Today in Digital Marketing - Loosening Up Facebook: Will its Oversight Board Force Policy Changes?

Starting point is 00:00:00 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.

Starting point is 00:00:28 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, honesty or illusion? How will you present your out-of-stock notices to buyers?

Starting point is 00:01:08 Also, what does the latest Facebook oversight board ruling mean for content marketers? The most common questions people are asking on Google that you can answer, and Apple's next in line for the metaverse. And on the premium podcast with more stories, no ads, and expert live streams, having problems growing your business, you might be panic marketing. It's Thursday, December 9th, 2021. Happy International Anti-Corruption Day. I'm Steph Gunn, sitting in for Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing episode 523. In terms of restoring normal inventory levels in-store and online shelves, we may have a long way to go when

Starting point is 00:01:54 it comes to supply chain woes. Retailers need to decide if they're going to let consumers know about these stockouts or face up and spread products out to make it look like the shelves are fuller than they really are. An interesting piece in Retail Dive outlines which is more effective for retailers. And while the article focuses mostly on in-person stores, there are some lessons for digital marketers as well. According to the article, here are the advantages and disadvantages to each strategy. The pros of stockout signs. By being transparent, retailers are building trust with consumers by providing them with information about product availability and inventory. The cons. Nobody likes shopping online and seeing

Starting point is 00:02:36 out of inventory products or going to stores that look like the zombie apocalypse because all the shelves are empty. The more inventory you have, the more people will buy. There's less reason for customers to return to your store or make purchases online when inventory is sparse. Now let's look at the pros of retailers that face up. When inventory is low, pretending to have full shelves appeals to the low information customer, the shopper who isn't quite sure what exactly they need. This strategy also works for consumers that don't have brand preferences. Stretching the facing of brands that you have in stock can increase sales and convert to private label product sales, which are usually more profitable. The cons? Losing consumer trust. So what is the best approach? This piece explains that the

Starting point is 00:03:27 customer wants to know whether the stockout is specific to a store or if it's industry-wide, while the retailer wants the consumer to find a substitute and to keep purchasing from them. Quoting the article, maybe this is not about store-specific strategy, but rather more about product-specific strategy. For high-loyalty products, it may make more sense to alert customers that while you do carry the product, it is currently out of stock due to shortages on an industry level. For brands with low loyalty, however, facing is probably the right approach, regardless of whether the product is missing only at the store level or across the entire industry. Unquote.

Starting point is 00:04:12 Turns out, posting about hallucinogenic drugs is not against Instagram's guidelines. An Instagram account for a spiritual school in Brazil posted a picture of ayahuasca. After it was flagged for review by Meta's automated systems as having received around 4,000 views and trending, the post was removed for violating IG's community guidelines. Today, the Meta-created arm's-length oversight board has overturned Meta's decision, quoting the company, While the content violated Facebook's regulated goods community standards, which prohibits content which speaks positively about the use of non-medical drugs, it did not violate Instagram's community guidelines,

Starting point is 00:04:53 which at the time only covered the sale and purchase of illegal or prescription drugs. The board does not understand why Meta cannot immediately update the language in Instagram's community guidelines to tell users this, unquote. Does anybody else think that if the board had a dunce cap, they would have made Meta wear it? The board has also recommended that Meta change Facebook and Instagram's rules to allow users to discuss the traditional or religious uses of non-medical drugs in a positive way. As long as there is miscommunication and discourse between the board and Meta, looser restrictions on content could become more apparent in the near future.

Starting point is 00:05:33 Something to watch for for anyone who does content marketing or advertising on the platform. You're not the only one who has screamed at your Google business profile. Like any big platform, there are lots of little bugs, but some of them at Google have persisted for a while. Some so long, in fact, that searchenginejournal.com, which has been tracking the bugs, has posted a list in an article up today called The 7 New and Ongoing Google Business Prof business profile GMB issues. Here's a look at the problems you might be experiencing. Quoting the article, reinstatement loops. A reinstatement

Starting point is 00:06:13 loop is a term used to explain what's happening with the 1% of profiles or so that were suspended right after the reinstatement. The cause was usually that the business used a FedEx or UPS drop-off point as their address. The fix? Currently, all you can do is contact support or reply to your reinstatement email. The team may not understand the issue, so a video may help your cause. If this fails and you keep getting suspended, document the issue and report it to the community. Also, service businesses are showing up on Google Maps with the additional category service establishment. If you view a service business on Maps and examine the source code of the page, you'll find it. Strangely, there is no service establishment category in Google My Business. You can't select it when adding categories to your business profile.

