MarketingDojo #41: BreakUp Of The Year 💔
The cautionary tale of the News-Social Media breakup, Youtube's interesting ad option, social media platforms are drowning in the sea of sameness and more.
Hello Marketers,
Warm welcomes to the 41st edition of the Marketing Dojo! I trust this edition finds you in robust health.
Ironically, today is National Greasy Food Day (Yes, there's a day for that too). So, if you are craving greasy burgers, fries or chips - you have an extra excuse to indulge. A little indulgence can spark great ideas, after all!
Anyway, in this week's newsletter, we cover
💔 The lessons for marketers from the social media - news breakup
🔁 Social media feels all the same
💻 How to run paid ads
🎥 Jaws walked so Barbie can run
And lots more.
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It’s Not You, It’s the Algorithm: How Social Media Ghosted News.
If there were a BreakUp of the Year Awards in 2023, News & Social Media would make a clean sweep.
For years, social media and news publishers were the proverbial power couple. Social media platforms became news websites' most significant traffic sources, while news publishers reciprocated by supplying a steady stream of engaging content to keep social media users hooked.
News publishers flourished, building their businesses on walled gardens. The news tweaked to become more clickbaity and favoured publishing speed over fact-checking to keep up with the social media realities, all in a bid to keep pace with the fleeting social media timeline.
But as they say, nothing lasts forever.
Regulatory pressures, free speech concerns and a demand for compensating news channels led to social media platforms tweaking their algorithms to deprioritize news.
As per data by Axios, the traffic from social media platforms to the news channels has all but decimated in 2023.
Like most breakups, this was a slow burn. Social media platforms were quick to start wooing short-form video creators; the news publishers seem unprepared despite the writing being on the wall forever.
So, what does this breakup story do with brands and marketers?
The drop in website traffic from social media is more than just a news problem. As platforms move towards zero-click content—keeping users on the platform—the website traffic will keep dropping.
It's a wake-up call for brand marketers: Relying solely on walled gardens like LinkedIn, Facebook, or TikTok for marketing mileage is a convenient but fragile strategy. The once-gushing traffic could peter out, leaving brands in a lurch.
The smart move? Take control of customer relationships and strengthen first-party data. This way, we can handle this shift much better than the news folks did.
And it's not all a grim tale; take a leaf from NPR's book. Despite shuttering its Twitter account, boasting 8.7 million followers, NPR witnessed negligible to no impact on its traffic.
As the digital landscape shifts, it's about building a direct connection with our audience that stands the test of time rather than relying on borrowed land.
Spotlight’s On: YouTube Let’s Advertisers In On The Cultural Buzz.
YouTube has rolled out its freshest AI-driven advertising package, "Spotlight Moments".
This AI solution doesn't just spot trending content around big-ticket events like Halloween, the Oscars, or the Olympics but neatly ties them up in branded packages.
It allows brands to advertise on these curated hubs to catch the wave of heightened viewer engagement during these prime events.
YouTube has been adding new AI-supported ad formats at breakneck speed. The spotlight moments is the third offering right after the Video Reach and Video View campaigns.
The monetization team at YouTube is developing innovative advertising solutions that might be exciting for brands.
Jaws Walked So Barbie Could Run: The Recipe For Hollywood Marketing Success.
Barbie dazzled the box office, thanks in large part to a stellar marketing campaign. Yet, the playbook for this marketing marvel wasn’t freshly inked; it was crafted years earlier by another blockbuster hit - Jaws.
Jaws and Barbie have quite a few things in common - Leveraging pre-existing intellectual property, summer-time releases, an aggressive marketing campaign aimed at market saturation & sizable marketing budgets.
The video spotlighted in this piece dives into the fascinating interplay of strategy, luck, and extensive marketing tie-ins that propelled both Barbie and Jaws to the blockbuster Hall of Fame. A must-watch!
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Social Media Giants in a Copycat Brawl
"In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different," quipped Coco Chanel. But the social media moguls seem to have skipped this lesson from the fashion maestro.
For instance, Instagram unabashedly mirrored TikTok with its Reels feature. Not to be left behind, TikTok echoed Twitter's text-only messages, while Twitter briefly flirted with Instagram's Stories feature - scores even.
This visual by Axios demonstrates how differentiation between social media platforms is dead and how they are drowning in the sea of sameness.
However, every cloud has a silver lining. This era of mimicry has inadvertently simplified content repurposing for social media managers. A video tailored for TikTok works just as well for reels, and a tweetstorm is ready to be copy-pasted to Threads.
As the number of platforms increases, this sea of sameness makes it easier for social media managers to do more without breaking a sweat.
Ad-Ventures: A Page from PostHog’s Paid Ad Experience.
In the world of paid ads, the line between blazing a trail and burning cash is a fine one.
PostHog's candid article, "Burning money on paid ads for a dev tool – what we've learned," serves many lessons to marketers who run paid ads.
In the article, the paid ads team at PostHog covers their experience with 10 advertising channels. But first, some misconceptions:
Paid ads aren't all of marketing: They're a subset. Posthog focuses on content writing (80%) over paid ads (10%).
Ads can have two objectives: Conversion or awareness. Balance both goals out with different campaigns.
Tech-Savvy Customers are Not Ad-Blind: The notion that tech-savvy folks don't notice ads is debunked with data from PostHog.
Digging further, the article shares valuable insights on various channels:
Google Search: A strong option for conversion, but not so much for awareness.
LinkedIn: A good spot for raising awareness, especially among founders.
Google Display: Not a favourite due to irrelevant conversions and lack of control over ad placements.
Reddit: Not the best place for traditional ads.
Quora: An overlooked platform that's effective for both awareness and conversion.
I resonate with their sentiments on the efficacy of Google Search & display and LinkedIn. But Quora piqued my curiosity and is worth experimenting with.
Short Stuff:
Twitter pilots a $1/month subscription for all its users in the Philippines & New Zealand (The shitshow continues).
Apple is considering selling ads on its podcasts (Setting up its advertising kingdom).
TikTok gets out of your phone and shoots straight for the TV (TikTok’s Out of Phone push).
That’s all for this week’s edition. If you found anything interesting, new or useful - please leave a like. Your support goes a long way in spreading the word.
Thanks for your time. See you in your inbox next week.
Regards,
P.S. I am preparing training material on social selling for our sales team. Having an all-star LinkedIn profile is step 1 to social selling. While putting together the content for the deck, I came up with the idea of creating prompts to enable ChatGPT to create customized outputs.
So, if you are contemplating updating your LinkedIn headlines, here’s a prompt you can try.
“You are an expert in personal branding and LinkedIn presence. Please ask me questions one by one, wait for my response before asking the next one. Thru your questions, create 4-5 options for a LinkedIn headline.”
Let me know how that goes for you.