Pod S9 Ep2 - This Month In The World of Marketing
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[00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm Pip from C more Digital Media. You're listening to Know How Marketing Lab podcast. This podcast brings together different experts in marketing from our Facebook group, Cyberpunk Geeks Marketing Mixer. Each week we get on here and we talk about something, search marketing like Google ads or SEO, social media marketing from Facebook to TikTok or website marketing.
[00:00:23] If you're a aspiring marketer, a business owner or entrepreneur, this Podcast for you. We're going to share the best SEO search, social and website strategies. We share tips and hacks, Google ad strategies, what's going on in the current market. Each week we discuss something exciting and awesome in marketing.
[00:00:46] And today we are going to be covering what in the month of what is happening in the world of marketing this month. I almost stumbled and completely fumbled the ball there, but I didn't. I've saved it the last second. So I'm gonna take that. And my name is [00:01:00] Phelan. I'm with Seymour Digital Media. And I'm Reena from Littleworks Indie Media.
[00:01:05] And I'm Greg with Original72 Creative. Okay, awesome. And so today I'm sure everyone is aware that there's been quite a bit of news, especially in regards to the social media space. And we are going to probably dedicate the majority of the time, but I wanted to get a couple of little odds and ends out at the start.
[00:01:24] So one that just got announced today that I'm very excited about is Google ads is getting a complete overhaul of reporting and abilities to do tracking inside of a performance max campaign. Because if anyone has ever set up a performance max campaign, it basically is like. They felt so jealous of Facebook ads and how little control you had over what you could do with them that they're like, Hey, why don't we replicate that with Google ads?
[00:01:47] And so now, but now they've had such a clamor that it's now they're going to open it up. You're going to be able to do cool stuff like only use. So before they would either you, you tell them expressly what [00:02:00] Pages to use or none like you say use this page. That's the only page you can use and now you can just do any page that contains blah, blah, blah, so really good for products like shirts.
[00:02:11] Like say I'm doing like only in this campaign, the shirts campaign. I want to have only the shirts and have that and then also exclude other things. So there's going to be a lot more Control provided that they actually implement everything that they say in their blog post. So I am excited because it's yeah.
[00:02:28] It's very limited in what you can do right now, and so I think that's going to be very exciting. Well, it's, it's, it's good because, you know, if you run a lot of Google Ads, you're like, I'm used to having like, in like a basically like an airplane cockpit of like dials and controls that I can maneuver whichever way.
[00:02:47] Totally. I was actually giggling at your pronunciation of exciting because it reminded me of ick citing, which is kind of where the social media space is right now. Oh yeah, you know, it's, it's definitely is that. So Rita, [00:03:00] do, where do we Do you want me to just jump in? And you guys can just jump in when you feel like it.
[00:03:05] But oh my goodness, the change of government has changed almost everything. All the things on social media. So we've got a bunch of stuff. I just want to clarify. We had a 12 hour Tik TOK ban for America, which was a bit of a surprise. It happened earlier than it was supposed to. And creators were put back on.
[00:03:23] We have to look at it from a business perspective in terms of not their business, because we're actually more concerned with our businesses. So how businesses work on it. What the influences are thinking and doing. Are they staying? Are they going? A lot of them went to red. What was the word that I read?
[00:03:40] No, they all, a lot of them went to red. No. So it'll be interesting to see if they actually come back in full force. I think there's a lot of irritation on the app. A lot of people not happy. There was also this giant rumor that went totally viral that show Chu the CEO of TikTok had removed the CEO port title on [00:04:00] his.
[00:04:00] But when I looked into it, he never ever had it. So, there was all this stuff, is he the CO, is he not the CO? But he has actually confirmed that himself on his channel. I saw that this morning, pretty happy about that. And then I guess what's happening is that there's this entire Time time limit that Trump has given so that there could be another that he's extended the American buyer ability.
