Full Transcription

[Introduction] – 00:00

Hey, everyone. Welcome to This Week In Marketing show, also known as the TWIMshow. I’m your host Sajid Islam, and today I’ll be going over the notable news and updates in the digital marketing space from the week of June 1st, 2021.

[Update 1 – Meet Twitter Blue – Twitter’s First-Ever Subscription Offering] – 00:40

Today, first of all, we are going to start with Twitter and meet Twitter Blue. Well, what is that? Well, this is Twitter’s first ever subscription offering. In fact, this is the first time any social media platform has come out with a subscription offering. So what does Studio Blue do well? It allows you to Twitter users to across premium features, including tools to organize bookmarks, read trades in a color-free format, and take advantage of an undo tweet feature, which is the closest thing Twitter will have to the long requested edit button. No. Before you get all excited and say, hey, I’m and, you know, start thinking about how can I get Twitter blew. Well it is only available to users in Canada and Australia, why these two countries. I have no idea. It doesn’t make any sense. But Twitter decided to roll it out there first. Test it out before they bring it to. Probably. Usually, platforms launch features in US except probably 5 to think about it. YouTube Shorts launched in India first before they came to EU S, so maybe it’s one of those things. The testing it out for whatever reasons so well. There you go folks. That’s the update. We’re blue. But it’s interesting to see how the social medias are evolving to pay for. Charging users to access premium features while they’re still making ad revenue, so we’ll see. OK, let’s go to the next one.

[Update 2 – Twitter Launches Birdwatch Tool] – 02:15

Next up, Twitter launches something called the Part Watch tool. But what is this? It’s it’s a feature where Twitter, along with all the social media companies out there, realize there’s only so much. We can do to curb misinformation, you know, especially when they’re serving like millions and billions of users, individuals who are somewhat populated, right? So Twitter says, you know what? We had enough of machine language and artificial intelligence and figuring things out and algorithms. And let’s try a different thing. Not that they’re giving up on the. Things that they’re doing already, but they’re saying let’s try something different. So they’re calling this tool called birdwatch, which is basically rely on community based crowdsourcing. So what this will essentially do is allow users to attach nodes to twist that carry misleading information. The nodes will serve to provide further context, either clearing up the authors intention. Or simply falsifying their information so. Guys, listen, this is a great feature. Great. You know, Twitter came out of the gates and says, you know what, it’s misinformation. So let’s just market and let other people like, you know, comment on it. But Can you imagine how bad how bad this will be, where one group are gonna say, well, COVID? Coronavirus COVID-19 is real. The other group is going to coronavirus. COVID-19 is fake, right? And they gonna clash? Because I feel like, you know well with usually generated content. And this is not like nothing new. The web Internet as we know is user generated content, right. Anyone can put up our website. Anyone can say whatever they want to say, it’s for the person on the other side to consume and figure out what is right, what is wrong. Now, with social media, obviously it’s easier because now we we have a we have connections. It’s a network effect, but it simply it should. They should have just looked through those lessons. This is, you know what, we can’t place this thing. Facebook started doing it. Everyone started doing it and like the pressure is on platforms to do something specially from the lawmakers. But you know what? They should have just said, you know what we cannot do it. But that’s the nature of the Internet, right? If you want us to police it, then you make laws and you tell us which laws to apply. But you know this, Mr CEO’s big shots go went in and they said, Oh yeah, we’re going to work harder. We’re going to figure out this information. And misinformation. And we’re going to do it and we’re going to do all these things. And now. They are becoming the shadow police, right? They’re going to figure things out. That’s how I feel like, you know, this is like, hats off to them. But, you know, it’s just like, every time they found this out, every time they have, like, you know, abandoned account, someone else has created another fake account and started doing the same thing. Well. Well, see good luck to them. OK, let’s move on.

[Update 3 – Twitter Pauses & Unpauses Verification Requests] – 05:05

The next update is last week we covered how Twitter rolled out verification after a few years of keeping this on higher tests. They roll it out and they were flooded with verification requests, so much so that they had to shut it down. After a few days, they’re like, you know, well, we are not going to take it anymore. We pause it. ’cause. We had enough. And then four days later they said, you know what? OK, fine, we’re resuming it. So. If you’re listening to this and you want to get your account verified before you get excited and go put your best foot forward, here’s some things you should know. Number one. If you have applied, you will probably see a blue tick in your next to your username, and if not, you can apply again in 30 days. That’s one they also said, you know, they’re gonna verify users from 6 distinct categories, which are government companies and organizations. Then the next category is news organizations and journalists. The third category is sports and gaming companies, sports and gaming. The 4th case companies and entertainment 5th are activist companies, organizers, influential individuals. I guess that’s the 6th one though They said they’re planning on expanding this category, so figure out where you fall in these six categories. Your government grade companies, organizations or if you are an influential individual, which you probably can market us and request it and see if you can get approved or not. OK with that let’s move on to the next one.

