Today in Digital Marketing - The Facebookization of Reddit Has Begun

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Starting point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, a critical security hole is affecting millions of WordPress sites, Be protected. Be Zen. It's Friday, July 16th, 2021. Happy National Peace Day, Bolivia. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Before we start, a reminder of our listeners, which happens today at 3 p.m. Pacific time, that's 6 p.m. Eastern, 11 p.m. London. You are not going to want to miss this one because our guest will be a real and anonymous Facebook ad support person. One of those people behind the screen,

Starting point is 00:01:05 when you do that support chat, I have independently confirmed this person's employment. He will be answering all the questions you have about policy, ad rejections, et cetera. I should note, this is not a Facebook-sanctioned appearance, so he will not be stuck to Facebook's message track. Today's live Q&A is at 3 p.m. Pacific today. The Zoom link is b.link slash listenerzoom.

Starting point is 00:01:27 That link's in the episode description as well. Premium newsletter subscribers will get a link to the replay if you miss it. On with the show. We start with two updates from the popular CMS WordPress, which powers many brand websites. First, a critical security hole in one of WordPress's most popular plugins, WooCommerce. WooCommerce says if a store is affected, the exposed information could include order, customer, and administrative information. This is not one of those theoretical exploits that was created in the lab.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Developers have seen some attempts to use this on real installs. This vulnerability is so severe that WooCommerce is pushing the update automatically to as many websites as possible. However, reports from the field say some people are not getting that automatic update. So if you are the admin on your WordPress site, stop listening to me and go update WooCommerce right now. I'll still be here when you get back. The latest version of WooCommerce, the one you should be updating to, is version 5.5.1. And second, in WordPress news, WordPress's parent company, Automatic, has purchased the popular podcast app, PocketCasts.

Starting point is 00:02:39 The company says their plans are to continue to run the app as is for now, and of course build in deeper integrations with WordPress. PocketCasts has an interesting history. It launched 11 years ago and sold to a group of public broadcasting groups in the US, including NPR. But this past January, the board voted to put it up for sale after losing $800,000 on it in a year. This despite a monthly premium membership plan. It was only February when the Spotify-owned podcast platform Anchor announced a partnership with WordPress to help turn blog posts into audio content

Starting point is 00:03:10 by way of a text-to-speech thingy. TikTok continues to build itself out as a preferred platform for influencer marketing. Late yesterday, they announced plans to add more transparency to the branded content on its app. There is a branded content toggle right now in the app, but it's a bit buried. As of now, it will automatically pop up when the creator adds a disclosure, like hashtag ad or hashtag sponsored to the caption. It pops up and recommends turning the toggle on.

Starting point is 00:03:41 The branded content toggle is available for accounts with over 10,000 followers in certain testing regions and will be rolling out globally in time. TikTok said in a statement yesterday, we expect creators to use the toggle when it becomes available to them. While the toggle is not yet available globally, creators are still expected to clearly disclose to the community when they're posting branded content, unquote. There is a bit of a weird wall between TikTok's ad policies and their branded content policies. Some things you can't promote as branded content can be promoted in paid video ads.

Starting point is 00:04:14 Quoting social media today, it's a small but important update, which will help TikTok boost its brand partnership efforts, which are becoming more prevalent. As TikTok continues to add more users, more marketers are paying attention, and the best way to make the most out of platform promotions is through UGC and creator-led approaches, unquote. If it's available to your account, you'll find it under the More options on the post screen.

Starting point is 00:04:40 I can't decide if I like this or not, so please help me form an opinion, because I'm leaning toward not liking this. Reddit says it plans to improve the algorithm it calls Best to add a Facebook-like feed algorithm to that sorting option. Let's back up a bit. One of Reddit's lovely peculiarities is that you can sort the content in a subreddit or group lots of ways. Chronologically, by the most controversial, rising posts and comments, the top posts by month, day, year, whatever. One of those options is called best. Until now, the best algorithm used upvotes, downvotes, the age of posts,

Starting point is 00:05:13 and how much time someone spent in a community to determine the order. Now, the company says it will add personal engagement signals to decide what to show. In fact, you'll even see the very Facebook-like context hints that explain why something is in your feed, like because you joined or similar to. Users will be able to provide negative feedback to tell the algorithm they don't like something. This new option is only available in their mobile app right now. The top comment on their blog post about this, quote, So, we've finally reached the Facebook stage of the homepage where it's content

Starting point is 00:05:45 you think will like rather than the stuff we've actually subscribed to. Kind of leaves a bad taste in my mouth, unquote. When asked whether people can opt out of the collection of this kind of personal interest data, a Reddit admin kind of dodged the question saying, well, you can either not use best or you can turn off the display of those recommendations. The new sorting option is available now in the latest version of Reddit on iOS and Android. 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,

Starting point is 00:06:31 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.

Starting point is 00:07:12 Be protected. Be Zen. Here's something I do like. YouTube says it will now start automatically adding chapters to videos by default. Chapters are those little section markers you can use to jump between segments in a video. They're really handy for videos with lists. For instance, every Friday, Xbox puts out a video with a dozen or so new game previews. The YouTube video lets me tap on a time code in the description to jump right to a game preview I want to see. Until now, video creators had to provide those time codes and descriptions. Well now, YouTube's machine learning will create the chapters in your

Starting point is 00:07:43 videos automatically when it thinks there are discrete content segments. You can turn it off at the per video level in YouTube Studio by clicking Edit Video and toggling the option to allow automatic chapters. Or if you are in full You Kids Get Off My Lawn mode, you can also disable it for your whole channel under Settings, Upload Defaults, Advanced Settings. Also worth noting, you can override their automatic chaptering by adding your own time codes and chapter titles manually into the description, and this is only going to apply to new uploads.

Starting point is 00:08:14 They will not go back retroactively and slap chapters into your existing videos. Tomorrow, a special weekend edition is coming your way. In a paid partnership with SocialSnowball.io, we dive deep into the interesting tool they developed for Shopify stores. If you've ever wanted to get a referral system going with your happy customers, they have developed a fully integrated affiliate marketing system. Every customer, right on their purchase invoice, gets their own custom affiliate link created,

Starting point is 00:08:44 access to a dashboard, and lots of payout methods. They are socialsnowball.io. Look for that tomorrow in your feed. You may have noticed an update to our podcast artwork, if you're not seeing it. You know, I guess your podcast app hasn't refreshed the cache yet. But I finally got some better photos shot, more recent photos, so it's a little bit more accurate on what I actually look like. Still working out the bugs with my audio setup. I tried going USB with this mic, but I still heard artifacting, so today, same mic, but through an XLR and preamp, and I've turned back on that room de-reverb since I was

Starting point is 00:09:16 hearing more of the room than I wanted to. I know most people aren't hearing what I'm hearing, but for someone whose career was mostly in radio, these are the things that bother me. Don't forget, if you're hearing this on Friday, July 16th, and it's before 3 p.m. Pacific, you have not yet missed our listener Zoom. The link to join is b.link slash listener Zoom, and that link is in the episode description as well. Today in Digital Marketing is produced

Starting point is 00:09:39 on beautiful Vancouver Island by EngageQ Digital. Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis-checking by Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio. I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends.

Starting point is 00:09:53 I'll talk to you on Monday. Woo! I know what's missing.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Facebookization of Reddit Has Begun

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