotten a lot more attention lately

Starting point is 00:07:43 as traditional pixel-based approaches to attribution and reporting have gotten weaker. TikTok says marketers will be able to integrate data from both providers into most CRM systems. Boy, I feel dumb and old. Last night, I was in the hot tub. I decided to throw on the TikTok live. I haven't done a TikTok live on our podcast account in, I don't know, half a year, more. Our podcast account, by the way, is Today in Digital. Anyway, so I was on and we had, I don't know, 40, 50 people show up. and some of them had this little blue icon with a number like three or 12 beside it. And I started asking, why do your usernames have

Starting point is 00:08:32 this icon? And it turns out, this is so embarrassing. It turns out that's the indicator of how many months they've been supporting you financially. Subscribe to your channel. Okay, A, didn't know I'd turn that on. B, I asked everyone to please unsubscribe because I'm not providing any value there at all. I haven't done lives in months and months and months. But I did go in and check, and I had about $9 in there waiting to cash out. So, lesson learned.

Starting point is 00:09:07 I'm Todd Mappin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. Spend my money, money, money. Spend my money, money, money. 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.

Starting point is 00:09:40 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.

Today in Digital Marketing - He's Nervous, But On the Surface He Looks Calm and Ready

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