[00:04:24] So right now we've got a bunch of people early this morning. I saw that Frank McCourt from project Liberty consortium is looking to buy. They've put it in an offer. YouTuber McBeast Elon Musk and Oracle chairman, Larry. Ellison, I guess. Yeah, they're the ones that have sort of put things forward that I can find in the news.
[00:04:48] So Larry Ellison was actually in the Trump's first term, was the person slated to do it. So he's the gentleman that runs Oracle. He's the fourth or fifth richest person on the planet. And Mr. [00:05:00] Beast. Tweeted that he was talking to billionaires and he was going to buy it, but nothing's come out of that part.
[00:05:05] He actually put, put in an applica he, he actually put in a, a, a proposal. Oh, he actually did go through with it. Yeah, and It was a tweet was the last thing I'd seen. Yeah, no, he, he was yeah so yeah, he's tweeted, or he said in his, in the article that he has put forward a proposal that he was writing on his private jet.
[00:05:25] So, you know, it's about that kind of vibe. Kevin O'Leary also, I think, was putting in, or talking about wanting to try to write, yeah. I had heard about that. I'm not sure how, like, grounded in In real things that was he was just kind of talking but Frank McCourt was the most interesting with this Liberty project Liberty consortium because he basically It's fine sharing the ownership and as long as it's hosted on tech developed by his nonprofit.
[00:05:56] So I found that kind of an interesting caveat [00:06:00] and You missed one other person that was, which was from the Chinese government that suggested Elon Musk take over. Oh, right. But take over or own it? Because there are two things that are, those are two separate things. So it was own it, like it would be become the, so because bite dance, which is the Chinese parent company is it's at the whim of the Chinese government, right?
[00:06:27] Because they're in control of actually like the final say it's not different than like the FTC saying like, no, you can't have a merger similar concept, but it was at the discretion. And since Elon Musk is very tied to the Chinese government because he makes Tesla's there and he sells it in the largest market, China, he was very, he like.
[00:06:45] It wasn't so ByteDance said it was a fantasy, but really it's at the discretion and no one really knows, like, it's one of those ones, it's all chaos, like, it's like, no one really knows what's going to happen. Yeah, so I was pretty interested to see that Xiao [00:07:00] Chu was actually He was he's sort of putting out there not very many details, but that he's willing to work with anybody He's also put out the little statement that talks about how he's happy that Trump is trying to help him keep the app in America which was I guess it's a little PR.
[00:07:18] It's a little PR piece and And so because of this, you know, everyone's sort of scattered and trying to figure out what is the next app, like where, where are all the people going, where are the influencers going anyways, and so there was a, initially a surge on meta of more users right before the ban.
[00:07:38] And then there was some issues that came up due to the government change on meta also that. Put a real sour taste in people's mouths in terms of the users, not necessarily the influencers. So, I mean, we already know that on Instagram, it's, it's really hard to get influencers don't like it because it's really hard to get their [00:08:00] content to come up because there's just so much ads in the, in the.
[00:08:03] feed. Let's see if I can bite the feed that goes down. What I know is that there are a lot of people that are actually swiping stories. This is what I hear a lot of the young people are doing. They're actually swiping stories and there's much less advertisement in that space. So I'm looking at that and the numbers reflect that.
[00:08:19] So my stories are going out to more people who are not my current followers. And that's what I like. I'm looking for greater reach to grow my community. So that's one thing. There has been, I guess a little bit, a little bit of extra usage on Pinterest. That's ad space. So ads have basically gone back to meta.
[00:08:39] They've gone to Pinterest and they've gone to Google. And but users have gone sort of back to meta and also to red, red I've done it again, red note. Thank you. And and then there, the influencers are really also going back to YouTube. So it seems that YouTube has been the [00:09:00] equivalent for the influencers.
[00:09:01] They're starting to build out their, their content on YouTube. So I'm sort of in this. I think there are probably a lot of people out there watching this for our clients, our people, our connect connections, our community, we're sort of trying to figure out, okay, where do we advertise, where do we put our organic content and how do we manage all of this change while we're still waiting to see how it, you know, settles and what, what happens.
