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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Elon’s Twitter Purchase Back On (For Now), Paypal Backlash, Facebook Dumping Newsletters

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you had a wonderful weekend, and are tanned, rested and ready to have an amazing week!  Here’s three marketing/business/web3 stories that caught my eye:

 

It looks like Elon’s on-again/off-again purchase of Twitter is back ON. The case that Twitter filed against Elon to force the sale has been put on hold by judge’s order till October 28th so the sides can close the deal. Initial media reports when this story broke said that the deal could be closed as early as today, so we will see what happens.

This deal has always gotten a lot of attention due to Elon’s constant complaints about Twitter’s ham-fisted content moderation efforts, and how things would change if he took control. While changes in this area are needed, it’s worth remembering that Elon has long maintained that Twitter has many untapped revenue streams available. So an Elon acquisition of Twitter should bring a LOT of changes across the board for users. Hopefully we will have some finality soon on if this deal actually happens.

 

 

So PayPal recently updated its user agreement, and very quietly slipped in a clause that said, more or less, if you post something online that PayPal doesn’t like, it can pull up to $2,500 from your account. As expected, once this clause was found, it created a massive uproar on social media, and many users began cancelling their PayPal accounts.  PayPal quickly reversed course, claiming the policy addition was an error. Social media, for all its faults, does still give us a way to hold companies accountable for bad decisions in near real-time.

 

Facebook is abandoning its move into integrated newsletters.  Last year, Twitter acquired Revue, and Facebook launched Bulletin as newsletter sites like SubStack were taking off. Well Facebook has now tapped out and will be pulling the plug on Bulletin in early 2023. The lesson, once again, is to think carefully before you plant deep roots on social media sites that you don’t own.

 

So that’s it for this week, I am now going back on Elon-watch to see when the Twitter deal completes. Feel free to join me, or check out my post on why A Community Cannot Go Mainstream from last week. It’s on pace to be my most popular post in 2022.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Elon/Twitter Drama, NFTs Coming to Facebook, Traditional TV is Dead

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you have a fantabulous and productive week! Here’s some marketing and business stories that caught my eye recently that I wanted to share:

 

In a bizarre statement explaining a surprising move, late last night Twitter’s CEO said Elon Musk will NOT be joining Twitter’s Board of Directors. A couple of things seemed odd about the statement; first Agrawel said Twitter was excited to bring Elon on the Board, but then said it was for the best that he didn’t join. Huh?  Also, I found it interesting that Agrawal made a point to say that there were ‘risks’ involved with letting Elon have a seat on the board, and the clarification that Elon could only be accepted to the Board after passing a background check.  It almost sounds like Agrawal is trying to give the impression that Twitter’s background check found something and Elon bailed before Twitter announced they couldn’t accept him on the Board as a result.

But there’s an interesting legal point to all this: If Elon had taken a role on the Board, his agreement with Twitter would hold that his stake in Twitter would be capped at 14.9%.Meaning, he couldn’t increase his current position owning 9.2% of the company to more than 14.9%. This, coupled with a tweet from my brilliant friend Carol Roth, makes me suspect that Twitter might be engaging in some smoke and mirrors here. Either way, this remains a very interesting story to follow!

 

Facebook/Meta is exploring adding NFTs to its ecosystem. Facebook is set to start a pilot program for introducing NFTs in mid-May, and according to this article. What I found very interesting, are claims that Facebook will soon after start rolling out the ability to have Facebook Groups tie membership to owning a particular NFT. I will be writing about this more this week, but NFTs are going to become the Digital Membership Card for business programs and organizations.  If you have the NFT, you can access the group/program, and its associated perks. This move by Facebook will also be a shot in the arm for mainstream business adoption of NFTs. Facebook embracing the technology will give a lot of businesses the courage to explore NFTs as well.

 

In a sign of the times, less than half of US households are forecast to have traditional pay TV in 2023.  Most of the losses will be customers migrating to ‘virtual multichannel video programming distributors’ (vMVPDs) such as Hulu TV and YouTube TV. I suspect streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max are eating into that number as well.

