Today in Digital Marketing - Meta is Killing Third-Party Access to Facebook Groups

Starting point is 00:00:01 It is Monday, February 12th. Today, heads up if your brand uses Facebook Groups, Meta is about to close the door on third-party tools. Pinterest's numbers are up with concerns about their new Google deal, marketers plan to spend more this year, and why the Taliban is shutting down web domains. I'm Todd Maffin. That's Ahead, today in digital marketing. Do you have business insurance?

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Starting point is 00:00:48 Be protected. Be Zen. I'm not sure how I missed this, but Meta is set to pull the plug on its Facebook Groups API. This will leave many businesses and social media marketers scrambling. This was actually announced a couple of weeks ago as part of the rollout of Facebook's Graph API version 19. That API has been crucial for brands that use third-party tools to schedule posts in Facebook groups, reply to comments, reply as private messages, and so on. Quoting TechCrunch, quote, Meta explained that a major use case for the API was a feature that allowed developers to privately reply in Facebook groups. For example, a small business that wanted to send a single message to a person who posted on their Facebook group or who had commented in the group could be messaged through the API, unquote.

Starting point is 00:01:40 Meta hinted that the newer API version would be able to handle some of this, but the details were pretty scarce. For companies like VibeCloud, which serves around 5,000 Facebook accounts, this change could bring significant revenue loss. Another third-party platform, PostMyParty, which is used by micro-businesses like health and fitness coaches who do online boot camps in Facebook groups, that company says it's probably going to go out of business as a result. As for exactly why Meta has decided that third-party apps will no longer be allowed access to Facebook groups, that's a big mystery, at least from any official statement. Again, quoting TechCrunch,

Starting point is 00:02:18 There is concern that Meta is deprioritizing developers' interests, having recently shut down its developer bug portal as well. Reps from Facebook haven't replied to the developers' comments in its forums at the time of this writing, leaving everyone in the dark. Pinterest is on the rise with 16 million new monthly active users in the fourth quarter, pushing its total to just under 500 million. This growth marks a significant rebound from the dip after the 2021 COVID surge. Pinterest has consistently grown its audience over seven quarters, especially in Europe and regions like Brazil and Mexico. But growth in North America, its main revenue source, was modest, with only a few million new users added. Revenue-wise, Pinterest is making strides, still has some room to improve, of course,

Starting point is 00:03:09 particularly outside the US. The company reported $981 million in Q4 revenue, contributing to over $3 billion for the year. That was slightly below expectations. Pinterest also announced a new ad partnership with Google, but some analysts fear the company's reliance on third-party ad partnerships could limit its direct sales potential, despite these alliances offering short-term revenue boosts. Instagram has a new addition to its cutout stickers. They can now include videos. This will let you create animated stickers from any video clip. This will give you a quick way to make an animated GIF out of a video,

Starting point is 00:03:51 quoting Social Media Today, quote, which could provide you with a heap more creative options through the creation of individual stickers of various post elements that you can then share over and over again in your own stories and reels. There are some limitations, like still image stickers. In order to create a sticker from a post, the creator has to have posted it publicly, while they also need to have enabled permissions for other users to create cutouts from their content. This is opt-in by default, but users can switch this off if they choose in order to stop people from reusing their

Starting point is 00:04:25 images. Also, if you do create a cutout sticker from someone else's posts, and that user deletes that post, you will also lose your sticker, unquote. Still, all in all, definitely a nice option for people who manage social channels. This is, of course, just in-app. There's no API for it, and thus, no third-party platform support. More than 70% of British marketing leaders say they're planning to spend more on their digital campaigns this year. Definitely welcome news for the MarTech sector, which has seen four years of basically flatlined growth. The data comes from a study by the content agency NoBrainer. Breaking down the specifics, here's how many said they plan to increase spend by 60% or more. In the top spot, AI spending, 64%, say they'll boost spend there by as much as 60%.

Starting point is 00:05:15 SEO was 62%, TV, radio, and podcasts, 59%, email marketing, 58%, though the rest were all over 50%, so it is a pretty broad group. As for those who said they'll be spending less this year compared to the last, only 14% of marketing decision makers said that. 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.

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Starting point is 00:06:23 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. There are lots of TLDs out there, top-level domains. There's.garden,.limo,.beer, and even.george. There's also a lot of country code TLDs, like TV, which is managed by the tiny nation of Tuvalu, which it turns out is about halfway between Australia and Hawaii. That TV domain is so lucrative for the country,

Starting point is 00:07:01 it's estimated to have provided the nation with one twelfth of its GDP. There's also.af, which many people have used as an abbreviation for as fuck, like happy.asfuck or queer.af. The.af domain is run by the government of Afghanistan. In other words, it's controlled by the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist political and military group known for enforcing strict interpretations of Sharia law. And as you might

Starting point is 00:07:32 imagine, queer as fuck does not meet their very narrow morality guidelines. So they're shutting the domain down. Queer.af used to be home to a Mastodon server. It wasn't just for Afghanistanis. People from all over the world used it. The domain was set to expire in two months, but the Taliban just closed access to it early. And while Mastodon's system does let you move your accounts and followers to a new system, that relies on the old system being still up for a while.

Starting point is 00:08:01 Technically, the server is still running, but the Taliban has shut off its records in the master domains list so no web browsers can find it. Anyway, all that to say, if your brand has been using a.af domain name for the lols, it might be time to pick up and move before the Taliban

Starting point is 00:08:17 does it for you. Had a bunch of people upgrade to the premium version of this podcast over the weekend. Thank you so much. If you're new to this podcast, the premium version is just like this one, but it has no ads, better audio quality, story links in the show notes, audio chapters. It comes with access to more than 20 deep dive interviews with marketing scientists, my course on building a small agency, and a whole lot more.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Just tap go premium in the show notes to sign up or go to todayindigital.com slash premium. I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Meta is Killing Third-Party Access to Facebook Groups

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