Today in Digital Marketing - The Surprising Pivot AWAY from Short-Form Video

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Wednesday, February 22nd. Today, a new social platform is out and it's built by TikTok. The perils of Amazon review hijacking come to one company, Instagram pivots away from Reels, and why the sudden uptick in Google Ads account suspensions? I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in Digital Marketing. Another day, another new social platform to keep track of, but this time it's from the creators of TikTok. The new app is called Lemon 8. It was recently launched in the UK and the US by ByteDance.

Starting point is 00:00:35 The app first launched in Japan in 2020 and has since expanded to other countries. Business Insider reported today that creators are now getting paid to post on the platform, which is sometimes described as Instagram meets Pinterest. Lemonade is picture-based. It describes itself as a lifestyle community like TikTok. Its main feed is divided into a following and a for you feed. However, it can be sorted by content categories like beauty, fashion, and food, while another page organizes content by hashtags,

Starting point is 00:01:05 which is similar to Instagram's Explore tab. Trending content can be found by searching keywords. Several influencers who are being paid to post reported they're also being asked to follow specific guidelines in order to receive payment. According to a document obtained by Business Insider, that criteria includes high-definition vertically shot photos, a minimum of three to seven photos, 100 to 300 word captions, and the captions also must contain calls to action and hashtags. Some influencers noted, though, that creating content for Lemonade was significantly more time consuming and demanding than posting on other social platforms because of the length and detail necessary in the captions and posts.

Starting point is 00:01:45 Some said they weren't sure creating this content was worth their time, while others expressed high hopes for the platform's growth in the coming months. It is a marketing tactic many brands use on Amazon, but now one company is paying the price. Vitamin and supplement maker The Bountiful Company, which by the way is owned by Nestle, has to pay a $600,000 fine to the US Federal Trade Commission for allegedly making products on Amazon

Starting point is 00:02:15 look like they had more reviews and higher average ratings than they really did. The FTC said the case marks its first law enforcement action against a practice called review hijacking, in which a marketer steals or repurposes reviews for one product to make them appear to apply to another. According to the director of the commission's Bureau of Consumer Protection, boosting your products by hijacking another product rating or reviews is a relatively new tactic, but is still plain old

Starting point is 00:02:46 false advertising, unquote. The FTC said that the company took advantage of an Amazon feature that lets vendors create or request the creation of variation relationships between some products that are similar, but differ only in narrow specific ways like color, size, quantity, or flavor. Products considered variations share the same product page on Amazon as alternate choices, like a bottle of multivitamins offered in different quantities. In Bountiful's case, though, the FTC said the company petitioned Amazon to group together supplements with different active ingredients and formulations. The commission said Bountiful merged listings

Starting point is 00:03:25 for some of its products on Amazon.com with those for different products that already had ratings, reviews, and badges, such as number one bestseller or Amazon's choice. The company allegedly used this tactic with several different new and poorly selling products between 2020 and 2021. For its part, Bountiful said it settled with the FTC

Starting point is 00:03:44 only to avoid a lengthy and costly legal challenge. Are you getting fewer views on your brand's Instagram reels? Turns out it's not your fault. For years, Instagram has been pivoting to video. And now that you've likely changed your social strategies to adapt to video, it seems to be pivoting away. Following the head of Instagram, Adam Massuri's comments about rebalancing the feed back in January, it does appear that short-form video is starting to lose traction in the app. Multiple sources told Adweek today that reels on brand social accounts have

Starting point is 00:04:21 been performing poorly over the past few weeks, generating 20% fewer views in some cases, while photos have generally improved. As Adweek reports, the move now has social strategists working even harder to get their content seen, as well as fighting to justify video production costs. That said, not all brands are shifting their strategy. One social media expert said that while her team has noticed a dip in Reels performance, production of short-form videos won't decrease, especially given the continued importance of TikTok. A spokesperson for Meta, though, said that the company has not changed how they show users Reels.

Starting point is 00:05:00 The payments provider Stripe has some good news for merchants with Android devices. Last year, the company made waves in the world of mobile commerce when it became Apple's first payment partner for Tap2Pay, turning any iOS device into a payment terminal. Now businesses can accept contactless payment with an Android device as well. Starting today, Stripe will support payment methods including Google Pay, MasterCard, Visa, and American Express debit and credit cards. Tap to Pay is currently available in six markets, including the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. 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, Have you been suspended by Google Ads?

