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Instagram down – McDonald’s flooded with job applications
What a morning (in Europe). Facebook’s secret weapon was down and made headlines everywhere.
What was less expected is that at the same time McDonald’s closed all their open “burger flipper” positions across the world.
McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook spoke to the WTAFF Crew:
“The fact that Instagram went down was a Godsend – all influencers and gurus freaked out and applied to the only other job they are qualified for.
We’re glad to say McDonald’s will now be the new home of Instagram influencers!
We’ve also tried to make these influencers feel more at home at Maccy D’s. After the customer orders, they will ask “Would you like a Juno-filter photo with that?”.
Or, they say their own favourite filter, we allow them quite some freedom there.”
Unfortunately for Steve, Instagram returned online and all the influencers went back to doing what they do best – taking unrealistic pictures and peddling products they don’t know much about.
Facebook is protecting people from bullying
Most of you out there probably were victims of bullying in one way or another at one point in your life. While for us it was mostly getting our pants pulled down or a whoopee cushion getting placed on our seat in school, bullying today has different proportions.
We’re talking about bullying and harassment online. And this why Facebook is introducing new tools and programs so people can better control unwanted, offensive or hurtful experiences.
With the new feature, people can hide or delete multiple comments at once from the options menu of their post. You can also report someone on behalf of a friend or family member who is getting bullied.
There will be the option for a double check implemented. If your content has been taken down for bullying or harassment, you will have the opportunity to request another review.
And if you’ve reported a piece of content for bullying or harassment, and Facebook didn’t take it down, you’ll be able to ask for a second review.
While the idea of implementing a mechanism that protects its users from bullying sounds great we are already looking forward to a best-of compilation of the funniest false positives.
Facebook takes on Twitch with video premieres
Facebook is rolling out video Premieres that turn the launch of pre-recorded clips into live events.
Creators can schedule video releases up to a week in advance, and by doing so can create a hype ahead of the event.
There are also more features getting implemented. Top fans, a badging feature that shows a creator’s most active supporters is now available.
The idea is to recognize longtime supporters. Sounds a lot like Twitch, the only difference is that you don’t need to pay to get a Top Fan badge.
So Facebook is continuing its copy & paste strategy. But we don’t bet on seeing Ninja or PewDiePie streaming there anytime soon.
GENERAL
One Billion – not dollars, Reddit video views
Playing catchup with the other platforms, Reddit brought native video earlier this year.
And it’s been doing alright for them. The company announced they just got one billion total views on the platform’s native videos.
Is that much? Not when compared to YouTube and Facebook.
But it’s a promising start for a platform that is still growing and looking to become more engaging for users. And more appealing to advertisers.
We’ll keep tabs on other Reddit news.
Intuition vs Maths – Short explanation of Bayes’ Theorem
Numbers can be very confusing, and even more so when looking at probabilities. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the world around us is often explained by Maths.
We thought we’d bring you this recommendation because, in our performance-based marketing endeavours, we rely on numbers. And understanding them is pretty darn important.
So, here’s the intro to the topic.
Tests are not the event. For example, a cancer test is separate from the event of actually having cancer. And a test for spam is different from actually having a spam message.
Tests are flawed. Spam filters, Facebook’s AI, and well, medical tests too.
Tests give us test probabilities, not real probabilities. This is the absolute key part to understand, and we’ll continue explaining why.
We’re gonna use the example from the source article, which involves a cancer testing scenario.
1% of women have breast cancer, so 99% don’t. Mammograms detect breast cancer 80% of the time, which means in 20% they don’t.
But what if there is no cancer? Only 90.4% of cancer-free patients are tested negatively, and that leaves us with 9.6% patients who don’t have cancer but are told they have.
So, a patient gets a positive result thinking “How possible is it, that I have breast cancer?” Intuition tells the patient that there is an 80% chance they do…but the truth is less alarming.
With the Bayes theorem (we’ll spare you the math, you can check it in the article here), we can calculate that with a positive mammogram, you only have a 7.8% chance of cancer. It seems wrong, but it actually makes sense.
There is a false positive of 9.6%, so in 100 people, 10 of them won’t have cancer even if the test is positive! Only 1 will have cancer and they will most probably test positive. Given that 1 in 11 are tested positive and only 1 has breast cancer…you get the idea.
What’s the point of this? Well, for one, it paints a better picture when it comes to life-threatening illnesses.
But for the other, you should use a Bayesian A/B testing calculator when you split test ads, landers or offers.
A calculator like this one.
TOOLS
What’s a good tool for making video ads quickly?
Let’s say you want to test a bunch of video ads quickly and don’t want to polish them off in Adobe Premiere.
It means you want an app with a few key features that you can make a video “good enough” to test the overall concept.
Sooo… what are some good apps for that? Paul Jey asked this question in the Facebook Ad Buyers group.
Animoto is too basic, and the previously mentioned Premiere Pro is too complex.
Some of the recommendations that seemed more interesting are Filmora and Lumen5 but if you’re looking for something like this, check all the recommendations in the comments.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things affiliates like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
What do gummy bears, jelly beans and creme eggs have to do with spam?
Scam emails are mostly so ridiculous to the point the only people to reply are the most gullible of them all.
And James Veitch – he also decided to reply.
For several years, the comedian has spent his time replying to spam emails, attempting to waste as much of the scammers’ time as possible, and then presented some of his hilarious adventures at TED.
His first presentation tells the story of him discussing with “Solomon Odonkoh”.
The funniest part is when James asked the scammer to use code words, such as “Gummy Bear” instead of “Lawyer”, “Jelly Beans” instead of “Documents”, and “A Giant Gummy Lizard” instead of “Western Union”.
In the end, this is the email he received:
“The business is on. I am trying to raise the balance for the Gummy Bear so he can submit all the Fizzy Cola Bottle Jelly Beans to the Creme Egg for the Peanut M&M’s process to start. Send $1,500.00 via a Giant Gummy Lizard.”
The second presentation is equally hilarious.
With this one, James achieved his goal and got this reply: “PLEASE STOP EMAILING US.”
Sooo now… While it is funny unless you have a TED Talk on the topic or some other known stage, you are probably better off using your time for something else than replying to spammy scammers.
But you should check the videos if you wanna have a laugh in the middle of the week.
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