Today in Digital Marketing - Who's Not Jumping From the USS Facebook? You (Probably)

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, if there's a Facebook exodus, why are marketers staying? Those AI-generated blog posts may get the thumbs up from Google soon. Snapchat goes full body with its augmented reality. Buy now, pay later is in the hot seat. And trolls are going to love Twitter's new feature. It's Monday, November 8th, 2021. Happy Aboriginal Veterans Day, Canada. I'm Steph Gunn from EngageQ Digital sitting in for Todd Maffin and here's what you missed today in digital marketing. Episode 500.

Starting point is 00:01:03 We start off today with Facebook in the hot seat. Is Facebook the right platform for your business? Social media examiner has analyzed how many consumers are leaving Facebook and how that may affect marketers. Quoting the piece, in January 2018, Facebook made a big change to its algorithm. The platform prioritized meaningful interactions over passive actions like video consumption. Over the last four years, Facebook has essentially eliminated organic reach for content creators. Many bloggers and video creators exited the platform because their content was not getting engagement and reach. According to the Examiner's 2021 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, marketers indicated that Facebook peaked in 2018 as their most important social media platform and has slowly been declining since then. Although, the study did find that Facebook is still the top choice for marketers in 2021.

Starting point is 00:02:02 54% indicated Facebook is their most important platform. 22% said Instagram, 15% said LinkedIn, 6% answered YouTube, and 2% Twitter. From 2012 to 2020, Facebook's daily active users in the U.S. showed that Gen Z age 18 to 24 users began a steep decline in daily activity. Quoting the analysis again, the simple take-home message is that people under the age of 24 are not using Facebook. Regarding baby boomers, data from intelligence company Morning Consult shows that baby boomers' use of Facebook is also declining. This could be a problem for Facebook.

Starting point is 00:02:46 Unquote. Does it hurt your brand to advertise on an outdated platform? Morning Consult reports 79% of consumers don't fault businesses advertising on Facebook. So do you continue to advertise on Facebook? The number of users is declining and younger people are leaving. However, Facebook does not have a clear competitor. There is no other platform that offers the same features as Facebook for consumers and marketers. Yet.

Starting point is 00:03:18 There are a wealth of websites offering marketers AI-generated writing. Everything from ad headlines to full-blown blog posts. These services claim you can use them to generate hundreds of blog posts and can try to rank in Google, potentially bringing your site more traffic. There's always been one big catch. Machine-written content is currently against Google's guidelines, but someday it might not be. In one of Google's weekly SEO webmaster hangouts, search engineer John Mueller suggested that that might change soon. Quoting Mueller, from our guidelines, it is the case that if it's automatically generated content, it should be blocked by robots, for example. But my feeling is at some point that this is going to

Starting point is 00:04:03 shift a little bit in the sense that we'll focus more on the quality rather than how it was generated. So some mix of maybe automatically generated content and human curated content I imagine will become normal. Low effort content I think will continue to be something that our systems will try to recognize, as low quality may be spam and treat appropriately. Unquote. So if Google won't care whether the content is generated by a machine or a human, will you start investing in robots writing your website? Snapchat's new augmented reality try-on tools will allow consumers to try on new clothes without having to leave the house. Users will soon be able to try on all types of clothing, aligned to their personal size and other parameters.

Starting point is 00:04:55 Until now, most fashion AR has been limited to a single object like a pair of glasses or a lipstick color. Digital wearables have been in Snap's radar for quite some time. In March, the company acquired Fit Analytics, which provides more accurate product matches while also collecting data on customer preferences. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and Apple are also exploring virtual product options. But Snap appears to be making strides in its AR overlays, positioning it to play a much larger role in the next stage of digital commerce. Consumers are increasingly turning to the internet to find and purchase products, while livestream shopping and AR try-on tools

Starting point is 00:05:36 are making it easier than ever to buy from their devices. Attention agency people forester research provided marketing dive with its study of the challenges and opportunities agencies will face here are some of the predictions for 2022 quoting the report staffing issues the industry is currently facing an acute staff shortage of perhaps 50 000 people globally there could be a coming leadership crisis. As industry leaders retire or leave, the danger is there will not be enough people with experience to fill those roles. The gap in talent has not yet reached a crisis as agencies are able to use technology to help fill the holes. Agencies will embrace big tech partner programs such as Google Marketing Platform or Facebook