Starting point is 00:06:01 You are not alone. Search engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz reports today that several advertisers have recently had their Google Ads, you are not alone. Search Engine Roundtable's Barry Schwartz reports today that several advertisers have recently had their Google Ads accounts suspended. Quote, I'm unsure if this is a new thing or just something Google Ads advertisers need to deal with more often, but it seems like something triggered this week.

Starting point is 00:06:17 I see mass complaints about account suspensions in the Google Ads support forums, unquote. So far, no response from Google. Elon Musk has given his Twitter engineers one week to make ad targeting work like Google Ads do. This appears to be his way to fix what he has publicly described as, quote, the worst ad relevance on earth, unquote. Quoting The Verge,

Starting point is 00:06:43 Musk's plan is to change Twitter's ad targeting to work like Google's search ads, which target primarily by keywords that are searched for, rather than a user's activity and profile data. It's an approach that works well for a search engine, where people go to express specific intent for finding something, and it's helped Google build one of the most profitable businesses of all time, but it hasn't worked for a social media business to date, unquote. A now laid off engineering manager for monetization who reported directly to Musk recently hinted at the impossibility of a one week deadline in a tweet that said, quote, I believe Twitter can improve ads in two to three months, not necessarily in a week, though, unquote.

Starting point is 00:07:23 It has been confirmed that Musk gave the aggressive deadline just before the layoffs last week. What layoffs, you ask? Dozens of employees across sales and engineering departments were reportedly given the boot. This marks the third round of layoffs since saying they were done in November. We won't know for sure until July, but early indications are that things generally went well for the future of social platforms at the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday. During the first round of arguments testing the liability of internet providers for material posted online, the justices reacted skeptically to claims that YouTube parent company Google could be sued for algorithms that automatically recommended extremist recruiting

Starting point is 00:08:05 videos. The case before the court stems from the death of an American college student in a terrorist attack in 2015. Family members of the victim were in the courtroom to hear arguments about whether they can sue YouTube for allegedly helping the Islamic State spread its message and attract new recruits. The federal law at issue in this case, the Communications Decency Act, shields online platforms like Google, Facebook, and other companies from lawsuits over content posted on their sites by others. That immunity has been blamed for the proliferation of noxious content. And finally, Facebook and Instagram users appear to be revolting against Meta's plans for a paid verified checkmark, which it's testing now. According to new data from VPNoverview.com, searches for deactivate Facebook and deactivate Instagram are up 1,900%. following the announcement of the proposed paid features, like Twitter's version,

Starting point is 00:09:07 paid verification claims to increase your reach and give your organic posts an algorithmic benefit, which is a nice way of saying, if you don't pay, absolutely nobody who follows your brand's account will ever see your content. Well, by the time you hear this, my eyeballs will have two new holes poked in them, thanks to a surgery that I'm doing in a couple of hours, to prevent something called reverse angle glaucoma,

Starting point is 00:09:39 which apparently I'm at risk for, and apparently it's quite serious. It's something about the eyeball not able to drain. Didn't even know eyeballs had to drain, but there you go. So yeah, they're going to be strapping me down, numbing my eyeballs, and using a laser to poke a hole in each eyeball, from what I understand. All I care about, and this is how shallow I am, is whether or not I'll be able to see my Xbox

Starting point is 00:10:00 after all this is done. Apparently it will change my prescription, which I am more than a tiny bit pissed about, considering that my progressive lenses that I bought just a couple of months ago that cost $1,000 might be out of date already. Might make me more nearsighted, might make me more farsighted.

Starting point is 00:10:16 Apparently it will change in some way or another, though. What can I tell you, though? Atomic Heart is out. It's such a great game already. I'm only like half an hour into it. It's made by the people who made Bioshock Infinite, which is one of the best games, I think, of all time. Really enjoying it. Hope I can continue playing it. Hell, I hope I'll be able to see the script tomorrow.

Starting point is 00:10:35 Let's start there. I'll see you tomorrow. But when I look into your eyes, I see The future looking back at me. So give me one more chance before we burn this city down. Yes, give me one last time.

Today in Digital Marketing - The Surprising Pivot AWAY from Short-Form Video

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