Things are Getting Weird(er)

IT’S A WEIRD TIME IN SOCIAL MEDIA

The only constant, as the say, is change – but this is getting ridiculous.

Just a year ago it seemed that the biggest adaptation we’d all have to make was the growth of TikTok and the shift to Reels-style video content.

Now, TikTok and Reels are still very much a thing; Twitter is melting down; Meta has launched an alternative called Threads that 100 million+ people signed up for, but no one seems to know what to do with it; and Canadian news organizations are getting shut out of their accounts.

If you’re feeling like there is an overwhelming amount of chaos happening at the moment and nobody knows what they’re doing, trust your instincts. I’ll try to make sense of it all in few short paragraphs:

Social Media is no longer some cute side-hustle that is contained to “kids these days” and memes. It is today’s mainstream media, so it is creating mainstream impact, but the rulebook everyone is playing by is still the same one we used before a hashtag ever appeared on a TV ad.

Culture, elections, news, advertising, and civil rights are all happening in these undefined spaces that we loosely tie together as “social media.” The result is that regulators, public opinion, and marketers are all battling to create norms and rules at a scale that has never existed before.

Of course there’s going to be chaos.

To give just one recent example, here in Canada many publishers lost access to their social media accounts this week. That’s because of a recently passed bill called C-18 that would force platforms to share revenue with publishers when they use their news stories. The platforms claim that they can’t figure out a way to run their businesses while sharing a piece of the pie with journalists so, at least in this country, they’re taking their ball and going home. You can read the specifics in this CBC article.

The government of Canada is fighting back by suspending all advertising on Facebook and Instagram. If we’re being honest, their ad spend is less than a drop in Meta’s revenue ocean, but the advertising pause makes sense in principle, if not in impact. Bloomberg wrote about the ad suspension here.

Then, there’s the battle over at Twitter, which is actually about much more than just the world’s richest man flexing his influence (but it’s also that). Until recently, we have kind of assumed that social media channels were like public utilities – that they should operate openly and the same for everyone. But they are now, and have always been, businesses with owners who can choose to operate them however their moods dictate.

When Twitter chooses to allow certain types of accounts back on, while banning others that its new owner personally doesn’t like, that goes against how we all thought platforms were supposed to operate. But it turns out, under the current set of rules, they can do whatever they want whenever they want, and we’re slowly coming to terms with that reality.

People are so fed up with Twitter that they rushed over to Threads, but didn’t really know what to do when they got there. According to some recent data (ironically, posted on Twitter), usage of Threads is down more than 50% from its peak right after launch.

So, the very foundations that the digital marketing industry was built on have shifted, and it seems that the only stable ground can be found in an app that’s based out of China.

I wish I had a comforting bow to tie on this story for you that will give us all peace of mind, but the best I can offer is the following two thoughts:

1. Chaos shakes up markets, and the brands that tend to thrive are the ones that find ways to offer value and build relationships with their communities, regardless of which channels that happens on
2. None of us have this all figured out – or at least no one I’ve talked to. Over the past few weeks and months I’ve checked in with many of the marketing leaders who I respect most, and they are feeling just as overwhelmed as the rest of us.

Good luck out there, and if you somehow get it all figured out, please let us know, won’t you?

IS INSTAGRAM BROADCAST UNDERRATED?

IT COULD BE THE NEXT BIG OPPORTUNITY IN OWNED MEDIA

Especially in times of chaos, owned media rules.

For example: when we send this email, we don’t have to ask anyone’s permission. There is no algorithm that may/may not serve up our content, and the only decision maker determining whether we get to keep this relationship going is you. Owned media is a beautifully balanced relationship where the reader/listener gives their attention as long as the content is valuable enough to hold it, and the publisher gets to build those relationships as long as they have something worth sharing.

The problem has been that there are very few true owned media channels. If we’re being honest, they’re pretty much limited to email newsletter, podcasts, and maybe physical events.

Enter: IG Broadcast, a new feature that is now rolling out globally.

In a Broadcast Channel, followers can receive one-way messages from their favourite celebrity, news organization, brand, or personality. Those messages can be text, image, video, polls, and voice messages. Followers can react to posts, respond to polls, and send DMs, but they can’t post or reply in the Channel.

In a way, Broadcast Channels are a bit like a next generation of email newsletters.

Now, building an owned media channel is hard, and there’s no telling whether your audience will actually start using Broadcast Channels, but given how beneficial direct relationships can be for everyone involved, the fact that we may have another option is great news.

Read Search Engine Journal’s Broadcast explainer here

APPLE’S MAKING IT EVEN TOUGHER TO TRACK TRAFFIC

PRIVACY MAY BE A GOOD THING, BUT IT’S INCONVENIENT FOR MARKETERS

Back in 2021 Apple messed up the whole digital marketing world when they increased their privacy policies, thereby making a lot of tracking and retargeting obsolete. It looks like they’re not done.

In iOS 17, which drops later this month, Apple Messenger, Mail, and Safari in Private Mode will disable link trackers (ie. UTM codes), which will cause a loss of a lot of traffic attribution and audience building.

There has been a lot of talk that Google is going to add similar restrictions, which means that digital advertisers are going to either make serious investments in first-party data, change their expectations of digital ads, or both.

Digiday has the full story here

THE WOMEN’S WORLD CUP ADS ARE HERE

AND THEY’RE A SIGN OF A MASSIVE MARKETING OPPORTUNITY

Every year we get excited about ads for major sporting events like the Super Bowl, but what if organizations and brands invested even a fraction of those same resources into women’s sports?

Reddit founder, angel investor, and husband to Serena Williams, Alexis Ohanian recently shared a pretty simple breakdown on Bloomberg that proved there is dramatically more value and attention in women’s sports than brands are giving it credit for. In addition to some basic math, he said we are about to see “…this very uncomfortable situation because the free market has dictated that their [female athlete’s] influence is worth millions of dollars a year to brands. Not because it feels good, because it makes them money.” Watch his interview on TikTok for the full take.

Now, we’re about to see that idea in action. Brands have started to roll out their Women’s World Cup campaigns, and to say that the internet is excited would be an understatement. Here are four of the best so far:

1. Orange France (yes, it’s in French, no that won’t matter – just watch it)
2. Nike feat. Megan Rapinoe
3. Nike feat. Sophia Smith
4. Adidas feat. everyone

This feels like an obvious prediction, but I’m going to make it anyways: The 2023 Women’s World Cup is going to blow all viewership records and expectations away. Then, brands and organizations that are paying attention are going to look for the next women’s event where they can get similarly outsized returns on their investments.

In related news: The timing couldn’t be better for the launch of the first ever women’s professional hockey league, and early advertising/partnership/endorsement deals will likely never be more affordable than they are right now.

A FEW FOR THE ROAD

MORE NEWS TO KEEP YOU ON THE CUTTING EDGE

• Despite economic uncertainty, Deloitte’s Summer travel survey predicts that more people are going to be hitting the road
• YouTube is adding topic links in video descriptions that will function a lot like hashtags
• Instagram will now let you add up to three collaborators on your posts, which will be huge for brand partnerships and influencer campaigns
• Three ex-IG executives have started a new app called Retro, which is meant to be “a deeply personal photo journaling app for close friends”

Written by Conner Galway, Junction Consulting