Today in Digital Marketing - [SECURE]

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, you've got more options now for Instagram influencer campaigns, what younger podcast listeners want in the shows they subscribe to, Google Ads has a new insights panel that may actually be useful, Microsoft gives you yet another reason to upgrade your website, and Snapchat buys TikTok. It's Friday, November 20th, 2020. Happy National Sovereignty Day, Argentina. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Yeah, I nearly fell off my chair

Starting point is 00:00:30 this morning when I read the headline Snapchat acquires TikTok, but it was a webpage glitch as the actual headline read Snapchat acquires TikTok for music creation app, Voicy. Still, strange headline, right? Anyway, yeah, the Voicy app looks a lot like TikTok, but the content is more musical. Lots of people holding an Apple earbuds mic up to their mouth and singing along, adding effects to the audio. Obviously a way to get a foothold into the TikTok space. Quoting socialmediatoday.com,

Starting point is 00:01:03 you can see how Voicy would appeal to the TikTok crowd. Essentially, through the effects and tracks, Voicy can make almost anyone sound like a professional musician, which seems like a natural extension from TikTok's lip-syncing and dancing. And now, Snapchat is in control of the app. What Snapchat plans to do with Voicy is unclear,

Starting point is 00:01:23 but it would make sense to see Snap add Voicy elements into its main app. People don't talk a lot about Snapchat in the digital marketing world, but I've said it before, they are quietly killing it over there. Keeping their growth up, their CPMs reasonable, and their buying spree active. Just last week, TechCrunch reported that Snapchat had also acquired Voca.ai, which builds AI-based voice assistance for customer support services. Another company keeping a close eye on TikTok is, of course, Instagram. They recently released their Reels format, which is basically TikTok. Now, the company is introducing new branded tags for both Reels and live videos. Branded content tags are the mandatory links that

Starting point is 00:02:13 creators place on their posts when you, the digital marketer, engage them in an influencer campaign. This means those influencers will have different options now to offer brand marketers like us, more placements, essentially. And given how successful many ad campaigns are on TikTok, Instagram Reels might be a good place to spend a bit of test money. They're also adding a way to let brands and creators work collaboratively on Instagram content instead of having the current method of brands promoting a pre-existing post. Here's how Instagram describes that. Quote, Apparently the workflow will look something like this. have more flexibility with fewer constraints when they want to run branded content ads, unquote. Apparently, the workflow will look something like this. Advertiser will send a request for ad creation access. Creator accepts ad creation access. The creator then gets a notification, and then they also get a notification when the brand has created the ad for their approval.

Starting point is 00:03:19 And finally, branded content ads in stories will now include tappable mentions, locations, and hashtags. If you market podcasts and are trying to reach a younger audience, some new research from the podcast network Whistle may help. They surveyed 460 people in the U.S. between 13 and 34 years old and found that those listeners are more likely to be affluent, male, and sports fans. That podcasts are replacing TV as a way to enhance other activities. Those surveyed said that they prefer

Starting point is 00:03:55 to learn with podcasts over books and that hosts need to be funny and relatable. There's a link in the transcript of today's episode if you'd like to get the PDF report. Google Ads is rolling out a new insights page over the next few weeks in the US, the UK, Canada, and Australia. At first, quoting Google, the insights page makes it easy for you to explore insights and emerging trends based on your business. Let's say you're a pet store looking to reach more customers. With the insights page, you can see rising demand for dog subscription boxes and dog toys. You can then act on these trends by creating campaigns to reach new pet owners

Starting point is 00:04:36 or even explore selling dog care packages. You can also deep dive into each trend to understand the searches that are on the rise and locations where demand is growing fastest. For instance, a grocery store might see a trend for vitamins and supplements with growing searches for vitamin C in Florida and California. So definitely a nice upgrade. The beta also includes recommendations on what actions you could take to capitalize on those trends. Let's pretend you're about to launch a campaign. It tested well, your entire team is happy, everything is going according to plan.

Starting point is 00:05:13 Except for that one thought at the back of your head. How do I ensure the people I want to target will be in the right mindset to receive my message? The answer, LinkedIn. Because when you market on LinkedIn, your message reaches people who are ready to do business. Thank you. or people you've contacted in the past. LinkedIn is the world's largest professional network. So do business where business is done. Get a $100 advertising credit toward your first LinkedIn campaign.

Starting point is 00:05:56 Visit linkedin.com slash digital. That's linkedin.com slash digital. Terms and conditions apply. A couple of Microsoft things to be aware of. First, Bing is testing a new label on search results. That label reads secure, and it goes in front of the URL in the search results listing. Some people are seeing that label in gray, but others are seeing it in a very eye-catching green. Google's never done this specifically, this label, although if you have a secure website, that is one that uses HTTPS instead of HTTP, you will get a ranking boost from Google. So another good reason to make sure your site is secure, even if you don't have any e-commerce

Starting point is 00:06:38 functions on it. And also Microsoft added coupons to its Edge browser yesterday. Quoting The Verge, Coupons and promo codes will appear inside Edge as an alert when you're shopping online, and they can be automatically applied to a basket when you're ready to check out. The coupons feature also includes price comparisons, so if you're shopping online, Edge can surface different retailers that might offer items at lower prices. Unquote. For the record, this seems to work only in the U.S. right now. Some other tweaks to the Bing browser, the ability to annotate and add text notes to PDFs,

Starting point is 00:07:14 and later this month, the ability to capture a full web page in a screenshot. Well, a number of sites are down, having problems today, so let's go through them. First, a big outage at Canva, the design tool that a lot of digital marketers use. Some people are reporting they're getting messages that say error accessing app when they're trying to log in using Facebook credentials. So at first, I thought this was just actually a Facebook authentication issue. But my wife, who uses Canva every day, said yesterday it was making and editing images that was bugged. Today, we can't download PNG images. Hootsuite, too, is having problems since yesterday afternoon. They've had issues with the login process, specifically with Apple's authentication methods.

Starting point is 00:07:56 They say a workaround in the interim is to use plain old-fashioned email sign-in. And it looks like Facebook's messaging API is a little broken. Apparently, it's having problems with images inside private messages. Facebook says it's working on it. Well, I'm having fun live streaming the podcast's production. I usually start around noon or 1 p.m. Pacific time. You get to see everything from the voicing booth. I have a camera up there to editing, mixing, post-production, uploading, inserting the mid-roll spots. And I'm now streaming on more than just Twitch. I will be live on my Twitter account and the YouTube channel for this podcast.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Don't forget, more than 200 digital marketers just like you are in our Slack community. Inside, you'll find exclusive deep dive episodes. Jobs get posted there. People use it to get advice, all sorts of stuff. It's free to join. So this weekend, tap the link in this episode's notes or just go to todayindigital.com slash slack. Well, that's it for this week.

Starting point is 00:08:56 Our production assistant is Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio. And this podcast is produced by our agency, EngageQ Digital. Find us at engageq.com. Full transcripts to every episode are on our website, todayindigital.com. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful and safe weekend, friends.

Starting point is 00:09:17 I'll talk to you on Monday. Come around If you're tired Come around We don't understand How to get around Oh

Today in Digital Marketing - [SECURE]

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