 

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! I hope you have a wonderful week, and if you want to share your thoughts on these stories, feel free to leave a comment below! I have to admit, Twitter’s response to Elon not joining its Board suddenly has me a lot more interested in this story.  What do you think about it?

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Elon Apes Into Twitter, Livestream Purchases, Paid Music Streaming Grows

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you, we have some breaking news and some other stories I enjoyed, so let’s dive right in!

 

This will be the story of the day and possibly the week. Elon Musk just bought a $3B stake in Twitter, and is now the company’s largest shareholder. For reference, his stake is almost 4 times that of Jack Dorsey’s. There will be a lot of commentary about what this move signals, I’m already seeing a lot of chatter about how Elon will stop shadowbanning and ham-fisted censorship, etc.  Let’s take a step back and remember: Elon’s Twitter account is essentially Tesla’s marketing. So this is simply about Elon getting more control over his company’s primary marketing channel.  That’s all this is, a smart business move. Do I think this signals that Elon is coming in on a white horse to save Twitter from itself? I do not.  I think he is going to use his ownership stake to push for changes that make it easier for him to use Twitter as a platform to market himself and his company. That’s it.

 

Facebook and Instagram are the dominant players when it comes to driving purchases via livestreams. This isn’t a huge surprise, but I think we will see a lot of growth in the coming years from YouTube in this area as the platform is seriously trying to up its streaming game.

 

2021 was another strong year for growth in paid music subscription services. As I’ve talked about for the last two years, covid and the ensuing lockdown changed consumer behavior and purchase patterns. Certain industries and products benefited greatly from these changes, and music subscription services are one of them. To be fair, paid music subscription services were already seeing solid growth prior to the pandemic, but that growth was only accelerated by customers spending more time at home, for both work and play.

 

So that’s it for this week’s edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute! I hope you have an amazing and productive week!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook’s Rebrand, PayPal/Pinterest Rumors, Pinterest Creator Fund

Welcome to another glorious Fall week! Hope you’re enjoying the cooler weather and are in the Halloween spirit! Here’s some marketing and breaking business news that’s caught my eye the last few days:

 

I can, and probably should write a longer post on this issue at some point. Facebook’s many problems and user complaints are well-documented. My biggest issue with Facebook has always been that it extracts massive amounts of information and data from its users, while giving the users almost nothing in return. This extends to businesses, who have seen their organic reach on the site fall for years. Now, Facebook is wanting to rebrand, not just to hopefully deflect some of the criticisms, but to also position itself as a player in evolving Web 3.0 platforms and technologies.

More than anything, I think Facebook is the poster child for both the unrealized potential of Web 2.0 companies, as well as the changes that need to be addressed that spurned the development of Web 3.0.

 

So a bit of breaking news. All last week, the rumor was that PayPal was going to acquire Pinterest. Well just this morning, the news is breaking that PayPal has DENIED the acquisition rumors. It will be interesting to see how this affects stock prices for both companies, PayPal fell sharply on the rumors, while Pinterest spiked.

 

Pinterest is the latest platform to offer incentives for content creators, starting a $20 Million fund to support its users. The Creator Rewards program will initially be available only in the US, but should rollout worldwide soon. So any Pinterest user in the US, over 18 and with at least 1,000 followers could be eligible to start making some money off their pins!

 

So that’s the latest marketing news for this Monday. We’ll see what happens with the PayPal/Pinterest news this week.  See you next Monday!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Paid Events Coming to LinkedIn and Twitter, Young Adults Using Facebook Less, NFT 101

Happy Monday! I hope you are ready for a wonderfully productive week! Can I complain about the weather for a minute? October has always been my favorite month of the year, by far. The weather is always amazing, low humidity, temps in the low to mid 70s the entire month.

But this year has been a weird Summer and Fall, weather-wise. June-August was consistently 5-10 degrees below normal almost every day, which was VERY welcome! But starting in September, the temps inexplicably stopped falling.  The temps since have been mid to upper 80s.  So now it’s 5-10 degrees ABOVE normal. So crazy. The good news is that starting next week we are supposed to get highs in the low to mid 70s, and lows in the low 50s. Which is finally normal for this time of year. Ready for cooler temperatures and Halloween!