[Update 4 – YouTube Paid Out $4+ Billion In Royalties] – 06:48

Next up, we have You Tube, so You Tube. Basically made an announcement on June 2nd that they have paid over $4 billion to the music industry in royalty at 30% of those content came from user generated content. So. Why this is such a big thing in our show is that this just shows the power of YouTube or the other thing I have to tell you is. YouTube is saying they’ve added more paid members in Q121 than any other quarter since launch of YouTube Premium. OK. This is big folks so. What YouTube is saying, you know, they have over 2 billion users watching their music videos monthly, but they’re not seeing other videos. ’cause YouTube is like, you know, pretty big music and other how to videos and you know it shows like this also gets uploaded to YouTube educational videos, things like that. But what YouTube is saying look, we give users two choice. One is to either pay it’s free, but you pay with your attention like people who cannot pay and this is available to all the 180 countries in the world and they have subscription where people choose to pay with their wallets and this is available in 96 countries. But the fact that they’re paying $4 billion to the music industry shows you the reach. That YouTube has Spotify I remember correctly, actually paid about $5 billion, so YouTube Music, even though it’s small, it’s very new into the game. It has really moved forward. And with new content and everything that’s coming up and the new formats that are coming up, I think You Tube is going to continue to grow. The point here for you all is that You Tube is the channel to focus on and to. Invest in if you’re not already doing so, that’s all.

[Update 5 – 5 Updates To YouTube Analytics] – 09:00

OK, let’s move on to the next update, which is the five updates to YouTube Analytics. Something you want to know so the five updates are number one is YouTube is revamping and giving membership metrics that will now report on videos that help the channel gain or lose more members than usual. So this is a great update now from mobile. The second update is now on mobile you can. See. You can view other channels your audience watches as well as other videos. Your audience watches. This was previously not available on mobile. You had to log in and you know, see this data from desktops now. This is available on mobile, which makes it easier for our Creator to kind of figure out what they’re doing on the goal. The next thing they have rolled out is clear information or video performance which basically says. It gives you more. Better understanding more visible explanation of your video performance and watch how well your video is doing, what’s going on. The 4th one is insight into revenue. If revenue goes up or down due to a channels audience shifting to a higher or lower CPM country. So what they’re basically saying is that you know, sometimes you can have your video codec tracked, users from US and say. Another country and you know where the CPM cost per thousand size low. And so obviously the revenue you’re going to get from viewers from EU, S and viewers from say Mexico are going to be different, right? Obviously US is going to be more expensive. So what you do is saying is previously you would look at it and you look at your revenue. Numbers drop and you’ll be like, oh, crap, no one’s lacking my video. My video is not doing so well. Maybe I need to change my data tactics now. You will be saying because of this insights that you’re gonna see, it’s gonna help you diagnose why your revenue is dropping, right? Why your revenue is dropping it. Squeeze it because you are attracting more viewers from, say, Mexico, which is a lower CPM country. Versus US and that will kind of help you figure things out versus just thinking of your video is crap. Now the one thing I will tell you, I keep talking about revenue. This is for people who are monetizing YouTube channel, right. What I mean by that is like if you have a YouTube channel where you produce how to videos, music videos or whatever videos and you generate income from them. Those videos then yes, this is for you. Now, if you remember in the last episode the last weeks episode or last weeks show what I’ve said is YouTube is deciding now that even if you don’t opt into the partners program, you will be automatically into that program. It’s just that YouTube will show ads in your video, but you will just not get that. Revenue. So maybe it makes sense for you to not get back into the game, right? Obviously you have to qualify to get into that game. OK. The last one is the engagement metrics for you to post. This is again for people. I think your channel is to have 100 or so subscribers before you could get access to this. But if you do this engagement metrics or what it will say is? It will show you your channels engagement, such as votes, likes on your top post in the last 28 days. Again it gives you a good sense of what’s working in your channel and which was not working. But if you look at all these updates that I just shared, you will realize that you know You Tube is a pretty big platform. It’s becoming like a pseudo social media platform. Where you can actually build to engage with your audience, and if you haven’t known, if you didn’t know this now you know, think about how can you monetize YouTube. Doesn’t matter where you are or doesn’t matter what you do. See how can you create content that will keep people coming back to you? Whether to learn to entertain. Or do anything else, right. OK, with that. Let’s move on to the next one.

