Today in Digital Marketing - The Argument Against Being ‘Woke’ in Your Marketing

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Twitter's answer to Clubhouse may be coming sooner than anyone thought. Instagram proudly announces a new feature that nobody asked for. You can now schedule your TikTok content and cleaning your content marketing of cultural appropriation. It's Monday, March 1st, 2021. This podcast contains bug fixes and performance improvements. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Every so often, an organization will make a decision around marketing communications that I can't tell if it's a brilliant idea or a terrible idea. This morning brought one of those to the headlines. The city of Minneapolis has an RFP out

Starting point is 00:00:40 to hire social media influencers to share information about the trials of former police officers charged with the murder of George Floyd. Floyd, you might remember, died in police custody and that kicked off months of anti-racism protests. The police involved were fired and are now on trial. The RFP says they're looking for, quote, six community members who are considered trusted messengers and have large social media presence to share city-generated and approved messages. These partners will also address and dispel incorrect information, unquote. They'll be paid about $2,000 each and will be asked to focus their content to the Black, Native American, and Latino communities. The city says they're doing it to reach communities and small businesses that do not rely on traditional media.

Starting point is 00:01:37 An interesting blog post this morning at Sprout Social discusses the ethical ramifications of using culturally relevant content in your digital marketing program and the potential slippery slope toward cultural appropriation. Quoting from their piece, if a brand is actually black, LGBT, or native-owned, or very closely connected to these diverse audiences, these terms could be a relevant and authentic part of their brand voice. But it becomes an issue when brands or marketers that are not considered part of the community try to benefit, with zero credibility and zero value added. For instance, words like cis and woke come from African American vernacular.

Starting point is 00:02:09 Throwing shade is rooted in drag and ball culture. Spirit animals and tribes are uniquely tied to Native American culture and spiritualism. And yet we often see these terms slapped on marketing content and branded products with no recognition of or sensitivity to their origins, unquote. The full post lays out five tips for creating culturally relevant content while avoiding appropriation. You'll find it on their blog. The audio conference app Clubhouse may have some pretty heavy competition and sooner than anyone thought. Clubhouse is the shiny new thing. It's still invite-only and only on iPhones. It's basically a series of live webinars and panels

Starting point is 00:02:51 and forums and meetings, but only via audio. The competition will come from Twitter, which appears to be on the verge of releasing its own version, which it calls Spaces. The company opened its beta version up to more people over the weekend and pushed out some new features like scheduling a space for a specific time. This could be a significant problem for Clubhouse, given that many people using Clubhouse right now have their own healthy Twitter following already. Getting their users into a space in the app or on the site they're already on will be much less friction than getting them to download a separate app.

Starting point is 00:03:24 Facebook is also copying Clubhouse because, of course, they are. Also, more people have been given access to Twitter's other new service, Newsletters. You may already have it. If you're on the web, click the three dots icon in the left nav bar. That service comes from their acquisition of Review, and their implementation of it is still basically Review, but with a powered by Twitter text sprinkled here and there. And one more Twitter thing while we're here, they have finally added stickers to the product,

Starting point is 00:03:49 but for now, only users in Japan can use them. Instagram this morning launched multi-party live rooms. Previously, you could go live with one person. Now you can add three people to your live stream. There is a marketing opportunity here. Q&As, product demos, a talk show, tutorials. The addition of two more guest slots means you could have a host, two experts, and then rotate viewers in and out to ask questions. You can monetize it too, either through micropayment donations or integrating with its shopping tools. To make it work, swipe left and pick the live camera option,

Starting point is 00:04:25 then add a title and tap the rooms icon to add your guests. You'll see people who have requested to go live with you and you can also search for a guest to add. Reaction to this news on Twitter has been universally bad. Most people saying some form of this is what you've been spending your time on? Nobody asked for this. Speaking of social app upgrades, TikTok has launched a new section in their app called TikTok for Business. It shares marketing tips and usage insights if you're just starting your brand out there. And you can also now schedule a video to go out at a specific time, though you've got to do this through their web interface for now. My own TikTok experiment is going well. I started two weeks ago with 200 followers. Since then, I've been posting daily digital marketing secrets

Starting point is 00:05:11 and this morning crossed 2,700 followers, which is a growth curve you really can't get from any other channel, at least organically, unless you're fortunate enough to have something go viral. If you're on TikTok and you'd like to follow along, there's a link to my channel in this episode's notes. By the way, I now live stream all of the recording sessions of this podcast on TikTok. Finally, it's been a buggy morning for some social platforms. Both Sprout Social and Hootsuite reported problems loading content in their respective inboxes. Sprout Social says

Starting point is 00:05:42 it's fixed it. At the time of this recording, Hootsuite is still working on their issue. And finally, finally, and this has nothing to do with digital marketing, but some genius has recreated the entire first act of Hamilton in Animal Crossing and posted it to YouTube. It's brilliant. Go watch it before the copyright bots take it down. You'll find it on my Twitter, a link to which you will find in this episode's notes. We try really hard to make this a good use of your time.

Starting point is 00:06:15 Short, punchy, no rambling. And if you find this valuable, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute to rate and review this podcast. There is a link in this episode's notes that will take you right to the review page of your app. That's it for today. Talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Argument Against Being ‘Woke’ in Your Marketing

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