Today in Digital Marketing - Meet Your Next Favourite Twitter Feature

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

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Today, the Twitter feature social media managers have been waiting for has arrived, how streaming services are skirting marketing legislation, better late than never, Instagram finally brings its live offering into the common era, and the surprising finding about how agencies feel about TV ads. It's Monday, July 11th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. In the 1960s, an American music producer named Phil Spector created a new technique for audio mastering, something the industry later started calling the wall of sound. It was a formula, essentially, designed to create audio that came across particularly well on the speakers inside radios and jukeboxes of

the day. Many people believed this wall of sound just meant turning all the levels up to 11, but it was actually more subtle than that. At its core was taking the audio from instruments, then using a second and sometimes third instrument to add as a layer, playing the same notes so that it blended in. For instance, an acoustic piano might have a harpsichord and an electronic piano playing on top. Done right, the listener wouldn't notice the three specific instruments. There was a second component too, the echo. Remember, this was before the days of digital delays and reverb. What Spectre often did was to have three sets of microphones running at the same time. The first would capture the

instruments like normal and send them to the mixing board. The second would also capture the instruments, but would output their sound to speakers set up down the hall in an echoey room. The third set of microphones were in that echoey room, capturing the music from the speakers plus the echo. This way, he could raise and lower the levels on that third set of mics, effectively controlling the amount of echo the final recording got. This is how we got some pretty iconic songs. The Beach Boys were a huge fan of this in particular, and you can hear that echo in some of their most famous tracks.

Wouldn't it be nice if we were older than we would have to be? The song sounded open, like it could breathe better. But this new sound created a problem for radio stations, which were used to playing simpler compositions. To listeners, this new sound seemed much louder than regular songs before and after it. The wall of sound wasn't actually any louder, at least not in terms of volume, but this new way of mixing made it sound louder. This is a problem that marketers would take advantage of in the years that followed. They quickly learned that by employing a kind of wall of sound in their TV and radio ads, and by jacking up the compression, they could make their ads seem louder than the shows around them, and the idea being they would stand out more. It did work, so much so that TV and radio stations themselves started inching the volume levels up louder, not as much to reduce the

distinction between the ads and their programming, but rather to stand out against their competitors when people switch channels. This led to a standard, LUFS. It's short for Loudness Units Relative to Full Scale. Rather than using decibel levels, LUFS can account for tricky mastering techniques like compression or the wall of sound. The idea being that all TV and radio stations, including their ads, would align to a single loudness standard. There's a LUFS standard for pay TV, one for podcasts, although each podcast platform seems to have slightly different recommendations. There's even government legislation in many countries ensuring that commercials and the shows they sponsor are the same loudness. But there's one big gap in those laws.

Streaming services. And since they're not covered by the legislation, it's up to each platform to decide for themselves. Hulu and ESPN Plus say they follow the American law. YouTube wouldn't disclose information about ad volume, but said their ads adhere to a voluntary standard set up by an industry group. Although, interestingly, Marketing Brew says that that standard doesn't actually include any guidelines about ad volume. HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and Peacock wouldn't share any information on ad volume. Despite the American law, and others like it around the world, the problem's getting worse.

So far this year, the FCC has received 1,600 volume-related complaints, most of which against streaming services. There is talk in the U.S. about updating that legislation to cover streamers, too. For now, these streaming providers do have an option for viewers. Pay them. In a reply to a tweet asking why ads are so loud, Paramount Plus's account replied, ad volume is a known issue that we're working on. Have you considered our premium plan? It includes ad-free streaming. Here's something I thought was there all along, but turns out it wasn't. Instagram is now testing a new live stream tool that will let you use popular desktop streaming apps like OBS and StreamYard to go live.

This is something Facebook has had for years, and it's the foundation of other live stream platforms like Twitch. Currently, the only way to go live on Instagram is to use a single smartphone. This tool means you'll be able to present a more polished show, multiple camera switching, lower thirds, logos, transitions, everything to make it look like a TV show. This is something TikTok has as well, although very, very few accounts have access to it. It's only in testing at Instagram now, but once you get access, you'll need a stream key.

That's a bit of code the Instagram website will give you. And you'll plug that into your desktop software to confirm that you have permission to go live on that account. You'll start it by clicking the new post icon on the desktop interface of Instagram and selecting live. There's also an option called practice, which will simulate the whole process and you'll be able to check to make sure things are working before you actually selecting live. There's also an option called practice, which will simulate the

whole process and you'll be able to check to make sure things are working before you actually go live. One strange little quirk to be aware of, if you end your stream in the streaming software before you end it on Instagram, your live stream will actually continue indefinitely, showing the last frame received by the streaming software, which could be a little jarring to viewers. So far, it's a pretty scaled back experience. You'll only be able to view and respond to comments within Instagram's UI. Other live features like shopping, fundraisers, and comment pinning aren't there right now. Neither is moderation for the time being. So if you're a particularly risk-averse brand, maybe sit this one out.

