BeReal Careful

Today In Digital Marketingis a daily podcast and daily newsletter showcasing the latest in marketing trends and updates. This week, Tod touches on:

• Time to Tighten Your BeReal Policies?
• Reddit Updates to Ad Manager
• TikTok's Parent is Bleeding Billions: Report
• Goodbye, For Now, Scout
• Lightning Round

Below is the transcription from this weeks topics

Time to Tighten Your BeReal Policies?

It's the newest app that everyone's copying — but a new report suggests you might want to be a bit wary.

An interesting piece up on Digiday today looks at why the photo app BeReal poses very real security risks in the workplace.

BeAware of Your Surroundings

The app's entire concept is to capture the real part of someone's life. It sends notifications at random times of the day to prompt users to capture their surroundings with front and rear cameras.

But some security experts are warning that if the notification appears while someone is at their work computer, it could lead to a privacy breach.

Their suggestion? Close the tabs on your computer first. It may seem obvious, but, if your employees are using BeReal at work, this may be a worthwhile discussion to have.

Opening the Door To Hackers

In the app, it's not uncommon to see images of people's computer screens during the work week, such as their inboxes or assignments they are working on. Of course, that can lead to bigger problems as it's basically opening a portal to hackers. One security expert believes that it's inevitable that scammers will take advantage of users if they find a weak spot.

The piece notes that while employers will have to hope that the majority of their employees who use the app are mindful, there are other ways to take action to prevent privacy breaches, such as:

• Updating social media policies
• Educating staff about security risks and phishing

So, BeReal, just not with your company's confidential info up on your monitor.

Image: BeReal

Why BeReal poses security risks at work

Reddit Updates to Ad Manager

Image: Reddit

Reddit is hoping to get a piece of your media budget this quarter — The platform rolled out new updates to its Ad Manager yesterday.

Live Chat

First, it's adding live chat to provide direct access to Reddit's support team for ad-related questions.

Pixel Helper

Next, the platform will be rolling out a new Pixel Helper tool in the ads dashboard that provides guidance on how to integrate the Reddit Pixel to measure campaign performance.

UI Updates

The platform has also made several updates to its Ads Manager user interface, including:

• An Audience Manager tool that lets advertisers create, edit, delete, and reuse audiences across campaigns
• A new Post Library which stores ad creative in one place
• Advertisers can now update the creatives of an existing ad right on the ‘Edit Ad’ page
• A redesigned Estimates tool provides advertisers with impression and click estimates for their ad group, along with estimated audience reach

Finally, Reddit has expanded its targeting options by adding over 1000 new targetable communities.

Reddit Rolls Out Updates to Ads Manager, Including New Targeting and Creation Tools

TikTok's Parent is Bleeding Billions: Report

You win some, you lose... billions.

TikTok parent ByteDance Ltd.'s operating losses exceeded $7 billion last year as it spent heavily to maintain its rapid growth, according to a newly leaked financial report shared with employees.

Revenue Up

The report also showed that an operating profit was also produced by ByteDance in the first quarter of this year, suggesting that one of the world's most valuable startups might be turning the corner after years of losses, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Losses Also Up

However, the company is bleeding billions in cash due to astronomical spending, even with revenue up nearly 80% to over $60 billion last year. Among costs, ByteDance reportedly spent over $19 billion on "selling and marketing expenses" in 2021.

Other factors offsetting its rapid revenue growth, include:

• Research and development spending
• Market-value changes on a range of convertible securities

Giving us a grand total of $7 billion in the company's operating loss in 2021, more than tripling its loss in 2020 of $2 billion.

ByteDance declined to comment.

TikTok Parent ByteDance Sees Losses Swell in Push for Growth

Goodbye, For Now, Scout

Amazon's belt-tightening continues — this time it's kicking its little blue delivery robot, Scout, to the curb.

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the e-commerce giant was pumping the brakes on the program and the Scout team.

It’s Not Goodbye, It’s I'll See You Later?

However, an Amazon spokesperson recently responded saying that the company isn't killing the robot altogether, but instead is scaling back. Thus, the home delivery robot will no longer be tested publicly.

The spokesperson added that through its tests, aspects of the program weren't meeting customers' needs.

Bloomberg noted that the company's decision to ditch testing Scout is part of a company-wide move to cut down on more speculative investments as growth in its core retail sector slows.

Amazon scales back Scout delivery robot program

Lightning Round

META warned over 1 million Facebook users today that their accounts may have been compromised by third-party apps on the Apple and Google app stores. The company says it identified over 400 malicious apps disguised as games, photo editors, and other utilities that are designed to steal people's Facebook login info.

Facebook warns 1 million users whose logins were stolen by scam mobile apps

TWITTER: Earlier this week Twitter started rolling out the "Edit" button in select markets. As of yesterday, Twitter says it has started rolling out the edit button to its U.S.premium subscribers.

Twitter's edit button will reach all U.S. subscribers by end of today

METAVERSE: The horizon isn't looking too bright right now for the Metaverse. According to leaked internal memos, Horizon Worlds, Meta's flagship "metaverse" app, is suffering from too many quality issues, so bad that even the team building it isn't using it much. The team says it will remain in a "quality lockdown" until the end of the year to "ensure that we fix our quality gaps and performance issues before we open Horizon to more users."

Meta's VR social network Horizon is too buggy and employees are barely using it

META: Finally, it's the end of Meta'sadvertising policies. They are no more! That's because they've been renamed to Meta Advertising Standards. What's changing? Nothing. Just the name.

Because THAT'S what advertisers have been asking Meta to spend its time doing, right?

Meta Advertising Policies Renamed Meta Advertising Standards

Credit to Tod Maffin and the Today In Digital Marketing podcast, Produced by engageQ.com