By Mark Eting

Bullseye Strategy Special Correspondent

It’s officially Summer now. And while the dog-days are upon us, here at the Bullseye Buzz we’ve had to keep our cat-like digital marketing reflexes as sharpened as our claws. There is big news this week, so let’s dive right in.

Google Continues to Stick It to Pinterest 

Google has launched a peachy new app called Keen. It takes direct aim at Pinterest’s ability to act as a “visual discovery engine,” with a high focus on eCommerce.

Keen is being billed as “a place to grow and share your interests with loved ones, and find things that will help in making this precious life count.”

The app allows users to curate content from the web and people you know by making “keens.” You can share your collection with others and find new content based on what you’ve saved. 

If you think it sounds a lot like Pinterest, you’re right! And judging by a recent list of new launches, it seems Google is hoping to put a pin in their balloon. See a list of all the Pinterest-like projects launched over the last two years here.

You Down with OTT Video Content?

For the first time, daily time spent with subscription OTT Video Content in the U.S. will surpass an hour. 

What’s OTT? It stands for “over-the-top,” the term used for the “delivery of film and TV content via the internet, without requiring users to subscribe to a traditional cable or satellite pay-TV service like a Comcast or Time Warner Cable.” 

Two years ago, the daily time spent with OTT Video Content was 44 minutes. By 2019, that had jumped to 51 minutes, a 15% increase. 2020 thus far is seeing a 23% increase from 2019, to 1 hour and 2 minutes per day.

The pandemic is attributed to much of the rise; it forces us to spend more time at home, and the increased interest in cord-cutting of standard cable and satellite subscriptions. The continuation of customers ditching traditional cable in favor of subscription OTT Video Content is thought to continue rising for the immediate future but, with a less bold growth rate.

Instagram Testing Shopping Tags in Captions

We recently brought you the story that Instagram was rolling out ways to shop via tags on images. It appears they’re going one step further to make eCommerce a more prominent part of the platform.

It appears that Instagram is testing adding links within captions as well. Some Instagram profiles now can add product tags within post captions, something that’s not available on any post except ads and paid posts. These tags will take you to a shoppable product page. 

Twitter user Matt Navarra shared the image below as an example. Instagram has been testing this option with a handful of U.S. accounts that use the Checkout Function. It’s just another example of how social media platforms increasing;y become online retail locations.

Stay safe. Stay classy. Stay cool. 

“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

]]>