[00:09:27] So so I haven't made any big changes in my social other than, because the ads are still performing fairly decently, quite, quite well. And I never really did a lot of content on, you know, Instagram versus. It was going to both platforms. So I'm still sending that content to both platforms. I have increased my stories and then I'm also, I'm going to take a look at, we've also put our reels up on YouTube too.
[00:09:53] So I'm going to look at how to optimize my reels better on YouTube for, for [00:10:00] that to, to try and, you know, Scoop up some of those those viewers and then they're okay. So that's, that's that. And that's one bucket. And then I wanted to also mention another one that I've heard people are, because everybody, you know, leading up to the band on Tik TOK was saying like, follow me on this, follow me on that, where they were, where you could consume their content, if the band, you know.
[00:10:28] Was finalized and I heard one where a bunch were saying substack and I didn't hear about, didn't know about substack and so that one looks interesting because it is geared towards people creating communities and, and writers creating and content creators putting out their, their stuff.
[00:10:48] And then also the bigger one, I think was just. Follow me on, on my YouTube channel. So I think a lot of people were, were trying to get, because it's video content [00:11:00] over to YouTube, you know, I think one of the better things about Substack and that was sort of like one of the areas that I was going into is that a lot of the creators are also just reinvigorating their email lists as a space.
[00:11:13] So it's not really social media, but there was a real push to get in touch so that you could actually access your, your Your community afterwards, because if you get pushed off of tick tock or any of these apps by having your account closed, you have no access. And so I think that there was a big push for, for people to sign up on, on newsletter lists, which was pretty interesting.
[00:11:35] Although it's not quite, it doesn't function the same as it doesn't give me the same dopamine hit that I, I love when I scroll. So I'm not sure that that's an alternate, but it's definitely one thing, one thing to consider and to make sure that you've got in your marketing mix. I was also going to say one thing about that as well, that there's been interesting comparisons on say you're an influencer and the ad revenue that you get from each platform.
[00:11:57] So far the best payouts have been through [00:12:00] YouTube shorts of the short form video. Because YouTube is trying to hype it, they're trying to pay more people out so that they produce YouTube shorts. Because they were, they had basically a fork in the road, and they chose either YouTube Live or YouTube Shorts, and they chose to go with the Shorts and there's, yeah, there's some interesting comparisons on like ad revenue compared to even like Twitch, to putting like video long form videos, or like having a video segment on your Twitch account that people can see anytime it's just pales in comparison to what YouTube's doing right now.
[00:12:34] Yeah, so a couple of other things that happened out of this was the, it was very quiet on, on YouTube, which actually there was this really interesting, for the Canadians out there, Canadian push. Of content and a lot of the Canadian influencers were actually given the opportunity to grow their their follow base.
[00:12:54] Some of them were saying like a thousand people in 12 hours. That's actually pretty good, you know? So [00:13:00] so that was kind of a nice little thing and it just sort of Brought up the whole conversation about CanCon that I saw that also come up in, in a tick tock, like, why is that important? And some people were obviously dead against it.
[00:13:14] I think a lot of young people don't really understand the concept, but in terms of how it worked on TV and how it works in in Yeah, and and why, why it actually helps to bring up those influencers and interestingly enough, there were Canadians that were complaining and they were influencers that didn't really have a very big following.
[00:13:32] So I thought that was pretty ironic. The second thing that came up is Let me see here. Oh, yes, the meta turned off. So this is another result of the government changeover meta turning off its misinformation control. So it's no longer doing the same kind of moderating that it was doing for specifically misinformation.
[00:13:52] So I wanted to talk about that really specifically, because people didn't really seem to understand what that meant. Other than your you know, what, you know, [00:14:00] What is misinformation? The fact checking ended, but it really was just not just, but because that was not, it's not a just sorry, a piece of software that they were using to to do this moderating has been turned off.
[00:14:13] That's how they described it in a longer form. Article that I found and we've replaced it or they've replaced it with community notes, which is quite similar to Twitter I guess but the one thing that is key for people which is kind of interesting is that Community notes is not going to actually sorry, not that that's not what I was saying.