[Update 6 – Facebook Will Allow Users To Post Anonymously In FB Groups] – 12:54

This is from Facebook. Again, Facebook hasn’t really confirmed this. This is coming from Matt Navarra. He’s a social media consultant and he is known to unleash upcoming new features. On the web, so he tweeted the other day on June 2nd. Actually to be precise. And when he says, you know, that Facebook is now rolling out a feature called Anonymous posting. So the way it works is like Facebook is realizing that, you know, hey, in Facebook groups. The people who want to ask questions, but they’re afraid to ask questions like, especially in this was a feature that was already available in parenting and health groups. But Facebook is saying, you know, there are questions that people would ask that are like, you know, really personal. They don’t wanna be. I didn’t want to be identified. For example, if I could go into a relationship group. And I’m saying, you know. Say I’m breaking up with my girlfriend or my spouse and I don’t want to really identify myself and be put ourself myself there, but I would like to ask question to my group anonymously, right? So. So Facebook is saying now we’re going to keep rollout this feature where you can ask any questions you like anonymously. Now before you start freaking out, I will tell you, yes, if I was posting that question anonymously. Everyone else in the you know, everyone else in the group will see me as anonymous, but the group owner group admins will still see my name and would be able to block me or ban me if I was crossing the line or doing something shady or dodgy OK, so where I’m going with this in a way, it’s. Good, because I’ve been. I belong to a group in marketing and you know oftentimes And I will have. I will see the admin will come and ask questions saying on behalf of a Member, I’m asking these questions because the Member doesn’t want to be identified and he’s asking his interviewing for a job. And here it is, a blah blah. What do you suggest? Hey, if this feature gets rolled out into this marketing group, although admin of the group doesn’t have to do this anymore, so there is a there is a certain benefit to this. It engages people, it allows people to come back and that’s what Facebook wants, doesn’t it? OK, let’s move on to the next update from Google.

[Update 7 – Cryptocurrency Exchanges & Wallets Can Now Use Google Ads] – 15:00

What Google Announced this week was that you know, cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets can now use Google ads. There are certain. Things that have to be done before you can get start getting excited and before you get excited. No, you cannot monitor. You cannot advertise initial coin offering and other stuff. You have to be you have to be. Turn see crypto currency exchange or a wallet. OK, that’s one thing Google made it very clear. The other thing is that you cannot run the ads to. Upside to compare issuers of cryptocurrencies or related products, so you cannot have a website that’s talks about cryptocurrency trading signals, cryptocurrency investment advice and start advertising it. If you do so, you are going to get banned. Now they’re going to allow this from August 3rd and this is the first week of June. So there is a bit of a time. Do check out their announcements if you want to advertise, but it’s probably mostly your customers who are going to apply and they do want you to make sure that your ads and landing pages comply with all other Google ads policies. That’s very important. Again, this is something new. But nevertheless, it’s a good thing where Google is being the first one to allow cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets advertisements, OK. With that, the next update is from Facebook.

[Update 8 – Embed Facebook Videos At Any Given Time On Your Blogs & Website] – 16:29

Facebook has now rolled out this new features where now you can embed. Videos at any given time on your blogs and websites previously, you could have done this, but this was something you needed to have some you know coding skills, a bit of technical and they just made it easier so that you could just say, you know, show my videos starting at 21 seconds and then it will start playing from there. This is a feature that already existed in YouTube for years. Facebook is doing this. I do not know how many people are actually taking Facebook video and embedding in their in their websites and blogs. I still haven’t seen anything. I hope they don’t do that one thing I don’t like about Facebook videos is that you have to watch it at. 1X bit. You cannot speed up the video, so I usually like to watch my videos and listen to my audios at 1.25 or 1.5 speed so that you know I could actually get the information at half the time. But Facebook I haven’t found it unless I use a third party Chrome extension. So that’s my beef with Facebook number one and #2. Is a. Facebook videos are always at 720 Max. I haven’t seen that 1080P or 4K video, so that’s another beef. You know, I know Facebook you’re trying, but Facebook try on other sides. I mean other areas, but nevertheless this is a show about marketing. So I thought I should share with you all OK with that next up is our friends at Microsoft.