Starting point is 00:07:08 And so, the category you see on Maps does not appear in the GMB dashboard. While this seems harmless, some users with a mix of a service area and storefront business profiles are reporting declines in the visibility of their SABs. The fix? There is nothing you can do at the moment. Unquote. Again, the full piece is at searchenginejournal.com and is worth a read if you have been experiencing

Starting point is 00:07:34 any problems with your Google business profile. There's a direct link in today's premium newsletter. 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,

Starting point is 00:07:59 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. More moves towards the metaverse. Apple's new mixed reality headset will use 3D sensors for advanced hand tracking, an Apple analyst reports. Compared to the iPhone's single 3D sensor, the headset is said to have four,

Starting point is 00:08:22 which should provide better accuracy than the TrueDepth camera array currently used for Face ID. Why do we care as digital marketers? Augmented and virtual reality are definitely among the top trends emerging and being forecast for the next year, with some huge commerce wins already happening. If Apple can figure out the market for these devices, getting them on consumers' heads could open up a world of new immersive brand experiences. Apparently, this new headset can track hands. For instance, detecting the user's hand from a clenched fist to an open one. Although Meta's Quest headsets can track hands, it's not a major feature, and it relies on conventional monochrome cameras. The interface capabilities of the Apple headset also includes gesture control, object detection, eye tracking, eye risk recognition, voice control, skin detection, expression detection, and spatial detection. The Apple analyst says the company will release the first model sometime next year, and it's expected to sell about 3 million units by 2023.

Starting point is 00:09:31 Google's annual trending searches report includes a list of the most popular keywords and topics across different categories, which is gold for content marketers and people wanting to rank their website higher. So here are some of the most commonly asked questions from 2021 that maybe you can answer in a blog post. In the how to be category, how to be eligible for a stimulus check, how to be more attractive, and how to be happy alone. And for style and fashion brands, how to style straight leg jeans, how to style a wolf haircut, and how to style a corset. Google reminds us as often as it can that what its search engine really cares about are detailed, comprehensive webpages that answer people's questions. under pressure from american lawmakers yesterday the head of instagram said his team is working on a chronological feed that's not sorted by an algorithm except he called it a version of a

Starting point is 00:10:37 chronological feed so the jury's still out on what we'll end up seeing by moving to chronological the company says it hopes to improve safety and wellness for young users. Based on early leaks so far, the new feature should work similar to Facebook's feed sorting option. If you follow someone or a page, you can see their post in chronological order, but you can't set the sorting order as your default. Testing the new feed, an app researcher spotted a toggle that will allow you to sort your main feed by favorites and following, along with the traditional algorithm-defined home feed. It's expected that the following feed will have a chronological order. Microsoft Bing has added more inclusive business attributes that can be added to your search ads

Starting point is 00:11:26 to showcase your brand values. The updates include four new options to its marketing with a purpose business attributes. Here they are. Asian owned, Latin owned, woman owned, and diabetic friendly. Here's how you can add the attributes to your advertising accounts. First, navigate to all campaigns, then click on settings, check all attributes that apply to your advertising accounts. First, navigate to all campaigns, then click on settings, check all attributes that apply to your account, and click save. I saw my first float plane today. Todd sent me a video of his trip into Vancouver and I gotta say it's pretty cool. Although I might have had to use the paper bag myself if I was on that plane. Landing on water no matter the circumstances just really doesn't seem like my thing. Don't forget about our happy hour Zoom call, which happens tomorrow. It's open

Starting point is 00:12:10 to everyone. There's no guest expert, just a chance to hang out with Todd, other listeners, and newsletter subscribers. That's this Friday and every Friday. It's going to start at 12 p.m. Pacific, that's 3 p.m. Eastern, and 8 p.m. London time. The URL will be todayindigital.com slash happyhourlive. Thanks for listening, and Todd will be back tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Loosening Up Facebook: Will its Oversight Board Force Policy Changes?

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