Bullseye Strategy Special Correspondent

Geminis run the world at Bullseye Strategy, with President Maria Harrison, Digital Strategist Tina Markowitz, Account Manager Chad Emrick, and SEO Coordinator Matt Beasley all sharing June birthdays. We celebrated these summer babies in our typical tradition of a giant frosted cake that few of us actually ate, plus some Birthday Broccoli for “Beast” Beasley, who is in cutting mode.

Once the candles were blown out and the slices of gooey sheet cake were passed around (or passed over), we dug into our favorite topic of conversation: what’s new in digital marketing this week. Some big developments in Instagram and TV advertising spend made it a spirited discussion. Since most of us are old enough to remember the days of “Staff Picks” at our favorite local video stores, we decided to ask each of our June birthday babies to provide their picks for the top news of the week.

Maria & Chad’s Pick: Instagram Influencer News

A few of us got a little rage-y about the concept of Instagram likes going away, but Maria pointed out that this development would benefit agencies like ours, who manage influencer marketing for our clients. Brands are going to need a more under-the-hood analysis of how their influencer partnerships are performing without being able to quickly glance at like counts–and ultimately, since the development of Instagram Stories, comments and conversations between influencers and fans have become a much better KPI for influencer campaigns, anyway.

In other Instagram and influencer-related news, Chad was excited to learn that advertisers can now boost influencer branded content on Instagram. Our clients get so much already from influencer partnerships, from social media brand-building to high-quality UGC assets, so it’s exciting to see the opportunities for collaborations expanding.

Tina’s Pick: TV Advertising Outpaces Digital for the First Time in Years

Our birthday girl Tina was intrigued to discover that spend on TV advertising was up 11% in April vs. TV ad spending last April. The plot thickens when you compare TV advertising budgets to digital spend, which was down 9% vs. March of this year. This is good news for the upcoming TV buying season and info to keep on hand for our clients.

“Mark Eting” is the pen name of the Bullseye Strategy team. Check back with us next week for more news on what’s buzzing in the digital marketing industry.Edit post