By now, it should be evident that digital marketing is a field where tactics that worked yesterday may not always be effective tomorrow. Tastes shift, technology improves, methodologies change, laws are modified, and platforms adjust. This week I’ll be covering three instances of recent changes that will potentially impact your digital marketing tactics.
Google Speaks on App Tracking Transparency, IDFA
While we’ve discussed the changes to Apple’s privacy policies and its problems for Facebook in the past, Google has finally come forward with information on their plans for privacy as well as the changes coming from Apple’s rollout. For anyone who hasn’t been following this as in-depth as we have, IDFA stands for Identifier For Advertisers. It’s how advertisers track and target advertisements within apps on iOS devices. Google has their own version, referred to as AAID (Android Advertising ID). With iOS 14, Apple has made each app’s tracking require an opt-in which is predicted to have far few people sharing their data which will completely shake up the data shared with advertisers.
Google is now discussing how App Tracking Transparency (ATT) by Apple may affect everything from targeting to app download tracking. They’ve revealed their own ATT plans are to no longer collect and use IDFA for some of their apps; they didn’t list all of them but they did say YouTube and Maps are among them. This impact isn’t great news for digital marketers as it will potentially affect everything from targeting to campaign engagement to performance.
This hasn’t all rolled out yet but the reality is neither Google nor Apple can wholly eliminate all tracking and targeting opportunities. And they’ve already begun offering alternative opportunities to monitor attribution. Apple announced features to the SKAdNetwork coming this spring.
So while the news isn’t great right now, we expect to see alternatives come to play which will allow for tracking and targeting while still keeping user privacy at a premium.
Instagram May Remove Sharing Feed Posts to Stories
Well, folks, this one was upsetting! As someone who loves to share posts to her own personal story, and as a professional who uses this feature all the time to amp up client content, this one could be a doozy too. In an effort to eliminate publication duplication within the app, Instagram is testing the elimination of sharing Feed posts to Stories. Since the only real way to see Stories is to follow someone, users are primarily already seeing that content as part of the feed posts. That’s technically double-posting the same content, and that, according to Instagram and many ‘grammers, can be annoying.
According to Instagram (via Social Media Today):
“We’ve seen from research that people prefer to see original photos and videos in Stories from the people they care about. The goal of our test is to better understand how people feel about this type of content and ultimately improve the Stories experience.”
They’ve also made similar recommendations regarding Reels, the TikTok-like short video platform within Instagram. In essence, it’s a step to force users, brands, marketers, influencers, and others to create original content for each area of Instagram. That’s not a bad idea considering each has its own primary function, value, and audience but we still like to cross-pollinate content and this change will alter our ability to do that.
instagram users: I wish people stopped sharing so many feed posts to their Stories
— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 29, 2021
instagram: pic.twitter.com/KQkBbVY45v
Marketing Channels for B2B You May Not Have Considered
The list of differences between marketing to consumers versus marketing to businesses is long. There are different tactics, platforms, targeting, content, and methodologies at play. One area that has largely been the strategy of consumer-facing content-marketing has been live video whereas businesses historically have been focused on longform video and webinars.
While the trend for B2B Live Video had been rising in recent years, in 2020, Live Video became the fastest-growing content type with 29% of B2B Marketers utilizing it. The pandemic simply necessitated it for some businesses. Webinars and live informational videos on Social Media are now possible on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, and other platforms. In most cases, these platforms place a high priority on live video in their algorithms and share it to wider audiences than an image or even an uploaded video. It also allows for real-time communication with viewers, which research is showing has a beneficial result.
63% of B2B marketing representatives were willing to provide their contact information in order to watch. 64% said they were ready to watch between 20 minutes and an hour while researching a B2B purchase.
But before you choose which platform is best suited for your B2B needs, consider where your targeted audience is most likely to be looking for your product or service. While Facebook Live is the most popular outlet with 64% of those surveyed, don’t forget about LinkedIn. With only 5% of digital marketers using LinkedIn for live video, your content may stand out there since the channel is less cluttered.
