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Monday’s Marketing Minute: TikTok Goes to Washington, US Banks Struggle as BTC Thrives, Twitter to End Legacy Verification

Happy Monday, y’all!  Hope you had a restful weekend and are ready to have an amazingly productive week! Spring is here, and these are 3 business stories that have caught my eye recently:

 

I have never used TikTok.  I’ve always been concerned over the security of the app, and have never seen the risk as being worth it. Last week, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared before Congress to answer many questions around security. At the center of his testimony was a discussion of Project Texas, a plan that TikTok supports to decouple US data and operations from China. US lawmakers were not impressed, and it seems we could be heading toward a ban of the app in the US. At minimum, we could see tighter scrutiny and possible regulation of TikTok, especially since keeping closer tabs on TikTok is a rare issue in DC that has bipartisan support from both sides of the isle.

 

Breaking News from late last night as a sale of embattled Silicon Valley Bank was reached for roughly $500 million.  The buyer is First Citizens Bank, based in Raleigh, NC.  March has been a terribly unstable month for banks, as a feared run on smaller, regional banks has not materialized, for the most part.

What’s interesting about this story is that at the same time smaller, regional banks are facing a massive stress test, Bitcoin is surging.  The cryptocurrency is up over 20% this month alone, and some are saying could return to $30,000 by the end of the month.  A move that would likely signal an official end to the ‘bear’ crypto market.

 

Finally, Twitter is set to start ending ‘Legacy’ verification on Twitter starting next month. This means your humble blogger will be losing my prized blue checkmark soon. I’ve been verified on Twitter for well over a decade, and I was among the first users who were verified. When I got my verification, the process was a bit more restrictive than it later would become, so it actually was a bit of a rarity to be verified on the platform.

There has been a lot of angst on Twitter among users over losing their blue checkmark.  The funniest to me has been the celebrities with millions of followers who are so upset at the prospect of losing a checkmark that they are sending hate tweets to Elon.

At the end of the day, who cares? Sure, having a blue checkmark did help me get some follows from some big accounts that likely wouldn’t have followed me otherwise.  I noticed an uptick in engagement as soon as I became verified all those years ago. But at the end of the day, do you want people to engage with you because they like YOU, or cause they think you are ‘influential’ because you have a blue checkmark?

If you want to get your own checkmark, you can join Twitter Blue and get it.  Currently, I am not planning on joining Twitter Blue, and if I do in the future, it will be for the features it offers, not a checkmark.

 

So that’s it for this edition of Monday’s Marketing Minute. Please check back on Wednesday, I am going to take one of my favorite case studies from Think Like a Rock Star and update it with some additional information that I think you will enjoy.

Until then, have a wonderful week, and thank you (yes YOU!) for reading, Your attention is a gift, and I am blessed because of it.

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Monday’s Marketing Minute: Tik Tok Stories on the Way, Faze Clan/McDonalds Partnership, Amazon Replaces Google For Shoppers

Happy Monday, y’all! Hope everyone is ready to have an amazing week! Here’s a few marketing stories that caught my eye:

 

You knew this was coming. Tik Tok is getting ready to roll out its version of Stories. What interesting about the timing is this comes as Twitter just sunsetted its version of Stories, Twitter Fleets, last week.

As I wrote about last week with tips for how businesses can better use Instagram, I think Stories and its clones on other social sites are worth investigating for brands because it gives their content a new way to stand out. And getting noticed is half the battle (knowing is the other half, obviously).

 

I find this fascinating, but for US online shoppers, products searches are done with Amazon over search engines by a roughly threefold clip. Amazon has done a lot of smart things in its years as a company, but perhaps the smartest thing was incorporating customer reviews into the site. Customer reviews are such an integral part of the research we do before buying online. Amazon’s move to combine reviews on the same page where you can make the purchase was brilliant. It’s all about understanding your customer and the experience they want, delivering that experience and leveraging it into purchases.

 

Have I mentioned that esports is exploding from a business and marketing standpoint? Yes I have. The latest proof is in a content creation deal that McDonalds has struck with Faze Clan, one of the top teams in esports. I will continue to bang this drum until everyone hears it, but some of the best influencer marketing happening right now is happening in the esports space. The content creators have an ability to create and cultivate community that we just don’t see from other influencers on other online platforms.

 

Finally, here’s a bonus sports-related pick. This one shows that great content was being created long before the internet.  Check out the copy writing on this mini-profile of HOF QB Ken Stabler from the late 70s.  I love the caption and it ties perfectly with the image. You can almost see Stabler with a gun and holster just inches from his right hand, ready to draw!

 

 

So that’s it for this week, I hope you have a wonderful and productive week. I know a lot of you will be getting in those summer vacations this month, so if you do travel, have a great time and be safe!