On with the marketing and social media stories I’ve been reading…

 

So LinkedIn is tinkering with an option to let creators charge for virtual events on the platform. This comes after Twitter has begun rolling out an option to let creators charge for Spaces. I think paid virtual events make complete sense for LinkedIn. There are a ton of monetization options being made available to creators of all shape and size right now. If you are active on any social platforms in any capacity, it’s worth your time to see what’s available to you.

 

 

Internal documents from Facebook show that will users under age 30 make up over a quarter of the userbase, they are spending less time on the platform versus their older counterparts. Let’s be honest, Facebook has had a lot of problems for years. The reason why its getting attention now is mostly because politicians are scrambling to leverage them to attack or silence the opposition. Facebook is no longer the ‘cool’ social network it was 10 years ago or so, and young users will avoid anything with even a hint of ‘uncool’ about it. So don’t be surprised if more problems are on the horizon for FB in the coming year.

 

Two topics that I am woefully ignorant on is cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Luckily, I found this guide to NFTs shared on Twitter to help get you up to speed.

 

So that’s it for this Monday, thanks for reading! I’ve added a Donate button to the sidebar on the right underneath the search box near the top. If you’ve gotten value from my content, please consider donating whatever you like. I will use the tips to help offset the cost of hosting, certificates, security and equipment to run the site. So any help is greatly appreciated! Hope you have a wonderful week, see you here next Monday for more news!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse Arrives on Android, FB’s Group Accelerator Program, Gen Z Likes Influencers

Happy Monday, y’all! Some big social media tech news this week as we are already in the middle of May. Summer is around the corner!

 

The wait is finally over for Android users, Clubhouse is here. It looks like it’s being rolled out to US users first, with the rest of the world getting it soon. This may actually get me back on Clubhouse. An influx of new users will bring new perspectives and it will be interesting to see how this impacts the quality and type of rooms, as well as the overall experience. Plus, it will be curious to see how this impacts download numbers.  I suspect this won’t have the impact it would have if this had been launched for Android a couple of months ago when Clubhouse was white hot. The buzz has cooled considerably toward Clubhouse, so this could give them another shot in the arm, or be much ado about nothing. We’ll find out soon enough.

 

Following Clubhouse’s lead, Facebook is putting more support behind its accelerator program for groups. From Facebook: “Selected community leaders will spend five months learning from experts, coaches and a customized curriculum so they can organize and strengthen their community to work better together. Participants will then spend three months executing their initiatives. They will collaborate with advocates and leaders in the community space and work with the Facebook team to bring their ideas to life.” Selected admins will receive training and mentorship, funding, and access to new products and features before they go live.

 

I’m a bit surprised that millennials aren’t following more influencers on social media. This study found that 28% of 16-23 year olds follow at least one influencer on social media, and 23% of 24-37 year olds do. The same report found that the main reasons we use social media are: “keeping in touch with family and friends (50%), filling spare time (37%) and reading news stories (36%).”

 

So that’s it for another Monday’s Marketing Minute. Another big content week on tap here, posts every day through Friday.  Hope you have a wonderful week, thanks so much for reading!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse and Facebook’s New Social Audio Apps, IG Hides Likes, Which Countries Use Social Media the Most

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope you’re ready for a great and productive week. Here’a few marketing and digital stories that caught my eye…

 

Clubhouse is inching closer to launching an Android version of its social audio app. This news comes as Facebook began beta testing its own social audio app called Hotline. I think social audio makes more sense as an additional functionality added to current platforms versus a standalone app.  I’m really excited to see what this functionality could look like integrated into LinkedIn, for example. I also think Clubhouse’s ability to build and retain loyalty with its top creators will be a huge factor in its long-term viability.

