Algorithms > Friends
It looks like Instagram users prefer strangers’ posts recommended by an algorithm over posts by their friends.
This is the main reason why the social network is launching a new test, where “suggested” posts will be mixed in with posts from people you follow. Algorithmic posts will even appear first in your feed.
Why this matters (a lot): Throughout history, Instagram and Facebook always preferred friends’ over strangers’ posts. This is the start of a major shift in which Instagram is trying to become more like TikTok, where posts you see can be from anyone.
The Crew’s take: People are accustomed to being recommended random content. It happens all the time with TikTok and YouTube – but if Instagram and Facebook follow the trend, we could see a shakeup in how the social media game is played.
Google’s finally done (for now)
“This spam update will conclude today.”
This was Google Search Liaisons’ most recent tweet, which announced the Google update that started and ended today.
The reactions: Barry Schwartz, a Google analyst who has been following the company for over a decade, put it nicely:
“Google can’t win. If we see updates and they don’t confirm it, we complain. If they confirm updates, we complain they are updating too much.”
But can you win in this update? And how? Google is sticking to their standard advice to follow their best practices outlined on their webmasters page. Or, in our translation: “don’t try to fool us, follow the rules and you’ll be rewarded”.
SPONSORED BY AFFILIATE SUMMIT
No cookies? This “invisible-to-browsers” conversion tracking system will save e-commerce and affiliate marketing
iOS14 and Google phasing out cookies in 2022 is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
Affiliate Summit interviewed different experts from world-leading e-commerce companies, affiliate networks, and publishers. And apparently, with European and American regulators becoming more and more sensitive to how data is acquired and used, this is just the beginning.
But there are workarounds.
Affiliate Summit spoke with experts at Partnerize, Impact, Awin, CJ Affiliate, and Rakuten Advertising to understand how they’re getting ready to win in the cookieless future.
They gathered everything in this report that you can download here.
And here’s a tease of what you’ll find in it:
- The 3 types of tracking methods networks use in a “cookieless” world.
- How to ensure a streamlined user experience without tracking in-browser.
- The future of conversion tracking that’s invisible to browsers.
- How multi-touch attribution creates transparency in the buyer journey and value for publishers.
Discover how e-commerce stores and affiliates will survive the death of tracking.
COPYWRITING
10 writing tips by the “Father of Advertising”
“At 60 miles an hour the loudest noise in the new Rolls-Royce comes from the electric clock”
Every marketer worthy of the title recognizes this famous Rolls Royce ad written by David Ogilvy, considered by many to be the father of advertising.
Dickie Bush shared ten writing tips coming from an internal memo that David Ogilvy gave to the employees of his advertising agency titled “How to write.”
According to Dickie, Ogilvy put together a masterclass in good writing with just 10 bullets.
Here are some of Ogilvy’s tips, plus our thoughts:
- Read the Roman-Raphelson book on writing. Three times.
- Write the way you talk. You don’t need to find your inner voice. You already have your own voice. Record yourself talking about what you want to write. Then transcribe it. Right there, that’s your inner voice.
- Use short words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. Do you ever cringe when you receive an email with a scary wall of text? And what about those sentences that are so long that leave you without breath? Cut out the noise. The easiest way to do it is by reading your text out of loud. If you get caught up, you must simplify something.
- Avoid complex jargon like “reconceptualized, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally.”
- Never write more than two pages on a subject. In modern days, to Dickie Bush this means never publish more than two pages on any subject. 99% of books should be blog posts. And 99% of blog posts should be tweets.
- Check your quotations.
- Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. This means never publish a blog, a sales page, or an email the day you write it. Read it aloud the day after with fresh eyes and a different perspective.
- Get other people to review your piece before publishing it. Four eyes are better than two. Here at Stacked Marketer, our newsletter goes through five people before being sent. And we still make mistakes.
- Before you send your letter, make sure it’s crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
- If you want action, don’t write. Go and talk in person. Well, this isn’t really possible if you’re an online marketer. But there’s a lesson if you sell high-ticket products: Calling prospects can close sales that wouldn’t otherwise happen.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
COPYWRITING: How a single word can break up your whole headline. It’s that time of the week. Joe Cunningham broke down an ad from Athletic Greens. Get some copy-juice injected into your brain.
YOUTUBE: Pay attention to this if you’re hosting unlisted videos on YouTube – the company will make unlisted videos uploaded before January 1, 2017, private beginning next month.
PINTEREST: Are you an Emerging Entrepreneur? How about an Eco Evangelist? Pinterest has done the research and identified several personas that emerged as a result of the pandemic.
ADVERTISING: Latest Flurry data coming in. Now, 26 percent of Apple’s users consent to tracking on iOS 14.
SNAPCHAT: You’re missing out if you’re not using 6-second non-skippable ads, according to Snapchat.
TWITTER: What are the major events taking place this summer? Twitter has just published a report with the answer.
TIKTOK: Meet TikTok’s nemesis in China, Kuaishou. Oh, and they’ve just hit 1 billion monthly users.
SEARCH: After the EU got Google to list alternative search engines on Android in Europe, we keep seeing new search engines pop up. The latest one is by Sridhar Ramaswamy, the former head of Google Ads.
BRAIN TEASER
What can you add to the word “one” to make it go away?
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.
Here’s another reason to tell your boss you can work less: Microsoft
Working less isn’t just for the lazy. It’s for the productive as well.
This is coming from a study done by Microsoft Japan, where a 4-day workweek increased workers’ productivity by 40%.
Oh, and electricity costs also fell by 23 percent.
Another benefit was that the company eliminated unnecessary meetings and more productive work was completed. Also, the standard duration of a meeting went from 60 minutes to 30 minutes.
Now you have the perfect excuse to tell your boss to give you this Friday off.