[00:14:36] Sorry. It's not going to actually affect any kind of paid content. So if you want to get around the misinformation issue and avoid the community notes, you just have to turn your ads on. And run a, you know, an engagement on that piece. So we are going to probably get a lot of stuff that we're not going to like, I'm hoping that the echo chamber is going to stay nice.
[00:14:56] So they don't have to see any of the, you know, pizza gate [00:15:00] stuff and all that weirdo stuff that was coming up for a while there. I suspect that they are going to be opening themselves up because there's the, they're under section two 30 is what makes the internet work. Especially social media where basically you're not liable.
[00:15:16] It's so complicated because it's, it's, it's, it's supposed to be what it was meant for was when they wrote it was for forums is that I host a forum and I'm not liable for what's said on the forum by other people, but I'm not going to edit that because if you edit anything that they say, then you are doing, then you're editing content now you're, you're creating editorial content.
[00:15:36] And so if you're just a host of this content, as long as it doesn't break any like explicit laws, then you're okay. Right, but here's the thing. The laws have changed in the United States. So they've actually removed the the laws about dehumanizing speech about transgender people and immigrants and and they've killed the diversity and equity inclusion program.
[00:15:56] So basically, I'm interested to see what's going to [00:16:00] happen in the U. S. compared to Canada because we still have laws in Canada, right? So is there going to be any liability over, over this for Canadians? Just like how the Canadians had sued for advertising issues previously there was a big law lawsuit.
[00:16:16] You know, I mean, what happens when somebody is bullied to death again? We're going to have to Go through this whole thing all over again. And who is responsible for that when someone is bullied. So I'm not sure what this is going to be. I'm not looking forward to it at all. I'm hoping that my echo chamber follows me very closely and it doesn't change that much, but I think that if you're in the wrong space, it's not going to be very pleasant, you know?
[00:16:41] It's well, it's going to be, it's, I think that it's just too much instability right now for anyone to say with a clear idea that we know what's going to happen. So I, I'm hoping that whoever's looking at this, if you've got a different experience in your echo chamber and you've seen some notes community standard notes or whatever the community notes, [00:17:00] whatever they're calling them.
[00:17:01] It, can you screen cap them and share them? Cause I'd like to see what they look like and how it works. I have yet to see one in Facebook. So that's, so that is those are the overarches. I'll put a whole, but I have got a whole pile of articles So I will put a whole pile of articles for people to actually look if there was one thing that we talked about that you're Interested in finding out where I found this information Happy to provide that and and the news kind of shifted really quickly.
[00:17:28] So some of these Articles that I have I'm not actually talking about because it's already moved to the next to the next and then the one thing that I did want to point out that is sort of like a nice little thing Google ads, chat sorry, Google is adding chat to the U. S. business listing pages.
[00:17:44] So that'll be fun to, to see how that works. So it almost feels like Google business listings is trying to think about its potential for social, like to be more social, like become the old Google plus maybe. I don't know. But but yeah, so they'll [00:18:00] be able to reach you directly. And it's weird because they got rid of messages not that long ago.
[00:18:04] We were able to get messages and they took that out. So I'm not sure what only a Canadian thing. I don't know. That they then removed? Yeah, I don't know. Because that used to be available for us, for most Canadian businesses. I just assumed if we had it, they probably had it in the States, but maybe No, they do a lot of They do a lot of test marketing in Canadian places without America because it's just so, so much bigger with a bigger population so they can do smaller areas with smaller people.
[00:18:37] I've seen that before. So there are things that we get first. So my, my understanding from how Facebook releases features having heard it from like one of their chief Senior developers, as they, they actually take a random assortment of 10 percent of the global population doesn't matter where you are, and just 10 percent of people will get a feature or remove, and then they'll take those results in and [00:19:00] see how people react and then expand that out further.
