SOCIAL MEDIA
There are challenges ahead for Facebook and Snapchat
Apple’s iOS 14 tracking update is looming over the marketing industry, rearing its head like a privacy-conscious dragon, and news is continuing to surface about how it’ll affect the status quo in advertising.
Analysts at MKM partners analyzed the likely impacts of the update, sharing information with CNBC. The losers? Facebook and Snapchat. Here are the details:
- The analysts created a 7-category risk assessment. Scale, exposure to iOS devices, types of ads, and more were included in the evaluation. This framework was then applied to big tech companies to determine which were at the greatest risk.
- Among large companies, Facebook and Snapchat are most at risk. The reasoning is pretty straightforward, as both of these apps rely heavily on iOS user data.
How does this affect marketers? When analysts say the update will cause problems (up to 5% revenue problems, according to some), that means the update will negatively impact advertising on the platforms. Which, in turn, will impact your marketing campaigns.
If other platforms come out unscathed, some marketers may consider shifting budgets around as everyone adjusts to the new normal of user privacy on iOS.
MARKETING
The brilliant marketing behind the MrBeast Burger
Unless you’ve been hiding under the largest rock on the planet, you know who Jimmy Donaldson is. Or, rather, you know him by his YouTube alias: MrBeast.
He’s a master of viral content and creates some of the most extravagant videos on the platform. A few weeks ago, he did something even crazier. Jimmy launched a virtual burger chain with 300 locations across the country, announced in a single tweet. Here’s some of the marketing genius behind it:
- On the day of the launch, Jimmy posted a viral video to the MrBeast channel. It was titled ‘I Opened A Restaurant That Pays You To Eat At It’, and it racked up tens of millions of views. The video featured one of his MrBeast restaurants, where he was handing out cash and giving away burgers.
- That same day, the MrBeast Burger chain was announced. With hype and attention already built up from his video, Jimmy chose the perfect time to announce his fast food chain, which charges about $7 for a burger.
- It’s still going strong. In an interview a few days after the launch, one of the chefs mentioned that his location had sold $7k of burgers in a day, and was expecting to sell even more in the following days. Multiply that by 300, and you’ve got a lot of money.
It’s an inspiring marketing story, even if you’re not planning to launch a massive burger chain in the next few weeks. Love or hate MrBeast, it’s hard to argue that he knows how to market his products.
SPONSORED BY FLIPPA
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SEO
How to create SEO-friendly Web Stories and boost your traffic by 504%
Stories have been the most popular social media format of 2020. After Instagram borrowed it from Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and others took part as well.
Google also joined the trend recently with Web Stories.
While Web Stories don’t enjoy the same popularity as Instagram Stories, SEOs can utilize this format to get more traffic. And in this blog post, Andrea Volpini explains how he used Web Stories to boost the traffic of WordLift by 504%.
How can you achieve similar results? Here’s what Andrea suggests:
- Create a Web Story for your top ranking articles. A Web Story is to a blog post what a trailer is to a movie. A short, easy to consume piece of content that uses visual, slideshow-like content to summarize the article.
- Use jump links to connect the story to the key passages of the article. The goal is to drive the reader where they find the highest value for the content. In practice, this means creating a direct link from every frame of your Story to your article’s relevant section.
- Add numbers to each step of the Web Story to help users understand the position and increase the content scannability.
- Cover one topic from multiple angles. You want to feed the Google News AI with content that brings various perspectives on the given topic. In this way, you can capture different segments of the interested audience.
- Use videos and animation to condense the complex content into short sequences.
- Let Google index your story. Here Andrea Volpini suggests adding direct links to the Web Story from its related article, a dedicated sitemap for Web Stories, a navigation link, and to link your story to one another.
- Mind the E-A-T principles (expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness). In Web Stories, this translates to being authentic, adding a reference to the publishing date, allowing users to contact you, and as Google suggests, you should “be the protagonist of your own story”.
Stories are definitely challenging for SEOs as they have to go outside their comfort zone and start thinking in terms of images and videos, rather than written content.
But if the results are 5x more traffic like WordLift experienced, why not?
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
TWITTER: The new audio project from Twitter, called Spaces, announced yesterday that more updates are coming in the next few weeks for early access users.
SEO: Here’s a good breakdown of John Mueller’s recent SEO advice for 2020, if you’re looking to capitalize this year!
GOOGLE: Kids need a little homework practice? Google’s starting to test practice homework problems in Search, a fun feature that could evolve to something bigger.
LINKEDIN: If you want to comment and like with a company page on LinkedIn, this handy plugin is what you need. And, a hint to LinkedIn: Add this functionality to the platform!
GOOGLE: Looking for content ideas? Question Hub, which just launched for U.S. publishers, can help you figure out where there are gaps in content on the SERPs.
BRAIN TEASER
You get me when you park in a place off limits.
I live in a swamp, and I’m the one who ribbits.
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
Decisions, decisions
Three major streaming platforms surfaced in 2020: Quibi, Peacock, and HBO Max.
Of the three, only two remain, Quibi having fallen apart quickly after its launch.
HBO Max is doing well, with all eight Game of Thrones seasons and new Warner Brothers movies to keep it chugging along.
So how are things going for Peacock? Well, it hasn’t gone away yet – and news recently dropped that the streaming platform was taking The Office from Netflix. Which, inevitably, drew the interest of diehard Office fans.
Apparently, it drew so much interest that Peacock decided to base their entire pricing strategy on how much of The Office you’ll be allowed to watch. Yes, really:
- The free option from Peacock includes season 1 and 2 of The Office.
- The $4.99 per month option includes all seasons, plus exclusive bonus content.
- The $9.99 per month option includes all of the above, just without ads.
If you want to see it for yourself, check out Peacock’s landing page. How do you feel about the emphasis on The Office?
And, if you’re a diehard fan… Is it worth the price?