Today in Digital Marketing - Instagram Has No Idea What Digital Marketers Want. Discuss.
Episode Date: May 14, 2021Big moves in the single technology pretty much everyone is counting on for the future of product marketing.... The latest platform to jump on board the livestreaming trend could be a gamechanger... an...d — I know this'll shock you, but Instagram is busy working on a feature nobody will use. Get the entire show content, with links and images, as a DAILY email newsletter! Subscribe at b.link/pod-newsletter ADVERTISING:- Ads: b.link/pod-ads- Classifieds: b.link/pod-classifieds- Brand Takeovers: b.link/pod-takeover JOIN THE COMMUNITY:- Slack: b.link/pod-slack- Discord: b.link/pod-discord- Podcast Perks: b.link/pod-perks ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Rate and review: b.link/pod-rate- Leave a voicemail: b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- Twitter: b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: b.link/pod-linkedin- TikTok: b.link/pod-tiktok Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (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.)Our Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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, big moves in the single technology Be protected. Be Zen. Instagram is busy working on a feature nobody will use. It's Friday, May 14th, 2021.
Happy Independence Day, Paraguay.
I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing.
A few times a week, I'll jump on my TikTok account and go live, answering questions people have about digital marketing.
Most of the questions I get are pretty basic.
How do I get more leads for my gym?
Or which platform is the best?
Or should I focus on traffic or post-engagement?
The answer to all these, of course, is, well, it depends.
But there's one question I never answer this way.
And that question is,
what do you think is the next big tech for marketing?
I actually have an opinion here.
Augmented reality. I think AR is on the verge of becoming the next great tech in marketing because it's aligning with four huge trend lines. First, mobile phones are now fast enough to handle
advanced real-time AR rendering. Huge investments are being made in the connection between AR and e-commerce.
All the social platforms are racing to build AR into their apps.
And consumers are coming to expect offer and product customization from marketers.
One of the platforms that wants to be out front, Snapchat, which has embraced AR from
its early days, though it was used more for fun than commerce back then.
Today, the company released a study they did with Deloitte Digital in which they asked 15,000 consumers across 15 countries what they thought of the whole space.
First, adoption rate, nearly 75% of the global population
and almost all smartphone users will be frequent AR users.
Unquote.
And they say AR is already influencing people's buying decisions.
More than 100 million people currently shop using some kind of AR tech.
Here's socialmediatoday.com's take on it.
The expanded potential of these tools, including virtual try-on options and digital product placement, like 3D visualizations for furniture, will build on this, making AR an even bigger consideration for more businesses over time. That becomes even more significant when you also consider the rise of e-commerce,
which has seen a significant boost as a result of the pandemic, unquote. And back to the Snapchat
study, quote, consumers continuously expect more personalized and engaging experiences that enable
them to interact with the world. The companies that embrace change can become dominant industry players,
those that don't fall behind competitors and sink, unquote. Today's premium newsletter has a link to
the full Snapchat study. And remember, since it's Friday, everyone gets today's issue. If you're not
yet on our newsletter list, just go to todayindigital.com slash newsletter or tap the link in this episode's notes.
There's a paid plan for the daily issues, but the free plan will send you the Friday issue every week.
Snapchat's not the only brand racing fast to get deeper into AR.
Walmart today announced they'd acquired Zkit, a company that created a virtual changing room.
When the experience is live on the Walmart site, customers will upload a photo of themselves
or choose from a series of models that best represent their height, shape, and skin tone.
Then the site will show them in any item of clothing, mimicking the experience of trying on clothes in a store.
They can even share their virtual outfits with friends
for a second opinion. This isn't the first such tech, of course. Sephora has been doing this with
try-on makeup for seven years now, as Snapchat recently bought the sizing tech company Fit
Analytics. Despite the global pandemic that kept many people out of its stores,
and actually probably because of that, Walmart had a great 2020.
E-commerce sales rose 79% for the fiscal year.
The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
So AR will be big.
What else is on the hot list?
30 points to you if you said live-streamed e-commerce.
And now, one of the OGs of consumer brand awareness platforms is jumping into that as well.
Pinterest today said later this month it will host a three-day long live virtual event,
which will feature a range of live-streamed sessions from creators and celebrities.
The big difference here, this won't be live streamed on YouTube.
Viewers will watch directly in the Pinterest app.
They will have a new Pinterest live page,
sort of an index of all the upcoming scheduled live events,
with a remind me button.
For now, these events will only be available on mobile
and only to Americans.
Thanks for nothing, Pinterest.
In this first upcoming test,
viewers will be able to comment on the video to interact with hosts, but there will not be any kind of e-commerce integration. But, quoting socialmediatoday.com, that's no doubt coming.
With TikTok airing its own shopping-focused live streams, you can bet that Pinterest is
also eyeing the same, linking its expanding
catalog of product pins into a live stream experience that will eventually enable all
pinners to broadcast live and promote their products within the app.
Which makes sense, especially given the popularity of food and beauty content on the platform.
Through live streaming, chefs will be able to guide pinners through their recipes,
while beauty creators will have a direct option to better showcase various products.
In this respect, live streaming seems to fit perfectly within the Pinterest ecosystem.
And when you also consider that video views within pins increased more than three times in 2020,
there's clearly demand for more video content within the app, unquote.
Also in related live stream news,
Facebook this afternoon published a white paper on the best practices for live streaming company events on social media.
There's a link in today's newsletter for that white paper.
An independent software engineer has found code on Instagram's website
showing that they are working on a publish tool there.
There, as in on the website.
You drag images onto the page, select a crop, a filter, add captions.
It's basically the mobile workflow, but on web.
And sure, I guess.
But have the programmers at Instagram not been told about Creator Studio?
Because I thought that's where they were going to consolidate everything.
Or was that Business Suite?
Now, wait a minute.
Now, hang on.
Which one was it?
I have a list here.
Creator Studio Business.
Creative Hub?
Was it that one?
Anyway, my take, who cares?
We all use third-party platforms for this now anyway because they forced us to, essentially.
And the one thing social media managers actually need from Instagram, we still don't have.
The ability to see and reply to DMs in the third-party tool of our choice. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me
that Instagram still believes brand managers and digital marketers
really prefer to handle DMs from our personal phones.
Like, does anyone at Instagram use their own app?
Hello?
Hello?
Well, a special weekend extra is coming your way tomorrow.
Just a little bit of fun.
This morning, our Slack community
hit 400 members.
There is a channel in there
for noob questions.
There's a channel where you can promote
pretty much anything you want.
There's a channel with exclusive
podcast content you can only get
in our Slack.
There's even a channel that alerts you every time the Facebook ads platform goes down.
I'm not kidding. Today in digital.com slash Slack will get you in there. It's free to join,
by the way. It's completely free. You can also tap the link in this episode's notes.
Well, that's it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver
Island by EngageQ Digital.
Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Guild.
Our theme is by Mark Blevis.
Music licensing by Source Audio.
I'm Todd Maffin.
Have a restful weekend, friends.
I'll talk to you on Monday. I was falling down, and the world was crumbling all around.
I would help you stand your ground.
I was lost before your love was found.
If the oceans emptied out, and your heart was filled with so much doubt.
I would lift you up somehow.
I was lost before your love was found
Before your love was found
I was lost, so lost
Yeah