[00:19:02] So yeah, they're always constantly pushing out a thing and then pulling it back and then we're going to do it. And then they get those results and make determinations. Yeah. And I realized I just missed one little piece. So while I had said that the influencers were not that interested in going back to Instagram because of the ad saturation there was this piece of information that went out in ads week that talked about how the data showing that reels on Facebook and Instagram have surged in this first quarter compared to previous years, probably as a result of trying to pick up that.
[00:19:37] That the influencers back into Instagram off of tick top. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that, yeah, right now it's just, everyone's kind of figuring out where the new place to be is. And I think that it's just, it's yeah, there's just. Like I said before, it's too much instability to be like, Oh, this is obviously the, yeah, I'm [00:20:00] not making any fast, fast decisions.
[00:20:02] That's for sure for my clients. But the other thing that you can do, if you're very unhappy with meta, which a lot of people are, a lot of people in my, my circles are really upset. You can turn your data collection off. So if you still want to be there and just, and, and give them the old, you know.
[00:20:19] What for turn your data off. Yeah, especially if you're on an iPhone, it's super easy on an iPhone. That was something I came across just in the last day or two, and I'm trying to find out more about it and I haven't really determined. Whether any of it was true or not, but I had heard that there was potentially a new app called Skylight either coming or.
[00:20:47] Or maybe it's in beta for some people. And the reason why I came across it was because someone was saying if you're on blue sky, anything, because the blue [00:21:00] sky code base and this new, this other new platform, which they called skylight. We're on the same sort of platforms. Anything that you posted on BlueSky also was posted to Skylight.
[00:21:15] And I'm trying to, I'm trying to look into a little bit more information on this Skylight app. And I haven't really found anything concrete. Do you guys hear anything along those lines? No, I haven't heard that, but I will be looking into that soon. I'm already Googling it as you speak. It seems that there are some people talking about it on on TikTok.
[00:21:41] So it looks like it's It is growing quite quickly, but mind you, both of the videos come from one person. So there may be an affiliate link involved but I don't see exactly like, you know, it doesn't actually come up to the top of my it's not first in the, it's not first in [00:22:00] the in the Google listings.
[00:22:01] Sorry. I can't look and. Speak at the same time. So anyways, I saw something about it and I've been trying in some spare time to look into it and find out if what I saw was, was true because I do like blue sky much better than. Instagram or X Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. And I would never call it x . Yeah. If it's, if it's a platform that allows you to you know, sync with other yeah.
[00:22:33] Other social media accounts using similar code bases, then you know, that would be convenient. Totally. And that's, I'm looking at automating some of this stuff in the meantime, so that I can actually get my business on, you know, I'm keeping mine on Twitter for the moment, just because I have SAS, a SAS client, but and also some of these updates, the best updates that I saw on the changes for [00:23:00] TikTok and, and all of that.
[00:23:01] We're journalists on Twitter on X, so I don't really want to leave there yet because they're still doing some good work up there in very small bubbles. But I do want to get this similar content onto blue sky. So I'm looking at automations and I think I'm going to start using more automations to try and sort of hedge my bets until something lands in the same way that, you know, the mass mass tipping point hits, and then I'll be able to really just make a good decision.
[00:23:30] Yeah, yeah, I would say the skylight as well. It looks like they're trying to be a tick tock alternative I found their account And they said they're a proto Skylight is supposed to be something that would be a replacement to tick tock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah But it's less because like about blue sky is like more because it's made by Jack Dorsey It's like an alternative to Twitter.
[00:23:55] And so I Yes I haven't found [00:24:00] anything specifically about like what you post on there goes on the other one. That's not well, there was something what I had read was something about the Like behind the scenes code or framework that it's all on they were on, they were, they had some similar framework that they were being built on, which allowed for the ability to, if you post on one, it goes on the other as well.
[00:24:31] Yeah. Again, it's something I just came across and I didn't research enough to, but, but it seemed like it was something that was interesting to, to follow up and learn more about. Fair. Yeah, I get that. Okay, so they're Blue Sky is built on React Native, which is a a way you can build mobile apps.
