Today in Digital Marketing - The Tweet Bot Army Has Arrived

Starting point is 00:00:00 It's Monday, December 19th. Today, slow moves, cautious steps. Marketers tread lightly into 2023. Also, are Twitter's brand safety updates too little too late? The major browser makers collaborate on a new tool. Europe really doesn't like Facebook's marketplace. And a welcome update to the Reels API. I'm Todd Maffin. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. It looks like social media advertising will continue to be our frenemy in the new year. A new study finds that three quarters of media buyers called out declining consumer trust as

Starting point is 00:00:37 their top concern for social media advertising. But despite their concerns, 90% still plan to advertise on those platforms next year. That said, the study shows a decrease in monetization intent across social platforms. Two-thirds of respondents said insufficient transparency would negatively impact their media spend. According to the report, marketers see digital media as a potential bright spot in 2023. Seven out of 10 agree that audio listeners will continue to shift to digital formats. Video game advertising also seen as promising with a third saying it has potential and a fifth planning to actually prioritize it in the coming year. Almost half believe connected TV and digital video will hold the most potential for innovation. Finally, contextual targeting will

Starting point is 00:01:27 be the number one thing marketers will prioritize in 2023 as the cookiepocalypse nears. The data comes from Integral Ad Sciences' survey of more than 350 digital advertising executives. While brand safety and Twitter may sound more like an oxymoron these days, the company announced a couple of updates yesterday. Advertisers now have access to adjacency controls, which are pre-bid controls that can prevent their ads from appearing alongside tweets that use keywords they would like to avoid in relevance-ranked timelines. At launch, the controls are in English

Starting point is 00:02:05 only. The company also said in the first quarter of next year, they will be expanding brand safety partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral AdScience with post-bid brand safety reporting for tweets in the home timeline being rolled out at scale to its ad partners. A couple of other platform updates to report. First, Twitter, without apparent warning, has switched brand profiles to square avatars compared to the OG Circle. Regular accounts still have Circle profile avatars. You may want to check your avatar to make sure there aren't any issues with your logo there. Also, as Elon Musk attempts to defeat bots, it looks like the robot overlords at ChatGPT have infiltrated Twitter. Some accounts now have AI bots running that use ChatGPT to automatically reply to people's tweets.

Starting point is 00:02:55 After one user had a suspicion that a reply to his tweet regarding nomad friends wasn't human, he tested his theory by instructing ChatGPT to write a reply to the same tweet. The AI spat out a piece of text that was very similar to the reply. There was, of course, a little crazy over the weekend. First, the company rushed out an official policy to suspend any accounts that linked to competing platforms like Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, and even Donald Trump's Truth Social. This policy also banned sites like LinkedIn Bio and Linktree from being in a tweet or in a bio. Then they deleted their tweets about it and took the policy page down. Then they put up a poll asking people to vote on if the policy should be there. Finally, Elon Musk put up a poll yesterday saying,

Starting point is 00:03:43 Should I step down as the head of Twitter, I will abide by the results of this poll. Well, that poll wrapped up early this morning and the majority of votes, about 58%, said he should step down. He has not tweeted since that poll closed. 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. The creators of the world's most popular web browsers are playing nice in the

Starting point is 00:04:33 sandbox. Apple, Google, and Mozilla say they are collabing to create a next-gen browser, which they're going to be calling Speedometer 3, according to recent announcements from all three companies. In other words, the major players in the browser space will have a say in a benchmark that tests how their apps perform with the latest technology used by websites. Mozilla said that a benchmark built by several web companies will help provide a shared understanding of what matters. Google wants the benchmark to include representative modern workloads like JavaScript frameworks. As The Verge points out, this benchmark will inevitably be used to compare Safari's WebKit to Chrome's Blink or Google's V8 engine to Mozilla's SpiderMonkey, which could

Starting point is 00:05:17 create tension for the companies. Google, though, noted that the companies have set up rules that should help prevent any of them from trying to tip the result in their favor. Speedometer 3 is currently in active development. Meta has been hit with an EU antitrust complaint over Marketplace. Earlier today, the European Commission accused Meta of breaching antitrust rules by distorting competition in the markets for online classified ads. The commission took issue with the company tying Marketplace to the broader Facebook platform. The antitrust enforcer said Facebook users automatically have access to Marketplace whether they want it or not, which raises concerns that competitors are shut out because

Starting point is 00:05:59 the tie gives Marketplace a substantial advantage competitors can't match. On top of that, the EU says it's concerned that Meta imposes unfair trading conditions on competing online classified ad services that advertise on its platforms. It does this through, quote, unjustified disproportionate terms of service, unquote, that authorize Meta to use ad-related data generated from competitors to benefit Marketplace. Meta disputes the allegations. In response, it says the claims are without foundation and it will cooperate with the investigation. In the event the commission finds sufficient evidence of an infringement,

Starting point is 00:06:38 it can impose a fine of up to 10% of the company's global annual revenue. In other meta news, the Facebook Video Insights API now includes metrics for Reels. With the update, developers can now obtain Reels performance metrics for a Facebook page for each individual video over the lifetime of the content. You get numbers like plays, post reach, average minutes viewed, reactions and shares, and so on. Reels Insights will be available in the current version of the API as well as all previous versions of the Graph API. Those numbers should be coming to your

Starting point is 00:07:15 third-party social media management tool of choice shortly. Playing a lot of Fallout 76, kind of non-consensually. There's this gun on the battle pass. It's at level 87. I really, really want it. It looks like you can two-shot ghouls with it. So I'm at level 13 after playing like 20 hours on the weekend. You can buy your way with cash up to whatever level you want, but I did the numbers and it would cost me $100.

Starting point is 00:07:44 So a lot of grinding in my future. See you tomorrow. Thanks for watching!

Today in Digital Marketing - The Tweet Bot Army Has Arrived

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