Fear and Surprise and Ruthless Counterfeiting Efficiency

[00:00:00] It is Tuesday, August 20th. Today the kettle sues the pot. YouTube's new partnership takes on TikTok,

[00:00:08] why Amazon's ads business has been surging lately and the final ruling to hashtags

[00:00:14] even matter anymore? I'm Tod Maffin, that's ahead today in Digital Marketing.

[00:00:22] YouTube is expanding its partnership with Shopify, giving creators access to thousands of new brands

[00:00:27] to tag in their shopping videos. This marks a big increase from the few hundred brands that they

[00:00:32] currently have access to. All eligible Shopify plus and advanced merchants in the US can now sign up for

[00:00:39] the YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program. This expanded partnership is really a shot over the

[00:00:44] bow at TikTok, which is trying to grow its TikTok shop business in the US to $17.5 billion.

[00:00:51] That platform expects to have half a million US merchants on its shop by the end of this year.

[00:00:57] YouTube is also launching a new Chrome extension that will let US creators in the affiliate

[00:01:02] program save products while browsing a brand or retailer site. This should make it easier to

[00:01:07] tag them in videos later. This expansion of the affiliate program comes as YouTube has increased

[00:01:13] its e-commerce efforts in recent years to bring in more revenue amid a slowdown in digital advertising.

[00:01:20] In 2023, people watched more than 30 billion hours of shopping related videos on YouTube

[00:01:25] with a 25% increase in watch time for videos that help people shop.

[00:01:36] Google says it's mostly fixed the widespread bug in search ranking that started late last week.

[00:01:41] Friday morning Google reported on its status page that the issue was affecting a large number

[00:01:46] of search results. As the roundtable reports today that it's not completely fixed on the back end,

[00:01:52] but the front facing errors have been patched so the visible effect at least isn't there anymore.

[00:01:58] Yesterday Google search analyst John Mueller posted on LinkedIn saying quote,

[00:02:03] unfortunately the team isn't quite happy with calling it complete just yet. He's talking

[00:02:07] about the bug there. I don't think there's any visible effect anymore though so we said we'll

[00:02:12] update again in two days. Unquote. The bug apparently came from the August core update which rolled

[00:02:18] out the day prior to all this happening. Google used to give marketers a lot more detail about

[00:02:23] what these core updates updated. This time we got a fairly vague description from Mueller

[00:02:28] quote, this update aims to better capture improvements that sites may have made so we can continue

[00:02:34] to surface the best of the web. This includes small or independent sites that are creating

[00:02:38] useful original content on relevant searches. It wasn't clear exactly how the bug impacted listings,

[00:02:45] but it's worth going and checking to see where your brand sits in a day or two. And while we're

[00:02:50] here, I'm updating on that baffling bug we reported on a couple of weeks back that saw advertizers

[00:02:55] running ads for other brands from Merchants Center sometimes competitors of theirs.

[00:03:02] Some affected marketers are posting screenshots of emails they've received from Google,

[00:03:07] but those who had their ads dropped into other accounts. Google says it's asked the managers

[00:03:12] of those accounts really, really nicely to you know please delete all that stuff and

[00:03:18] create the data. Which I'm sure they did right? Amazon is leaning more and more on advertising

[00:03:32] to boost profits. New numbers show Amazon's advertising revenue grew 20% year over year in the last

[00:03:38] quarter nearly matching last year's growth rate. Amazon's vast user and strong customer intent

[00:03:45] allowed to offer highly targeted advertising. E-Marketer has a great breakdown of this space today,

[00:03:50] quoting one of their analysts, Jerry Goldman quote, that's something you can charge quite a bit

[00:03:55] for. These are highly motivated targeted customers so you're not interrupting them, unquote.

[00:04:01] Close loop measurement and real-time feedback about what is and isn't working is also driving

[00:04:06] advertizer demand said Goldman quote, that's something advertizers have told me is a major

[00:04:11] portion of why they keep coming back to Amazon and why they're willing to spend a lot more

[00:04:15] on a per click basis unquote. Plus Amazon's been continually expanding ad placements like new

[00:04:22] spots on prime video that has significant potential and it feeds it to own data ecosystem.

[00:04:29] Information from engagement on prime video ads gets added to customer records. This of course helps

[00:04:35] the retail media side of the business and Amazon continues to invest heavily in content rights

[00:04:40] like it's $1.8 billion annual NBA deal starting next year. In another sign that the social

[00:04:51] world is going vertical Instagram is testing a new vertical grid display on user profiles.

[00:04:57] Currently profiles have both a traditional square shaped thumbnail image for feed posts

[00:05:01] and a separate tab for real thumbnails. This new thing is sort of a hybrid where thumbnails are

[00:05:07] taller though not quite 16.9 and they're all in a single tab. The new format of course better

[00:05:13] aligning with reals and formatting it essentially translates the reals grid to the main feed.

[00:05:19] Instagram's head Adam Sarix blamed in a recent Q&A that this update or a variation of it

[00:05:24] is likely coming to all users and soon he said the vast majority of content uploaded to Instagram

[00:05:30] today is vertical either 4x3 photos or 9x16 videos. Croping these to squares is pretty brutal he

[00:05:38] said. This could change your brand's content strategy if you're one of those which meticulously

[00:05:44] plans the layout of that Instagram profile grid. This is something that isn't as popular to do

[00:05:49] as it once was but several third party tools like Sprout Social and Buffer both have profile

[00:05:55] grid preview tools for those who still really want to do this.