Starting point is 00:06:26 Business Partners, to take over some of the work that was previously completed by people. In-house agencies will play a greater role on establishing and creating a company's marketing campaigns. 77% of in-house agencies reported that the number of projects increased during the pandemic, and 75% of in-house department leaders said their departments have expanded their capabilities. 44% of CMOs said that they plan to move more marketing in-house over the next year. The momentum behind in-housing will force agencies to adapt their business models and client offerings. And finally, ongoing growth for in-house agencies and retail media networks. There will be a tsunami of shoppable advertising

Starting point is 00:07:10 as other ad-supported providers like Tubi and Pluto get into the game. Access to consumer data will continue to be an issue in 2022. Though marketers have gotten a reprieve from the elimination of cookies as a targeting method, the day is still coming when they will have to find alternatives. In 2022, brands will flock to AI-powered methods and those that use myriad inputs to determine targets. That variety of inputs will become more important as the metaverse rises, opening the possibility of new virtual experiences. Though there are still several issues to sort out, the buzz around the metaverse will continue to attract marketers' attention

Starting point is 00:07:49 and some experimental dollars. There is a link to the full article in today's premium newsletter. Tap the link in the episode notes to try a 14-day free trial. 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,

Starting point is 00:08:19 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. One of the breakout e-commerce trends this year has been the explosive growth of buy now, pay later services, which let consumers pay for large products over several months, usually without any interest. But is the sudden success of the industry about to be its undoing? Last week, the head of the Financial Technology Association was in front of American lawmakers defending these buy-now-pay-later deals against accusations that they encourage consumers to spend beyond their

Starting point is 00:08:58 means, thereby damaging their credit scores. Penny Lee testified in front of the U.S. Congress, saying BNPL services offer consumers a better deal than credit cards that charge high interest rates. Quoting Lee, there is a shift in how millennials, Gen Zers, and others are spending their money. They are saving more and utilizing credit cards less, preferring debit cards with no fees or revolving interest rates. The benefits of Buy Now, Pay Later are apparent, regardless of merchant size, with large and small merchants seeing considerable improvement across business metrics. Another recent survey found that merchants using a particular Buy Now, Pay Later solution enjoyed 13% more new customers. A recent study of the economic impact of

Starting point is 00:09:47 Buy Now Pay Later services in the U.S. estimates that Buy Now Pay Later will account for 6% of U.S. e-commerce sales in 2021, or about $975 billion. By 2025, that figure will top $1.4 trillion, or 13% of online shopping. An article from Forbes today is giving marketers a look into consumer shopping trends for Black Friday. According to the piece, consumers will shop like never before this year, both in terms of how much they buy and how they do it. Here are a few of the trends to prepare for. Quoting the article, 1. Buy now, pay later. Customers want the modern approach to layaway, where they get the item now but have months to pay it back. Brands big and small are getting in on the trend as a way to reach customers who may

Starting point is 00:10:43 feel limited with their current finances. 2. Gen Z is getting in on the trend as a way to reach customers who may feel limited with their current finances. Two, Gen Z is getting in on the fun. Shoppers will be younger, with the biggest chunk of Black Friday customers coming from the 18 to 44 age group. To reach younger customers, brands need to double down on its digital shopping and marketing. And three, customers will balk at shipping costs. Many consumers are used to getting fast free shipping through services like Amazon Prime and Walmart Plus. The idea of having to pay for shipping costs could turn shoppers away from online retailers or make them look for a different way to pick up their items. Unquote. The article is quite expansive and Forbes features 20 trends.

Starting point is 00:11:24 If this is something that you are interested in, look for the article 20 Trends for Black Friday 2021 or click the direct link in today's premium newsletter. Some users can now search through tweets on Twitter even easier using a new feature. The feature is a search icon in the top right corner on a user's profile banner next to the three dot menu. Searches like this were already possible on Twitter if you knew how to format an advanced search. The search button however makes it easier to find tweets from a specific user. Look out Chrissy Teigen. The update is available to iOS users and will gradually roll out to Android and web users. Praise be, Todd returns tomorrow. Thanks so much for listening

Starting point is 00:12:16 the past few days. It has been so fun, but I am also very excited to have Todd back. So I will not talk to you tomorrow, but you can always find me in the Today in Digital Marketing Slack group, which if you haven't joined already, come on and join the party. Thanks, and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Get up. Move. Get up. Move. Get up.

Today in Digital Marketing - Who's Not Jumping From the USS Facebook? You (Probably)

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