Hot N Cold
There are two pieces of news for Google, both coming from the EU.
The hot news: The European Court of Justice just ruled that YouTube (and other online platforms) shouldn’t be held liable for copyright infringement in some cases.
They still have to delete it “expeditiously”, so creating systems to detect it, then actually blocking or deleting it is still necessary.
This ruling doesn’t only affect YouTube but other content platforms such as Twitch and even Facebook are affected, in a (mostly) good way.
And the cold? It’s also coming from the EU, who opened an antitrust probe into Google’s advertising unit.
While this might be bad news for Google, it could be good news for the ecosystem as a whole, with more competition.
Don’t hold your breath, this will take a while…
TIKTOK
It’s the trendsetter in more ways than one
Other social media apps are copying its features, we already know that.
But there’s another way TikTok is setting trends.
It turns out that retailers are actually monitoring the social network to see what will be trending next so they know what will be hot for them to sell.
TikTok’s growth was around 87% in the US since the pandemic, so its importance (and impact) has skyrocketed. We should know, we’ve been like a broken record about it…
They aren’t resting on their laurels: There’s also a new feature called “Jump” that TikTok released. This allows creators to use mini-apps with videos they post.
How it works: You can include a link to show certain information like stats, ingredients, a Wikipedia article, or a quiz. So far, TikTok has partnered with Whisk, Breathwrk, Wikipedia, Quizlet, StatMuse, and Tabelog for integrations – but you can expect more in the future.
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“I love it when my bank wastes my money”
… said no one ever!
Yet many businesses are wasting time and money dealing with obsolete banking systems and using banks that have absolutely no idea what an online business needs.
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- With a Truly Financial checking account, you can easily receive payments through ACH and wire transfer. You can also connect Stripe, Amazon, or any other payment gateway.
- Accept credit card payments, and receive and hold funds in 32 currencies without being forced to pay currency conversion costs.
- Pay suppliers or service providers in the U.S. and internationally. All you need is their email or phone number.
- Streamline expenses: Ship Visa cards to your employees in any country for free. And manage your company expenses with built-in spending controls.
- Make international transfers in local currency while keeping fees to an absolute minimum.
All these features turn into a significant amount of money saved, and way less headache too. And now the cherry on top…
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How to write a Twitter bio that makes people follow you
Think of Twitter bios like headline copy on landing pages. Your bio is the first thing people see when they decide whether or not to follow you.
Why they’re important: When you share an amazing tweet that gets good reach, you want to make sure that people who land on your profile start following you.
Your bio plays a huge role in how many people follow you. Blake Emal has been able to optimize his bio to increase the conversion rate from 1% to 17%. The conversion rate here means the number of people that followed him out of the total number of people that visited his profile.
Fortunately for all of us common folk with lame bios, he shared a pile of tips on how to craft a high converting bio:
- Start with credibility and social proof: Communicate why people should follow you. Let your body of work and achievements talk a bit for you.
- Be specific and extremely clear when you explain what you do. Nobody wants to spend an extra 30 seconds guessing what you do.
- Position yourself as an expert in a field: Should pèeople follow you because you know everything about email marketing? Or are you an e-commerce expert? Having a keyword in your bio can help you get discovered and be memorable.
- Be funny and relatable, and show it in your bio.
- People don’t follow you because of you. They follow you because of how you can help them. Tell them up front.
- Don’t sell your content, sell the transformation your content can generate in people. Or the goal you can help them achieve.
- Give away something in your bio such as a template, an ebook, a report.
- Have a clear specific CTA.
- Be controversial: When you’re polarizing, a lot of people will dislike you. But you’ll draw in serious fans.
These are probably half of all the tips Blake Emal shared, and, the best part is that he shared an example for each one of these pieces of advice. Give this thread a look!C
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
FROM THE CREW: Join us with Chase Dimond today live on Twitter Spaces discussing the recent changes announced for Apple Mail. We’ll be talking about what adjustments marketers have to make to keep email a high-performing channel.
ADVERTISING: Curious how that iOS 14.5 (and above) adoption curve is going? As expected.
AFFILIATE MARKETING: Shopify seems to be getting into the affiliate marketing space as well, competing with Amazon’s Associates program.
E-COMMERCE: Facebook is adding Shops everywhere. No, really… Marketplace, Instagram’s Visual Search and *drum roll* WhatsApp. And they’re also adding reviews to Shops, Shopping Ads and AR shopping features. Thanks Mark, that’s a lot of good stuff!
ADVERTISING: Ad spend in the US grew over 50% in May 2021 compared to May 2020. Big jump but last May was one where ad budgets were some of the lowest in a long time.
SEARCH: This is brave of them… Brave Search is launching worldwide in public beta to try and compete against Google.
BRAIN TEASER
I am never the first to speak but always the last to be heard. What am I?
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.
NASA wants to grow food on Mars (and the Moon)
You know what’s cooler than exploring Mars? Growing food on it.
NASA and the German space agency are doing research into farming on Mars.
This goes well with Elon Musk’s vision of living on Mars. If we want to live on the Red Planet, we need to learn to grow food there as well.
A serious business: NASA already has a few innovations that revolutionized the agriculture business, including vertical farming, which is now a multi-billion dollar business.
The CNBC article goes into more technical detail on how NASA plans to do this. For us, we can’t wait to get our MacMars (with fries).