[00:06:04] Here's another reason to consider dropping hashtags from your brand's organic social media posts.

[00:06:09] LinkedIn has introduced semantic matching to its search system, letting it understand content

[00:06:14] beyond just keyword hashtags. This LinkedIn says we'll let it provide more relevant search results

[00:06:21] even if the posts don't contain all the query keywords. LinkedIn measures the success of its

[00:06:27] search engine on both topic matching and dwell time. In other words how much time people spend

[00:06:33] reading content that surfaces from a search. The platform says this new system has led to a significant

[00:06:39] boost in overall discovery with on topic rate and long dwells increasing by more than 10%.

[00:06:46] This is part of an industry wide trend platforms from LinkedIn to Facebook to Instagram have

[00:06:52] relied less on hashtags for discovery and more on understanding the content using machine learning.

[00:06:58] That's probably a good thing for most users but hashtags certainly have a place for helping

[00:07:02] link less obscure content together, think of a conference hashtag or those which link content with

[00:07:08] only videos. There is of course a rebound effect some networks like Mastodon and Blue sky,

[00:07:13] both still use hashtags extensively as neither has a single algorithm making the decision on what

[00:07:21] content surfaces. So what should marketers do? Well if you're running out of space in the post on

[00:07:26] a major platform it's probably fine to drop the hashtags, no platforms say they penalize posts

[00:07:31] for having them so if you want to include one or two that's probably just fine just try to use hashtags

[00:07:36] that don't repeat words in the main post. Elon Musk's X continues to see a drop in users

[00:07:47] while the company which is now private no longer shares the volume of data it did when it was public

[00:07:52] it still has some reporting requirements and some regions notably the EU. Exes latest report

[00:07:58] provided to comply with the EU Digital Services Act shows a 5% decline in European users in the first

[00:08:06] half of 2024. Despite this X has actually seen a 10% increase in logged in users versus non-logged in guests

[00:08:16] since last year. Some people believe this is likely due to extra stricting the number of posts

[00:08:21] that non-users can see. The EU data reflect similar trends seen in other reports suggesting X is

[00:08:28] experiencing a slow decline in interest rather than a massive shift. Similar web data shows UK X usage

[00:08:35] also steadily declining over time while usage on threads that's met as a new competitor to X

[00:08:41] is slowly rising. The overall trends could indicate that Musk's free speech approach isn't

[00:08:48] resonating with most users or perhaps that his own political commentary is turning people off

[00:08:53] from the app. The platform has not added any daily active users since November of 2022.

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[00:10:28] Another possibility of X's slow decline is the perception the add industry has of it being an

[00:10:34] unsafe place for brands and a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate

[00:10:39] back set up. The report found that X displayed ads from major brands alongside

[00:10:45] misinformation related to the recent UK race riots. Some of those brands included

[00:10:51] Glaxo Smith Klein, the British Medical Association and even the International Olympics Committee.

[00:10:58] According to the group, 5 key UK accounts pushing lies and hate amassed 260 million views

[00:11:06] in the week following the Southport attack on July 29th. X presented ads for well-known brands

[00:11:12] near their content. The CCDH also notes that many of the more incendiary profiles

[00:11:16] posting about the riots are part of X's creator ad revenue share program, meaning X is effectively

[00:11:23] paying these users to post controversial remarks. Elon Musk himself is amplifying comments

[00:11:29] from controversial spokespeople including a post just yesterday by Tommy Robinson,

[00:11:34] whose anti-Islamic sentiments are believed to have played a significant role in sparking the recent

[00:11:40] riots. This new report likely won't help boost X's standing with advertisers, many of whom are

[00:11:46] already scaling back or halting their X spend due to concerns over their ads appearing next

[00:11:52] to harmful content. And finally, POT-Meat-Kettle in a civil complaint filed this morning

[00:12:03] in the US, the Chinese fast-fashioned giant Sheen has accused its rival T-Mew of

[00:12:09] copying its products and selling counterfits. Sheen claims T-Mew masquerades as a legitimate

[00:12:15] marketplace while controlling every aspect of its seller's activity, the lawsuit alleges that

[00:12:20] Mew reproduces virtually identical copyrighted images of Sheen products and uses them as promotional

[00:12:27] images on its website and mobile app. Sheen also says T-Mew is impersonating their company

[00:12:34] on social media. Sheen itself, of course, has long faced accusations of design theft from major

[00:12:40] fashion brands and independent artists. The two retailers have a long history of legal battles.

[00:12:46] Last year, T-Mew sued Sheen, alleging mafia-style intimidation of manufacturers,

[00:12:53] Sheen has also accused T-Mew of contracting influencers to make false statements about it.

[00:12:59] Sheen is requesting a trial by jury in this case. And we have a classified ad to wrap up, save time

[00:13:07] and money by ditching multiple social media tools, Fedica schedules posts to 11 platforms like

[00:13:13] PixelFed and Blue Sky while unifying analytics and analysis for Mastodon X and more.

[00:13:20] Fedica gives you insights you can't get anywhere else, get free cross-platform scheduling

[00:13:26] at Fedica.com that's FEDICA.com. As if for today, I'm Todd Maffin. Thanks for listening,

[00:13:34] see you tomorrow. Nobody expects the Spanish English edition of two weapons,

[00:13:38] and the prize, and Ruth, Mr. Bishop, there are three weapons,

[00:13:42] and the prize and the movement is eventually, and it almost is for nothing to go to the pope.

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