[Update 9 – Microsoft Advertising Announces June Updates & Feature Rollouts] – 17:51

They have rolled out Microsoft advertising, to be precise. They have rolled out a quite a few features in their product for June. So I would think they go over them, number one is shopping campaign import enhancements. What’s this? Saying is allowing advertisers to import Google, their Google Merchant Center store, along with the shopping chemist directly to Microsoft advertising, which is Bing advertising. Microsoft Audience Network now expands to seven markets worldwide, which is U S Canada, UK, Australia, France, Germany and New Zealand. They’ve added new market in market audiences and you can France phrase match update set to roll out in June which is. Similar to what Google has announced earlier this year, where you know basically. Deb, Google is taking away modified broad match and they’re going to apply it to phrase match, and Microsoft is copying the same thing, similar audience rollout and last but not least, advertisers can choose to import campaigns automatically from Google as changes occur in Google ads, as opposed to scheduling a certain frequency. No before I. Forget this is actually a great feature of Microsoft. You know, I’ve always told my clients that look for Microsoft advertising being advertising. You don’t really have to do a whole lot use create a campaign in Google ads, you just export it out of Google ads and you can reimport back into Microsoft ads. And like Microsoft used to have where you could just say hey. Go and fetch my campaign every seven 10-15 days and it will bring it now with this feature. It’s amazing that it can do real time. The other thing is that Microsoft is basically a step behind Google. It just copies each and every feature that Google rolls. Hard, Mac, Google, Microsoft, Microsoft advertising is very similar to Google because again, you can take Google’s campaign and upload it into Microsoft advertising. I just wish the search engine was a little better. That’s all I will tell you. They just this week I did a search for some. I was looking for something. I was looking for something and I tried with Bing first. I really didn’t get the result with Microsoft. With Google. I just searched. The first result was the result I was looking for. It’s just mind-blowing, right? The quality of the result that. I get from Google versus Bing. I know you’re trying a whole lot of people thing and I know a lot of people uses Bing, so maybe there is something to do where you can. If you have money, you can spend 20% of your advertising money on Bing and see how what kind of returns you get back. But all I will say I wish Microsoft would. Invest a bit more in updating their indexes and getting better results from search. Hey, it’s not so hard. Take a query query on Google, see the results, see the results your your software is getting out, your search engine is getting out and then figure out what changes do you need to make. maybe i don’t understand maybe i’m not smart enough maybe i’m that’s why i’m not in microsoft who knows right.

[Closing] – 21:09

 Alrighty, folks. That’s it for this week in marketing. Now you know everything that you need to know. If you’d like to read more, make sure you visit our show page, where you will find the links to the articles. Once again, this is your host Sajid Islam signing off until next week. Take care. Bye-bye.

Thank you for tuning in this week. It was a pleasure to serve you all. Hit the subscribe button so that you remember to sign on next week. Same place, same time for another round of This Week In Marketing.

1. Meet Twitter Blue – Twitter’s First-Ever Subscription Offering (0:40) – Twitter on 3rd June 21, officially launched its first-ever subscription service, Twitter Blue, initially in Australia and Canada. The subscription will allow Twitter users to access premium features, including tools to organize bookmarks, read threads in a clutter-free format and take advantage of an “Undo Tweet” feature — which is the closest thing Twitter will have to the long-requested “Edit” button.

 

2. Twitter Launches Birdwatch Tool (2:15) – Twitter’s realized that there is so much they can do to curb misinformation when they are catering to millions of active and opinionated individuals. So Twitter is trying something different and has Birdwatch that will rely on community-based crowdsourcing. Essentially, Birdwatch will allow users to attach notes to tweets that carry misleading information. The notes will serve to provide further context, either clearing up the author’s intention or simply falsifying their information.

 

3. Twitter Pauses & Unpauses Verification Requests (5:05) – The long-awaited return of Twitter’s verification application process is in a timeout after the social network was overrun with requests. And then 4 days later they have resumed taking in applications for verifications again. Twitter said that users will start seeing a blue tick if their verification was approved and if not users can apply again 30 days after they have received a response from the tech giant.

Though anyone can apply for verification the tech giant verifies users from six distinct categories which are government, companies, and organizations; news organizations and journalists; sports and gaming; companies, entertainment; activists, companies, organizers, influential individuals, though they plan on expanding the categories in the future.

 

4. YouTube Paid Out $4+ Billion In Royalties (6:48) – On June 2, 2021, Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music wrote that YouTube has paid over $4 billion to the music industry in the last 12 months alone (30% is from user-generated content (UGC).) And they have added more paid members in Q1 ’21 than in any other quarter since launch.

Their ad-supported free tier in 180 countries and subscription tiers in 96 countries gives users the choice to pay with their attention or their wallets. YouTube is the world’s largest stage, and advertisers are eager to tap into the deep music engagement that the platform enables. With over 2 billion users watching music videos monthly, YouTube allows advertisers to reach audiences they can’t find anywhere else.