 

I am always in favor of hiding vanity metrics from social media sites. This post perfectly explains why. Years ago, a study was done into what determines popularity. Thousands of teens were selected and they listened to dozens of songs by new artists. These were songs that none of the respondents had heard before. The teens were broken into multiple groups. The first group listened to each song, then at the end they were asked to rate the song, and they were given an option to download the song if they liked it.

Another group was asked to listen to the same songs and rate them, but this group had the ratings and number of downloads shown from the first group. What the researchers found was that the songs that were rated the highest with the most downloads, were more popular.  Then for the third group, the ratings and number of downloads were not only shown, but the songs were also ranked according to both rating and number of downloads. Researchers found that when the ratings and download numbers were added, the most popular songs were downloaded at an even higher clip.

What this shows, in my mind, is that we are lazy. We let other people decide what’s interesting or worth our time, rather than judging a piece of content on its own merits. We scan for number of Likes or comments or RTs and use those numbers to quickly judge the value of content. This is why I am in favor of any move to hide such vanity metrics on social media.

 

Think the United States is the top country in the world for time spent on social media?  You would be wrong, the US doesn’t even crack the Top 10!  People in the Philippines spend just over 4 hours (yikes!) a day on social media. The average American spends about half that time on social media.

 

So that’s it for this week’s Monday Marketing Minute! Are you subscribed to my newsletter Backstage Pass? Every Friday, I give you tips and advice on how you can create happy customers that drive real business growth. I also profile how brands are doing just that. Add your email to the banner below and click Subscribe!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Clubhouse to Launch Creator Accelerator Program, Facebook to Enter Social Audio Space

Happy Monday! Welcome to the first full week of Spring! I hope you have a busy and prosperous week ahead, here’s some digital and marketing stories I noticed the last few days:

 

So two of the biggest questions everyone is asking about Clubhouse are “Is it going to last?’ and ‘Will it be acquired?” We may have gotten a hint at the answers to both when Clubhouse recently announced it’s Creator Accelerator Program. I absolutely love this idea. What Clubhouse is going to do, is take a select number of its room hosts, and give them the tools and support they need to accelerate the growth of their rooms and clubs. Everything from audio equipment to working with brands to secure sponsorships and speakers, to compensation. Moves like this will absolutely drive loyalty for Clubhouse, and it’s not lost on me that other social media sites could have made similar moves to support its content creators in those early years, and didn’t. This will resonate with users and could signal that Clubhouse is building something that will last, and that the founders want to keep as a standalone platform.

PS: I talked in-depth about the current ‘creator economy’ that we are entering in last Friday’s issue of my Backstage Pass newsletter. If you want to subscribe, click here!

 

After some speculation that Facebook might want to acquire Clubhouse, it now seems that ‘The Social Network’ is planning on building its own social audio functionality into its platform. Now, going back to what we just discussed with Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, consider that Facebook wants to give you the ability to create a similar Clubhouse-style room, on Facebook. If you are a Clubhouse user who has a room and/or club on Clubhouse, and you are in Clubhouse’s Creator Accelerator Program, will you now be interested in also building a new social audio community on Facebook?  Probably not. You would probably devote your time to building your platform on Clubhouse, especially since Clubhouse would be using its Creator Accelerator Program to support your growth. This is an important point: Facebook and Twitter can copy the social audio functionality. but if Clubhouse is doing a better job of SUPPORTING its creators, guess who will likely win?

 

This really seems like a bad idea waiting to happen.  Facebook is considering a version of Instagram just for kids under 13. Instagram blocks kids under 13 from using its site, but the site also notes that some kids are able to get on the site anyway. So the rationale is, let’s make it easier for them to get on, but only have them interact with other kids their ages, and not adults. Parents and privacy groups will be watching this story very closely, as they should.

 

So that’s this Monday’s Marketing Minute. I hope you have a wonderful week, be sure to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter starting at 7pm Central, and look for Backstage Pass to hit your email this Friday morning (if you are subscribed!). And I’m thinking there will be another post up here either tomorrow or Weds, so keep an eye out for that as well!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Facebook vs Australia, Why Millennials Buy, Spend Emails on Friday

Happy Monday, and welcome to ‘The Week When Things Started to Get Back to Semi-Normal!’  I can finally see the ground again, almost all the snow is gone. I hope my friends in Texas are staying to dig out as well, I’m hearing good reports. Let’s hope last week was winter’s last gasp, and the warmer Spring temps will start this week!  Let’s dive into the news!