[00:24:49] That's all in React. And it's, it's conducive to both systems. It's a smart way to go if you're going to build an app. So they're probably, yeah, similar backends. One other one I think we should talk [00:25:00] about as well is the announcement of the AI megaproject, right? Because Three Mile Island is coming online next month.
[00:25:10] So the famous nuclear reactor that melted down in the mid 80s. It had two of the turbines melted down. One of them has been in disuse, and it's now coming online specifically to help Microsoft with their AI. So, I'm sure that's the tip of the spear for doing an energy megaproject that they're going to be wanting to build.
[00:25:27] It's going to be, so, it may even be dead on arrival because Elon Musk is suing Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, because Elon Musk used to be part of OpenAI. was unceremoniously kicked out and so he was upset. And so I'm going to guess that there's going to be some behind the scenes infighting and cattiness going on.
[00:25:48] And I'm going to guess that the project, I mean, it's like everything else we've said today, it's unclear what the, if it's going to go through because. We just don't know. There's just a [00:26:00] lot of, a lot of variables that are going into all of this that no one knows exactly how it's going to shake out once all the dust settles.
[00:26:08] Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that is pretty interesting and it will be interesting to see how all the relationships play out. You're right, because that's sort of what it is. And it's actually quite funny watching them in this sort of new phase where they're, everyone feels a little bit trepidatious in their dealings with everything and what they're saying online and all that stuff, like in terms of the The big players.
[00:26:35] I'm not talking about the influencers. The influencers are right in there saying how, how it is for them. But the people that are looking at purchasing the people that are, that are the head of the, the platforms, they're all, they're all just, they've all got an air of. If I make the wrong move, everything's going to be ruined.
[00:26:53] Yeah, as well. There's a couple of things, especially in the AI field that AI is moving super quickly, but, and the [00:27:00] law is slow to catch up to them. But there's a mouse in Florida that would very much like to might stomp out AI. Because, you know, Mickey Mouse, right? Like Disney is their entire brand is built on I have intellectual property and I will sue you into out of existence and actually that's, yeah, you're, that's actually quite hilarious because because Disney is aggressive with its lawsuits for sure in that realm, they do have Yeah, they have the money, they have the motivation, they have the lawyers that are really good.
[00:27:32] So Disney's gonna save us . Well, but that's the thing. It's, I don't like, that's, that's the one thing that will destroy AI is any basic lawsuit of, Hey, how'd you get your training data? And they go. 'cause every time they've asked them, they they stymied and they kind of like really sweaty and said don't ask.
[00:27:47] 'cause like they did stuff like scrape all YouTube to make video content. Yeah. Like they've done Yeah. So they've been pretty aggressive about getting this information that one strong lawsuit and this whole thing could like [00:28:00] there's no legal AI, especially for generative AI is an obfuscation tool because it's already been determined in the courts that anything generated by AI cannot be copywritten.
[00:28:10] Because there's no clear creator but the other, the flip side of it is where did you get the training data and open AI is, that's the reason why they ran to Microsoft is because Microsoft has really good lawyers too. So it would be Microsoft versus Disney in this fight and so who knows how it's going to shake out.
[00:28:26] Anyway fun, fun times ahead for everyone. It's, it's. Yeah, cause we have just hit 30 minutes. And so I think we're going to wrap it up there. It's yeah, 2025 is going to be an interesting year. I think we're all in agreement that it's I think by the end of this year, it's going to be completely different than the way we started it.
[00:28:47] That's the only thing I'm guaranteed. Our annual wrap up is going to be. The, you know, the best, yeah, me, red eyed from crying all year. Anyway, [00:29:00] it's going to be a good year. It's just, it's just going to be whatever it's going to be different by the end of this year. That's the only thing I do know for sure.
[00:29:07] Anyway we'll sign off here. My name is Phelan. Oh, Reina, see you next week. And I'm Greg and next week by for the topic, we're looking at how to optimize your local listings for more traffic. So Reena and Pip. That's gonna be with Pip and Reena. Yeah. Yeah. So you can join us wherever you're watching this now.
[00:29:31] See you next week.