 

5. 5 Updates To YouTube Analytics (9:00) – YouTube is rolling out 5 new things to YouTube Studio to give Creators data on how users engage with their channel’s content. The new features are:

  • More data about channel memberships – Membership metrics will now report on which videos helped a channel gain (or lose) more members than usual.
  • More data on mobile (which was previously exclusive to desktop) – Now creators can view ‘other channels your audience watches’ and ‘other videos your audience watches’ cards on mobile.
  • Clearer information about video performance – An update to the video overview page in YouTube Analytics on the desktop provides a clearer, more visible explanation of video performance.
  • Insight into revenue changes – If revenue goes up or down due to a channel’s audience shifting to a higher or lower CPM country, YouTube will now call that out. This is helpful information when diagnosing when revenue has changed from one month to another. If a channel’s revenue goes down because more of its audience is coming from a lower CPM country, at least the creator knows they’re not necessarily producing worse content.
  • Engagement metrics for YouTube posts – Engagement metrics for YouTube posts, which were announced and previewed back in May, are now live. Now a card on the channel’s engagement tab shows votes and likes on the creator’s top posts over the last 28 days. This card can be filtered by post type.

 

6. Facebook Will Allow Users To Post Anonymously In FB Groups (12:54) – Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and known to unleash upcoming features on applications posted about this feature in a tweet on June 2nd, 21. There he posted a screenshot on which he mentioned that Facebook is now rolling out a feature called Anonymous postings. This feature will allow users to keep their identity hidden and publish a post on any group they want. Previously, this feature was available on only two groups categories which were parenting and health-related but the tech giant has now expanded its list.

 

7. Cryptocurrency Exchanges & Wallets Can Now Use Google Ads (15:00) – Beginning August 3, advertisers offering Cryptocurrency Exchanges and Wallets targeting the United States may advertise those products and services when they meet the requirements and are certified by Google. To be certified by Google, advertisers will need to:

  • Be duly registered with
    • (a) FinCEN as a Money Services Business and with at least one state as a money transmitter; or
    • (b) a federal or state-chartered bank entity.
  • Comply with relevant legal requirements, including any local legal requirements, whether at a state or federal level.
  • Ensure their ads and landing pages comply with all Google Ads policies

The following is not allowed:

Ads for initial coin offerings, DeFi trading protocols, or otherwise promoting the purchase, sale, or trade of cryptocurrencies or related products.
Examples (non-exhaustive): ICO pre-sales or public offerings, cryptocurrency loans, initial DEX offerings, token liquidity pools, celebrity cryptocurrency endorsements, unhosted wallets, unregulated DApps

Ad destinations that aggregate or compare issuers of cryptocurrencies or related products.

Examples (non-exhaustive): Cryptocurrency trading signals, cryptocurrency investment advice, aggregators or affiliate sites containing related content or broker reviews

 

8. Embed Facebook Videos At Any Given Time On Your Blogs & Website (16:29) – Facebook recently updated its video embed settings through which users can share already uploaded Facebook videos at any chosen time, on other websites and blogs

 

9. Microsoft Advertising Announces June Updates & Feature Rollouts (17:51) – New PPC features & updates are scheduled to roll out in June. Here’s what you need to know to ensure your accounts are up to speed.

  • Shopping Campaign Import Enhancements – Allowing advertisers to import their Google Merchant Center (GMC) store along with their Shopping Campaigns.
  • Smart Shopping Integration for Shopify Users – Adding “Smart Shopping” to their Shopify app, designed to simplify shopping campaign creation. Through the app, advertisers are also automatically opted in to show your products for free on the Bing Shopping Tab
  • Microsoft Audience Network Expands – As of this month, Audience Ads can now run in France and Germany, expanding global footprint to seven markets worldwide: US, CA-EN, UK, AU, FR, DE, and NZ.
  • New In-Market Audiences in the UK, France & Germany – New audience segments in the UK, France, and Germany for both search campaigns and audience campaigns. Advertisers can download the In-market segment list to see what’s new.
  • Phrase Match Updates Set to Roll Out in June – In May, Microsoft announced that phrase match would begin to match more similarly to modified broad match, copying Google’s recent change. That change is set to take effect this month in the United States (US) and Canada markets.
  • Similar Audiences U.S. Roll Out – Similar audiences, which have been in beta, will roll out in the U.S this month.
  • Last but not least, advertisers can now choose to import campaigns automatically from Google, as changes occur in Google Ads, as opposed to scheduling at a certain frequency.

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