 

This will be a fascinating case study. Australia recently passed a series of laws governing the sharing of news content saying that Facebook and Google would have to share its revenue generated from sharing and distributing links to news content via its platforms. Australia is said to be making this move to help local publishers, especially print media. Google is apparently willing to go along with this, but Facebook will not. As a result, Facebook has BLOCKED the sharing of all news content in Australia. It will be fascinating to see who caves on this first; If it’s Facebook, that will simply encourage other countries to make similar moves. If it’s Australia, that means Facebook will have even more advertising leverage. I suspect Facebook has drawn a digital line in the sand here and will hold out as long as they can.

 

Insights from eMarketer into what prompts millennials to make a purchase. It’s interesting that the top factor is free shipping, but the second one is coupons and discounts. The reality for eCommerce sites is that customers now expect free shipping. I think even to the point that it’s worth adding free shipping even if you have to raise prices slightly to cover the cost. Since the expectation is there for free shipping, when many customers get to the checkout and see there is even a $7.95 shipping charge added, it can kill the purchase right there. When it comes to ecommerce, focus on adding convenience (free shipping, easy returns) and it will increase purchases and revenue.

 

So it turns out I was accidentally ahead of the curve in launching Backstage Pass on Friday! It seems emails sent on Friday have the best engagement! Those sent on Tuesday have the worst, which surprises me a bit.

 

Speaking of my newsletter, I’d love for you to subscribe! It hits your inbox every Friday with a deep dive into the marketing, digital and content strategy advice and inspiration you need. And it’s pretty indepth, which is why it’s delivered on Friday, so you have all weekend to ruminate over the (hopeful) pearls of wisdom! You can check out last week’s issue here, or subscribe by clicking the image below!

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: US Adults’ Digital Usage Up, Facebook DAU Down, Clubhouse’s ‘Oprah’ Moment?

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you’re ready for an amazing week as we say goodbye to January and launch into February! Here’s a few stories I noticed to get your week off in the right track:

 

eMarketer has found that US adults spent an extra hour with digital content in 2020. Now my first thought was, workers that typically commute to work stayed at home in 2020, so they gained back an hour of time right there. This is all about understanding and focusing on the changes in your customer and client lives as more of them are now working from home. This, and all indications point toward an increased appetite for digital content, and that creates opportunities for your company, if you know how to leverage them.

 

Ironically, as the above eMarketer study finds that US adults are spending more time with digital content, comes this story from Social Media Today that found that Facebook’s number of Daily Active Users in the US was actually DOWN in 2020. Count me in that group, over the last few years I’ve gone from checking Facebook a couple times a day, to now maybe checking a couple of times a week. Most of the time I now spend with Facebook is with Facebook Groups that are devoted to marketing and business. I think we will see core user usage metrics fall or stagnate for both Facebook and Twitter in 2021.

 

My timeline this morning was all abuzz with Elon Musk popping into Clubhouse. Probably 75% of the tweets in my home feed were about this. When celebs use a social media platform, it brings a lot of extra eyes to it, and Musk’s popularity is white hot right now, and that will definitely benefit Clubhouse.

 

That’s it for this week’s Monday’s Marketing Minute! Hope you have a wonderful week and don’t forget to check out #ContentCircus tomorrow night on Twitter at 7pm Central! This week we will be discussing How to Create Buyer Personas For Your Content Marketing Strategy! It will be a great discussion on a very valuable topic! Tomorrow post will be on the same topic, so see you back here in 24 hours!

 

Oh wait…let’s do one more! I thought this story from The Hustle about the illicit trade for the world’s most expensive fish was interesting, but click through and check out the photos of the fish.  Yeah, I know, $300,000 for a fish is completely bonkers, but look at those colors! The fish themselves are absolutely gorgeous!

 

Ok I’m done, see you tomorrow!