Today in Digital Marketing - No Facebook Protect? No Facebook for You!

Episode Date: March 21, 2022

Facebook has started to lockout users that didn't sign up for its mandatory new program... Utah joins the growing list of states with its own consumer-privacy legislation... The truth about ads being next to relevant content... Should you be running UA and GA4 at the same time? Facebook adds a way to increase engagement on Reels…Go Premium! No ads, more stories, audio chapters, and extended weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumGet each episode as a daily email newsletter (with images, videos, and links) — b.link/pod-newsletterADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/ads JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin- Twitch: https://twitch.tv/todmaffin  Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://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.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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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, Facebook has started to lock out users that didn't sign up for its mandatory new program.

Utah joins the growing list of states with its own consumer privacy legislation. The truth about ads being next to relevant content. Should you be running Universal Analytics and GA4 at the same time? Facebook adds a way to increase engagement on reels and on the premium podcast with no ads, more stories and expert deep dive weekend episodes. Tap the link in the show notes for more. Consumers don't trust your ad campaigns. So how should you market to them? It's Monday, March 21st.

I'm Todd Maffin. Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. Today's episode is sponsored by Vendasta.com. Build your agency with the tools you need and the hassles you don't. Visit Vendasta.com slash superhero to book a demo and learn more. Trust is eroding between consumers and brands. Whether it's the massive databases of behavioral data the platforms hold or just dumbass PR decisions, it's getting harder to convince consumers that you are on the good side.

One of many studies that support this has come out. It's a Nielsen study that found fewer than two-thirds of Canadians trust the advertising they're exposed to. So how do you target an audience that doesn't trust your ad campaigns? If you're in marketing, you should know the answer to this. Recommendations from people consumers know are six times more trustworthy than text ads on mobile phones and five and a half times more trustworthy than online banners, social media, and search ads. According to the report, Canadians, and I think we can extrapolate most of the Western world here,

most trust recommendations from, first, people they know, emails they signed up for, editorial content like newspapers, and then branded websites. Tone and messaging are also important if you want an ad to resonate with them. The study notes that Canadians respond best to ads that feature humor, real-life scenarios, and value-oriented messages. Data has been provided by Nielsen's Annual Trust in Advertising Study. Might be a quieter week for engagement if your brand uses Facebook

as the platform has locked out users who didn't activate its mandatory protection program, Facebook Protect. Facebook Protect is, I don't know if we can use the word offered, maybe foisted upon people in the public eye like journalists and so on. A few weeks ago, Facebook sent out a spam-like email that was titled, Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect.

And it told users they were required to turn on the feature by a certain date or they would be locked out of their account. The problem is the email actually had a link in it, instructing people to click it, and the email came from the web domain facebookmail.com, which is legit, but since the email looked a lot like spam or phishing, many people ignored it. Users had until March 17th to sign up for the program's obligatory enrollment, and now people who didn't are locked out of their accounts and are having trouble with the process to get back in. Mehta says it is aware of the situation and says it is, quote, looking into isolated examples

where people may need help enrolling in the program. Utah is set to become the fourth and counting U.S. state to pass consumer privacy legislation, adding to the growing number of states with comprehensive policies. The Utah Consumer Privacy Act is similar to Virginia's model, with a few provisions that protect small and medium-sized businesses. Comparable to other laws, the new law will only apply if a company has an annual revenue of $25 million and processes data of at least 100,000 consumers, or if half of its gross revenues come from the sale of such data

while controlling and processing personal data of at least 25,000 consumers. Got it? As Utah moves ahead with the new privacy law, it adds to the convoluted state legislative landscape and creates new obligations for some companies. Adweek is reporting that 29 states are currently considering extensive privacy bills. Businesses are finding it difficult to keep up with each state's individual laws. One note about these, it's not that they apply to businesses in the state. These laws apply to any business that targets people who live in the state.

