Are X's Bots Are Coming From Inside the House?

[00:00:00] It is Wednesday, January 10th. Today, Google in the hot seat as SEO professionals wonder if its advice can be trusted. The new retail tech that might finally creep consumers out, more signs that the ad market is stabilizing

[00:00:15] and X still has a bot problem but is it of its own making? I'm Tod Maffin. That's ahead, today in Digital Marketing. Will you be able to live your life with your best adventure? The shopping platform Shopify revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide.

[00:00:40] With Shopify, you can only enter your online shop without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient design and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can sell and sell through Instagram, eBay and Co. It was never easy to reach new groups of customers.

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[00:01:20] A clarification from Google's search team that's causing more confusion than clarity. We've known for years that Google prizes expertise in web page content. It's the E in their EAT guidance. Put simply, if whoever wrote a web page knows a lot about the topic they're writing about,

[00:01:37] that will help you in the search engine rankings. And that led many web publishers to put bylines on blog posts and obsess over their schema linking to the right number of articles and so on. In a recent piece by The Verge, they wrote, quote,

[00:01:52] if you're a regular reader of The Verge, you might have noticed some changes to our author bylines in recent months. They're a lot longer with more details, name dropping and quantifying our professional experiences. You can thank Google for that, unquote.

[00:02:07] But this week on social media, a Google spokesperson basically said, What are you talking about? We never said to do that, quoting Danny Sullivan from Google, quote, Google doesn't somehow check out our credentials. Author bylines aren't something you do for Google, and they don't help you rank better.

[00:02:25] They're something you do for your readers, and publications doing them may exhibit the other type of characteristics our ranking systems find a line with useful content, unquote. What's strange here is that this latest clarification really does seem to contradict everything

[00:02:41] Google has said in the past about how to demonstrate expertise to your readers. They've created a detailed metadata schema, something that readers can't even see. A schema is only meant to be seen by search engines. As you can imagine, this clarification is not sitting well with SEO professionals.

[00:02:58] One is Gary Osberg, he replied to that post saying, quote, How does that square with the evidence presented by the likes of James Dooley recently showing penalties for a lack of author transparency, unquote. So perhaps this all comes down to Google's canonical advice.

[00:03:13] Just make good content, make it accurate and be consistent in that reliability. Perhaps that's what they mean. One extra bit here about news websites. While bylines don't influence search ranking, they are required for eligibility in Google News.

[00:03:28] The company says this does not lead to better ranking within Google News itself. In a move to speed up the shopping process, Samsung's Club, which is owned by Walmart, is replacing traditional receipt checks at the door with a camera that scans shoppers' carts as they exit.

[00:03:49] They say this will save a few seconds spent at the exit for receipt scanning and they believe those seconds could add up to something significant. But how will consumers react? The scanning system requires people to walk through a large blue gateway,

[00:04:02] something that looks similar to an airport security metal detector. The AI behind the camera scans the objects and tries to figure out what's in the cart and if anything is in the cart that's not on the receipt. This AI technology goes beyond the capabilities of similar technologies

[00:04:17] like Amazon's Just Walk Out by handling a larger scale of items. Currently installed in 10 locations, Samsung's Club plans to implement this system in all its nearly 600 US consumer warehouses by the end of this year. Well, someone's in trouble.

[00:04:36] The American Securities Regulator, the SEC, is under scrutiny after its X account was hacked. Yesterday a post on its account falsely announced the approval of Bitcoin ETFs leading to a swift 2.5% rise in Bitcoin's value.

[00:04:51] The spike was short-lived though as SEC Chair Gary Gensler quickly retracted the fake statement. Even so, this caused a $40 billion fluctuation in Bitcoin's market value. For its part, X says, wasn't their fault? The SEC didn't have two-factor authentication turned on.

[00:05:09] Which is weird considering that one requirement of getting the verified badge for government accounts which the SEC account had is to have 2FA on. Now a group of US senators are demanding answers from the SEC. An internal probe is anticipated focusing on staff conduct related to the breach.

[00:05:29] Instagram is experimenting with a novel way for users to connect and it might help your brand get some fresh content. They call it Friends Story. It's currently in testing and it will let you create a story and then share it directly with a single friend or brand account.

[00:05:47] Here's how it works. When you select the Friends Story option while crafting your story, your friend or the brand you're about to send it to gets the chance to review it. If they like what they see, they can add it to their own story speed.

[00:06:00] Your handle appears on that story crediting you as the creators. For brands, consumers and fans could submit their stories to you, potentially getting featured on your profiles. This might make for a more manageable way to handle a UGC-based contest.

[00:06:13] Instagram confirmed the test but there's no set date for a wider release. High-end B2B sales don't happen through generic AI-generated content. Want to sell a $20 shirt with a random Instagram post? Go for it. But to sell a $20,000 business service, you need a longer on-ramp.

[00:06:36] Social media is great for connecting and networking but long-term Evergreen website content is your paved path to high-end B2B sales. Whether your business makes $100,000 a year or $100 million. The second edition of Pamela Wilson's Master Content books share her proven frameworks for crafting long-term Evergreen content consistently.

[00:06:59] Plus the second editions, which you'll find at mastercontentbooks.com cover the practical ethical use of AI tools to help your marketing team create better content faster. If you're ready to increase your website content ROI in 2024, buy and read Pamela's newly updated Master Content books at mastercontentbooks.com.

[00:07:22] A new report says the global ad market is stabilizing after pandemic-related disruptions with forecasts showing moderate growth in the coming years. Group M projects a 5.3% increase in global ad spend this year, slightly lower than last year's 5.8%. North America expected to see a 4.2% rise, excluding political ads,

[00:07:43] but election cycles and events like the Olympics will temporarily inflate ad spends in some years. The overall ad market's growth rate is slowing, indicating a shift for publishers reliant on ad revenue. Digital advertising, which makes up about 70% of the global ad market,

[00:08:01] is also experiencing a bit of a slowdown. Traditional media advertising like print, radio and television will also of course keep declining. The report says entertainment marketing might face its own small downturn due to the aftermath of the 2023 Hollywood strikes

[00:08:18] and sports betting ads are expected to encounter regulatory challenges in Europe. And finally, tech journalist Parker Malloy says she may have uncovered something awfully close to maybe fraudulent reporting by ex. She posted an image of a series of tweets from accounts that are replying to other people.

[00:08:41] The accounts all say some variation of, I'm sorry I cannot provide a response as it goes against OpenAI's use case policy. Remember, these are replies to people's tweets. It's probably not surprising that bots are using AI to generate content on the platform.

[00:08:56] What is surprising is that Malloy says some people believe ex itself is behind this. When user replying to one of those bot messages saying quote the bot activity is coming from inside the house it appears that these are stale accounts that were taken back over by ex

[00:09:15] turned into blue check marks and use AI to keep daily active user and monthly active user and other activity metrics higher than they actually are. Also a little sus, Malloy says none of these tweets can be found in Twitter's search.

[00:09:32] We asked ex for comment on whether it's using bots and AI to artificially juice its engagement numbers. We did not hear back by deadline. Follow us on social media. We are almost everywhere. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Threads, Mastodon, Blue Sky, Post.News, Spoutable, Snapchat and Pinterest.

[00:09:53] Go to todayindigital.com slash social for all those links or tap the link in the show notes. I'm Todd Mappin. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow. The Shopify-commerce platform revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify you can sell products via popular channels.

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