Today in Digital Marketing - TikTok is Coming For YouTube's Eyeballs

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, May 16th. Today, TikTok's biggest move for YouTube viewers yet. Will this new test change the vertical ad game? Threads is getting a tweet deck, Snapchat makes Cappy onboarding easier, and Netflix is getting its own ad tech, finally. I'm Todd Maffin. That's ahead today in digital marketing.

Starting point is 00:00:26 TikTok is testing 60-minute videos. This will be for uploaded videos, not those shot with the phone camera, and it's currently only available to a limited group of users. Creators have long told TikTok that they want more time for cooking demos and beauty tutorials, education lessons, comedy sketches, and so on. The shift to longer videos marks a departure from TikTok's original 15-second format. Over the years, TikTok has gradually increased the video length limit. This change, of course, to compete with YouTube,

Starting point is 00:00:58 a platform that's been very successful with monetizing videos. This could also lead to new content types on TikTok, like full episodes of TV shows. Last year, Peacock uploaded the first episode of Killing It on TikTok in five parts. With the new limit, that kind of content could be posted as a single video. As part of this shift to longer videos, the app has been testing a variety of long-form features, like a horizontal full-screen mode and video scrubbing thumbnails. Last year, it introduced a feature to fast-forward videos by holding down the right-hand side of the screen, something that I use on almost every TikTok video I see. This new 60-minute upload is still in testing, though. No confirmation on when

Starting point is 00:01:41 or if that upload option will be available to all users. One of Twitter's best tools was a third-party app it acquired called TweetDeck. Fun fact, when TweetDeck first came out, it could actually handle Facebook content too, but that quickly got stripped out after the acquisition. TweetDeck was popular for power users and teams. It wasn't as full-featured as other third-party platforms like Sprout Social or Sprinkler, but it did the job well. I know I'm talking about it in past tense, even though it still exists. It's just been punted behind the ex-paywall. Today, though, Threads is back to steal some of that audience.

Starting point is 00:02:23 Met a CEO, Mark Zucker Zuckerberg today showing off a screenshot of a similar UI. So far, he's just calling it pinned columns, but it is definitely a shot at TweetDeck. The post wasn't full of detail about what you could pin, but the screenshot showed the for you column and three topic columns. There's no DM functionality within Threads, so we won't see that, but we can probably expect to see one for replies and mentions. For now, this is just in testing with a handful of people. Second, Threads is adding a chronological filter for search results in the app. This is definitely a must-have for news junkies, sports fans, and other users that want to see the very latest posted in the app on a specific topic.

Starting point is 00:03:03 Until now, Threads has been a little shy about adding this kind of ability, lest it get co-opted by spammers, but presumably they decided this functionality was higher up the priority list. Quoting Social Media Today's coverage on this, quote, it does seem like Threads is now looking to add in options to stimulate growth. And when you consider that the key holdouts on X are communities like sports fans who are looking to comment and engage around major events in real time, it would appear to be a more important element than Instagram suggests. Adding a real-time feature for search leans into this, and while threads are still not quite a direct replacement for what Twitter was, the announcement does also seem to begrudgingly acknowledge that this is actually a key element in the platform's growth, unquote. Snapchat has announced a partnership with DataHash to simplify the onboarding of its conversions API for ad partners. Conversions API, something that in the industry industry most people refer to as CAPI. Quoting from the announcement, quote, while it takes time and technical resources for advertisers to implement CAPI on their own, data hash setups often take only about 15 minutes to get up and running with

Starting point is 00:04:14 no coding required. Alongside the rapid implementation speed, data hash also delivers strong event quality scores to measure signal quality on Snap of about eight on average, unquote. This collaboration follows a similar partnership that Snap announced with Snowflake last month. Snap reports that Cappy integrations have grown by 300% year over year. In Q1, the number of small and medium-sized businesses advertising on Snapchat grew by 85% year over year. Netflix is launching its own ad technology platform a year and a half after entering the ads business. This move pits Netflix against major players like Google, Amazon, and Comcast. The company initially partnered with Microsoft to quickly enter the ad space and

Starting point is 00:05:05 compete with rivals like Hulu. Netflix currently has 270 million subscribers. The company did not detail how this new tech might change ad delivery, but the Financial Times reports it plans to experiment with episodic campaigns featuring a series of ads that tell a story instead of repetitive ads. It also announced plans to expand its buying capabilities this summer. It'll include partners like the Trade Desk, Google's Display & Video 360, and Magnite. Netflix's ad-supported tier has been quite successful, with 40 million global active users. It gained 5 million users within six months of its launch. YouTube also had some time at the upfront yesterday showing off its television chops.

Starting point is 00:05:57 The company's CEO says YouTube views on TV screens have risen 130% in three years. He cited some Nielsen data showing YouTube has led in streaming watch time since February of last year. Viewers watch more than a billion hours of YouTube daily on big screens. From an ad standpoint, the company announced an expansion to its Select Creator takeovers, where advertisers can buy slots on top channels. This allows brands to collaborate with creators and have exclusive ad space. This program started in 2023. YouTube is also introducing some Google AI-driven formats for connected TV, including non-skippable ads and branded QR codes. Finally, YouTube announced a deal with Script Sports to broadcast women's national basketball association games on YouTube TV, making it the only service offering both local and national WNBA games this season.

Starting point is 00:07:07 You know, my YouTube algorithm used to be really good. service offering both local and national WNBA games this season. algorithm has gone to hell because I watched like maybe three hours of what's the name of that dog whisperer guy yeah his videos because we have a new puppy we were trying desperately to get her puppied correctly the peeing the pooping the barking and my wife is the dog person of the family I am the cat person we got the puppy earlier this week. And then my wife goes off for a three-day road trip for work and leaves me here with this puppy. And the latest advice we got from the vet today was to walk her every 30 minutes. Every 30 minutes. Which kind of puts a crimp in your day. I mean, I work from home. So, I mean, there's that, but I was not briefed ahead of time that puppies were this much of a challenge. So, you know, we used to have a much older dog who was set in her ways and was pretty chill and she had her routine and we had our routine and we all kind of left each other

Starting point is 00:07:59 to our own devices. But man, this puppy thing, I had no idea. Assuming I haven't checked myself into a facility, I will see you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - TikTok is Coming For YouTube's Eyeballs

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