Today in Digital Marketing - What's Number 1 on Facebook Nowadays? TikTok!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Facebook, embarrassed by its own report, the most viewed links on its platform now go to TikTok. Also, why creating videos outside TikTok could get your brand in trouble. A security breach with a popular two-factor authentication app. The new organic tweet that looks like an ad. And are high schools about to start teaching how to be a social media influencer? It's Friday, August 26th. I'm Todd Maffin. God help us all. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Participating in the next Lizzo challenge could end up costing you. In the wake of copyright issues and lawsuits,

Starting point is 00:00:38 a recent piece by Insider.com today looks at the risks of brands jumping on TikTok sound trends. The energy drink company Bang Energy was recently found liable for using songs without a license in TikTok videos. Last year, Universal Music Group filed a lawsuit against Bang Energy, alleging the company had infringed on its copyrighted musical works across over a thousand videos. Here's where things get a little tricky. Universal also alleged that Bang hired influencers who had used its songs to promote its energy drinks on their own TikTok accounts without paying to license the music. Last month, a judge ruled that Bang was liable for copyright infringement for using its songs on Bang's own accounts.

Starting point is 00:01:19 But Bang was determined not responsible for the alleged copyright violations on influencers' accounts. Legal experts told Insider costs could reach up to $150,000 per song. The article noted that a steep fine could serve as a warning sign to brands trying to bypass social media licenses. And just so we're all clear here, we're not talking about the music in the TikTok audio library. That stuff is cleared, though you should know that if you're using music for commercial reasons, as you probably are, you are limited to a subset of that library. As long as your account is set to a business account, you'll automatically be on that smaller library. Now here we're talking about uploading your own music or a video produced outside of the TikTok editor with music baked in. Quoting Insider.com, the lawsuit, along with a similar

Starting point is 00:02:06 case filed by Sony Music, shows the music industry is cracking down on copyright violations as TikTok solidifies its place as a leader in social entertainment. The early days of companies blindly jumping into TikTok music trends are over. Brand managers must find smarter ways to break through on the app. Meta has released its latest widely viewed content report, which is designed to counter the impression that Facebook is a megaphone for fake news. But once again, the report shows that users are engaging with a lot of spam on the platform. It gets spicier, though. According to Meta, the most widely viewed link on the app in Q2 was TikTok.com. Ouch. Further, five of the 20 most popular links shared on Facebook were removed by the company due to various policy violations related to spam tactics and inauthentic behavior.

Starting point is 00:03:02 This report is a little lopsided because link posts aren't serviced much on the Facebook platform anymore. The company reported that 90% of content viewed in the US came from posts that didn't have a link to an external source, which I guess is a win for Facebook if it's a spammy link or a link spreading misinformation. But that also means if you're a brand or business trying to direct customers from the platform to your site, well, good luck. An important security alert.

Starting point is 00:03:32 If you or your colleagues use the Authy app for two-factor authentication, the messaging giant Twilio has confirmed that a recent breach let hackers gain access to the app, which it owns. Following an investigation into a breach earlier this month, where malicious actors obtained data from more than 100 of its customers, the company announced this week that the threat actor also gained access to the accounts of 93 individual Authy users and linked devices to those accounts. Consequently, the hackers could have obtained two-factor authentication codes generated by Authy for those 93 users. The company says it has identified and removed unauthorized devices from those affected and is advising users to review linked accounts for suspicious activity. Kylo is also recommending that users review all devices tied to their Authy accounts and disable Allow Multi-Device in the app to prevent new device additions. Well, as Mark Zuckerberg frets about meta's popular links, Twitter is testing a new link

Starting point is 00:04:33 feature that will benefit brands. Yesterday, the platform announced it's testing a new format with select publishing giants called Tweet Tiles. With Tweet Tiles, links will be prevented in new visual formats like larger images. There'll be videos included in these cards. You'll be able to vary the font you use, and there'll be more prominent CTAs. The new feature actually looks pretty similar to an ad, even though it's an organic post form. Quoting Twitter, when someone in our initial test group posts a Tweet Tile, people on iOS and web who are part of some followers might not see the feature, and if you retweet or share a tweet tile URL, it might not appear as it is still in testing.

Starting point is 00:05:29 New data from the ad research firm Wark paints a grim picture for advertising next year, especially on social media. Wark published its ad spend projections for this year and next year, confirming the positive results agencies have seen so far with an increase in global ad spend of over 8%, but the projections indicate a much slower growth rate of only 2.5% for next year. Work attributes the predicted slowdown to economic headwinds, but also points to, you guessed it, Apple's privacy changes as causing long-tail negative effects on social media platforms' growth. Specifically, social platforms are expected to lose about $40 billion in revenue opportunities between this year and next. Despite a 50% jump in 2021 and 10% growth this year, social media is predicted to grow

Starting point is 00:06:17 just 5% in 2023. Digiday notes that this is the lowest growth forecast that Wark has ever issued for social media. So what's to blame? Wark predicts Facebook spend for 2023 to decrease by 8%, only partially offset by Instagram's 6% growth in spend. TikTok, however, is forecast to continue its meteoric growth, more than 40% growth expected next year. That said, that's actually a much slower pace than it did in the last two years, which had 140% growth in 2022 and 350% the year prior. And finally, in a number that seems, I don't know, uncomfortably high, one in four Gen Zs plan to become social media influencers. A new study has found that Gen Z males are more likely than females to believe that becoming a social media influencer

Starting point is 00:07:12 is the only career choice, with half of the male respondents considering the path a good career choice. A quarter of the TikTok generation also thinks there should be social media influencer training in high school. On the brand side of things, one Infor respondent said they trust influencer product reviews over page product reviews. The data comes from higher visibility survey of more than a thousand Gen Zeds. Zed's. Pretty excited. This weekend is our city's agricultural fair. You know, the kind, I don't mean like all agriculture and they've got rides and they've got mini

Starting point is 00:07:55 donuts and hot dogs and you know, all that kind of stuff. It's been what, like two, three years since we haven't been able to all gather together. Last year they had kind of a half-assed version of it. COVID was still sort of around. So this one, apparently this year is full-fledged.

Starting point is 00:08:11 So definitely looking forward to it. That'll do it for the week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced by EngageQ Digital on the traditional territories of this dynamic first nation on Vancouver Island. Our associate producer is Sarah Gunn. Production coordinator is Sarah Guild. Podcast music licensing by Source Audio. Ad coordination by Red Circle. And not many people know this, but our theme composer, Mark Blevis, is a Pulitzer Prize winning copywriter. Not really,

Starting point is 00:08:39 you should see his ad copy. All caught up in the reverie. Every word is a symphony. Won't you believe me? I'm Todd Maffin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll see you on Monday. Have a kiss and tell. She's got a southern twang, a country slang with a sound her very own. She'll be home by her bed till the day she's dead with a wheel as hot as stone. She's a country girl, that southern pearl. Oh, baby, she's kissing.

Starting point is 00:09:19 She's kissing. She's kissing. That girl's got this.

Today in Digital Marketing - What's Number 1 on Facebook Nowadays? TikTok!

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.