Instagram did not say when it expected to roll the tool out more fully. 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. Well, speaking of risk-averse brands, has your brand ever been caught up in a tweet thread that has nothing to do with you? You know the kind. Someone at mentions your brand and maybe a couple of other accounts, and every time someone replies, your account handle is along for the ride. This can clutter up your notifications

or your third party tool of choice. Most of these tools don't provide any way to mute a specific conversation because they don't want you to miss something in case your brand actually starts being talked about in that thread. But as of today, there is a new way to unhook yourself from those. And to understand how it works, Cam Gordon from Twitter joins me now. Hi, Cam. Hi, Todd. Thanks for having me. Our pleasure. Okay, what's this called? How does it work? So we call this feature unmentioning. It basically gives anyone using Twitter the option of removing their account from any conversation. So essentially what this means,

if you're in a conversation that doesn't involve you, that's using language you might consider unwanted or abusive even, it puts more control in the hands of the user and they can basically untag themselves from any conversation. That means that, you know, that affects surface ability and it just means that they'll be able to exit on their own terms. Right. How will it look to users? Is this just going to be like your account handle grayed out? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, essentially it'll look like any other word. Key aspect of this is really the fact that it won't be hyperlinked essentially to elsewhere on Twitter. So you might still see the handle. But if you search that handle, or you certainly if you click on it, it won't be part of your ongoing Twitter conversation.

A lot of marketers, of course, that are responsible for the social media for their brand, don't use the Twitter products, web app, per se, to manage their brand's account. They use a third party tool like Spread Social or Agorapulse. Will this unmentioned feature be coming to the API soon so that we can take advantage of it if we use a third-party tool? That's a good question. I might have to get back on you with that. But clearly, the intention here is to make this available to every account and every part of the Twitter ecosystem. So I would see a full rollout of this. Cam Gordon is the head of communications at Twitter Canada. He joined me from his family's cabin near Bracebridge, Ontario.

Cam, thanks for your time. Okay, thanks for having me, Todd. More eyeballs and attention might be on the big social platforms, but television is still holding its own among agency executives. New research from Digiday found that, and I'm going to quote fairly liberally here from their post, quote, agencies and advertisers are spending the largest portion of their 2022 media budgets on Google. TV followed after Facebook and Instagram at number four, which indicates that TV still carries significant weight with marketers. But spending is down on Google,

which accounts for 20% of brands' marketing spend this year, compared with 27% last year. Meanwhile, Amazon makes gains. Brands are spending 7.5% of their marketing budgets with Amazon this year, compared with just 1.6% last year. For retailers other than Amazon, the largest portion of media budgets goes to Walmart, followed by Kroger and eBay. The tie between Kroger and eBay could indicate that a retailer's primary product category isn't necessarily a significant factor for agencies and advertisers when making decisions about media budgets, unquote. I should mention this was a relatively small survey. Digiday surveyed 195 brand and agency professionals.

It is pay gated, but Digiday is an excellent source and I'd recommend it. You'll find it on their site under the post called How Brands and Agencies Are Investing in Online Marketing Platforms. So while Amazon's reaping the benefits of increased budget share, it's also feeling the sting of exhausted consumers. Bloomberg reporting today that Amazon's prime membership numbers stalled in the first half of this year, this after a $20 annual price increase that took effect in February. The numbers came from a survey done by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, I should note they track members, not subscriptions. And one subscription could have many members, given that members of the same family can share a single subscription.

And finally today, TikTok is launching a new online training program aimed at small businesses to help them learn how to use the platform. It's called Follow Me. It comes in the form of a six-week email drip campaign and covers tips, best practices, how to use the Creative Center and the Ads Manager, and so on. One thing that's a little weird, even though it's an email drip, it's not evergreen. It has a specific run date. It starts today and ends on August 19th. TikTok is on track to exceed one and a half billion users this year, which would put it in the top three social media platforms. You can sign up for TikTok's Follow Me course at followmegrowwithtiktok.splashthat.com. dot com. Don't forget, the premium version of this podcast is just like this one, but with no ads,

access to deep dive weekend episodes, better audio quality, story links in the show notes, audio chapters that let you jump between stories, and much more. Get $30 off the annual plan by going to todayindigital.com slash premium feed or tap the link in the show notes. That's it for today. See you tomorrow. That you don't need me to tell you

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