New research has proved that if an ad is next to relevant editorial content, it will get more clicks. News Corp's UK division, News UK, found that placing an ad within a story that is relevant to that ad, like a sports TV package against sports-related content, that ad received over a third more attention. It is worth noting, of course, that the analysis was conducted by the company, so it should come as no surprise that News UK is trying to use this information to convince you to place more ad dollars with them. But Adweek reports that the research is part of an effort to improve its first-party data platform, which is called Nucleus, a years-long effort to collect, sort, and monetize data signals across its properties. This could give trusted media companies with reliable first-party data a big advantage

in a cookie-less world. In light of the looming kill date of Google Analytics' current UA code, people are rushing to set up GA4, the replacement, and many are wondering if they should run UA and GA4 at the same time. Now, what we're talking about here is when Google Analytics first launched, it went through a series of different codes. The one that's lasted the longest and the one that most people use today on their website is powered by a bit of JavaScript code that is called Universal Analytics. Well, a little while ago, Google introduced Google Analytics 4, which was meant to replace Universal Analytics. You've been able to have that code on your website for a while now. And finally, Google says it will not be optional

fairly soon. That being March for most of us and October for people who run Google Analytics 360. That's the paid version. We're talking 2023 here, by the way, so at least a year away. Anyway, back to this whole thing about whether you should run both codes at the same time. There are two slightly different answers from two different Google employees. But the overall message is, yeah, you probably should. The first answer is from Ginny Marvin, who's Google's official ads liaison. So she's on the ad side, not the analytics side, but said on Twitter, for now, it's best to keep existing UA instances running and set up a GA4 property to start collecting data in parallel.

When Google search advocate John Mueller weighed in, he said, quote, I have no idea, but I imagine you could. Some sites have multiple analytics and metric setups in parallel. It does slow things down, though. There comes a time in every established digital agency owner's business journey when growth hits a slump. You have a reputation, clients, a team. You're successful, people trust you, and you want to leverage that trust to expand your operations and boost your bottom line. To find and leverage that growth catalyst, more and more agencies are turning to Vendasta,

the end-to-end digital platform trusted by over 60,000 local experts. With Vendasta's marketplace of over 250 products, your agency can develop custom packages of complementary digital solutions to target local businesses in your niche, such as SMS marketing, reputation management, and e-commerce products. Plus, Vendasta offers Thank you. Some new features have been added to Twitter communities to boost tweet engagement as the platform continues to test its more enclosed discussion format. The company recently rolled out a request to join option and has improved its controls over open and invite only groups. It also added a new member search option and is testing a community search on the web to make it easier for users to find groups to join. However, some big questions remain regarding engagement and whether Twitter users care enough

about sharing in more private topic-focused groups rather than posting to their own followers. We're not quite sure how brands plan to make use of communities yet, but it is worth keeping an eye on. YouTube also is bulking up some features on its YouTube Live side of things, including stream guests, notifications,

and updated viewing options. The platform will be launching five new features for live streams. First, Go Live Together. This is a collaborative streaming feature for mobile devices and allows creators to invite guests to stream with them by sending them a link.

They will not see your analytics. That's going to be kept for hosts only. Pre-roll and mid-roll ads can appear in a Go Live Together stream, and the ad revenue will be attributed only to the original hoster's channel. Number two, live rings. You've seen these on other platforms. Basically, a ring will go around a creator's profile when they're live to help viewers identify a live rings. You've seen these on other platforms. Basically, a ring will go around a creator's profile when they're live to help viewers identify a live stream. It looks almost identical to TikTok's version of this. Number three, cross-channel live redirects. This is where

users with at least a thousand subscribers will be able to direct their viewers from a live stream to another live stream or another premiere on their own channel. Number four, split screen viewing on mobile. They're working on an uninterrupted view of a live stream by taking a split screen approach with two different viewing experiences for mobile devices. There's the lean in version, as they call it, which is where the live chat engagement panel shows up on the right hand side of the screen, replacing the live chat overlay from the classic view, and lean back where the collapsed live chat allows for the video to be in full screen while in landscape mode. And finally, viewers will be able to submit questions during a live stream based on the creator's question prompt. Questions that are answered

by the creator will be temporarily pinned to the top of the live chat. And one other tiny platform update for you. Facebook looks like it is trying to figure out a way to increase engagement on Reels. The platform is testing reactions for Reels, which will let users react to a video with an emoji. Currently, you can like or comment on a Reel, but that is the extent of the response options. This update will be perfect for those of you wondering how your audience really feels about your reel's appeals. Don't blame me, Steph wrote that.

What says we'll have COVID with us for a long time than when the stock music companies start making songs about the lockdowns, which popped up today in our library. So here's a little bit of it. Enjoy. See you tomorrow. Sitting inside Waiting for the government to tell you it's alright

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