Today in Digital Marketing - The New (and Terrible) Trend of "Drop Servicing"

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 point is 00:00:18 starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, that designer you hired on a gig marketplace at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. safety tools and on the premium podcast with no ads, more stories and extended weekend episodes. Tap the link in the show notes for more. The rise of the bad news bots and why your staff shouldn't give customers bad news at all. It's Wednesday, February 9th. I'm Todd Maffin. Here is what you missed today in digital marketing. In case you've ever bought design services off a labor marketplace like Fiverr, did the person you hired do the work or did you fall victim to a new trend of drop servicing? An interesting piece today in The Verge discusses this trend. They position it as something of a

Starting point is 00:01:17 get-rich-scheme that is gaining popularity on social media platforms. The term drop servicing comes from the more commonly known side hustle drop shipping. That's when a retailer sells products online without keeping any inventory on hand. Instead, they order directly from manufacturers, who then ship the products directly to the buyer. Drop servicing is basically the same concept, only instead of products, the middleman simply resells services like copy editing, graphic design, social media content, and more. The middleman turns a profit and pockets the markup in both cases.

Starting point is 00:01:52 You can see the problem here. Freelance gig workers don't always know who they're working for or how much their work is actually worth. And agency or brand buyers probably aren't dealing with the actual person doing the work. If you've browsed a labor marketplace like Fiverr, you can understand how drop servicers can turn a profit. Gigs are priced incredibly low. You can find custom logo designs there for as low as $2, or video editing projects for under $250, which often double when passed on using this scheme. These gigs are low-priced because freelancers are often based in India, Pakistan, the Philippines, or Croatia, where they are fighting for work. According to Expedia, 74% of Americans favor experiences over products.

Starting point is 00:02:46 An article today at Adweek.com asks, How do you give consumers experiences when you were trying to sell them a product or service? One option, photographs. Capture the experiences they have. When people take photos, they enjoy events and places more, and you can gain customer loyalty by posting an image on their behalf. This helps customers remember the moments they had with your brand and product. Whether you want to increase customer loyalty or increase brand advocacy, this so-called memory marketing allows you to connect with your customers through experiences. So this piece up on Adweek recommends that you take more photos, get pictures of your customers while they are using your product or service, and thank them by email or through social media with details about their purchase or a photo you took a year after their visit. I'm obviously not doing the ad week piece

Starting point is 00:03:31 justice, so it's worth a read if this space interests you. Look for the article called Memory Marketing Makes the Most of Customer Experiences. LinkedIn has compiled a list of the most valuable digital marketing skills you should have on your LinkedIn profile this year. The fastest growing occupations include media coordinator, search manager, and still up there, social media coordinator. As for the most in-demand occupations, digital marketing specialist takes the number one spot, followed by digital account executive and social media manager. What can you do to ensure your skills match those that the companies are seeking? LinkedIn says because digital marketing specialist is such a broad term, recruiters are having a hard time finding marketers with skills like

Starting point is 00:04:23 digital strategy or link building or off-page SEO. So it is crucial that you highlight your skills in specific areas in your profile in order to increase your prospects and meet market demand. The skills in demand for the top marketing jobs, social media marketing, paid search strategy, and search engine marketing. Still pretty vague terms, but according to the platform, those are the current skills employers are looking for.

Starting point is 00:04:49 To achieve these new skills, the professional network recommends that users take advantage of their LinkedIn learning courses. And I've mentioned this tip before. You can probably get access to LinkedIn's learning library for free by logging into your public library's website, going to the digital library, or whatever they call it, and look for lynda.com. It's basically the same catalog,

Starting point is 00:05:12 but your library has paid the access fees. 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. Instagram announced some updated features yesterday on behalf of Safer Internet Day. First, the updated Your Activity dashboard is being rolled out to all users.

Starting point is 00:05:53 There's a new bulk delete option that'll make managing and removing posts a lot easier. It also now provides a complete overview of your activity, including time spent on the app, interactions, searches, and content uploaded. The app also lets you archive content you don't want to appear on your profile, similar to TikTok. Second, the updated security checkup feature will also be rolled out. This feature guides you through the steps needed to secure your account, checking login activity, recovery information, and so on. Some users will have the option to enable two-factor authentication using WhatsApp. And finally, the platform is testing a new way to help users regain access to their locked accounts. Through a new process, people will be able to ask their friends to verify their

Starting point is 00:06:34 identity in the app. You may be receiving even more messages in your Google Search Console message panel. The company announced that it has finished the migration of all the messages into the new Search Console interface. Now, all messages should be accessible in that panel, even the ones that were lost during the previous migrations. Even though you may feel overwhelmed by all the messages, it should be easier for you to see the Google Search Console messages all in one place. And finally, with news about this whole great resignation thing apparently going on, what did people want to do after they quit their jobs? Well, we have some data now from Google's search trends. Here are the most searched for jobs from January of 2021 to January of 2022. They are how to become a real estate agent, flight attendant, notary, therapist, pilot, firefighter, personal trainer, psychiatrist, physical therapist, and number 10, electrician.

Starting point is 00:07:56 A special hello there to Edgar, CJ, Bertie, Zhao, I'm mispronouncing that, Joe and Virginia. Those people have all upgraded to the premium feed in the last few days. As a result, they are hearing more stories than you. They're getting no ads and they are getting exclusive extended weekend editions. Tap the link in the show notes or go to todayindigital.com slash premium feed if you'd like to find out more about that. Also, don't forget, if you've got a marketing position you're trying to fill or if you're looking for that next great gig, consider a classified ad right here.

Starting point is 00:08:23 It's just 20 bucks and you can book it online. Tap the advertising link in the show notes. All right, talk to you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - The New (and Terrible) Trend of "Drop Servicing"

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