Happy Monday, y’all! I hope everyone is having a wonderful December and is getting ready for Christmas and the Holidays! On a personal note, I wanted to thank all of you for your support since I ‘re-launched’ this blog in late August. All of us have dealt with adversity this year, and 2020 was already off to a slow start for me before covid hit. I was forced to take a step back and refocus on how I managed my social connections as well as the content I create, and to what end. I’m starting to get the content focus dialed in, and have begun to see the bounce-back in engagement I was hoping for. Your support is what continues to make that possible, and I greatly appreciate it! Let’s jump into this week’s news!
The FTC and 46 states have sued Facebook. In short, they want Instagram and WhatsApp to be split from Facebook, and also put any future acquisitions Facebook makes over $10M to be subject to certain restrictions. This is by far the biggest legal threat Facebook has faced to date. I don’t want to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but regardless of who our president is on January 20th, 2021, big social media sites will come under increasing legal and regulatory scrutiny. If your company is actively creating content on social sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you need to keep one eye on these developing stories, as they could have a massive impact on your digital content strategies in 2021 and beyond.
What the FTC's call for Facebook's break-up means for the tech sector: https://t.co/lsObUKypg3 pic.twitter.com/fW4z6lSLtz
— EMARKETER (@eMarketer) December 11, 2020
On of the themes I’ve been covering the last few months is how customer behavior has changed as a result of more people spending more time at home as a result of dealing with covid. This has even impacted radio, as people stopped commuting as much to work, audiences for terrestrial AM and FM radio slipped. Nielsen has found that radio listeners have now returned to 97% of pre-pandemic levels. But I don’t think that means we are all going back to our daily commutes to work. What I suspect it means is that some of us are still working from home, but we’ve changed our behavior to start listening to the radio at home. Apps like Tune-In make it very easy to listen to our favorite radio stations from home. So I suspect that once we are completely past the disruptions that the pandemic has caused to our workflows, that we will see radio listener numbers actually higher than they were prior to the pandemic.
As AM/FM Radio Listening Recovers, Heavy Listeners Prove Keen Shoppers https://t.co/ximVkGrbhc @marketingcharts @nielsen
— marketingcharts (@marketingcharts) December 10, 2020
Man, these kids on Twitch are making a boatload of money! I’ve written before about how Twitch streamers are expert content creators, and the site’s popularity was already growing by leaps and bounds. But so many of us being stuck at home more often during 2020 was perfect timing for Twitch, and the site has taken off like a rocket this year. Companies have been jumping on the bandwagon and sponsoring the most popular streamers. Recently I got an email from Wendy’s talking about a promotion they are doing with different Twitch streamers. It really makes great sense; these streamers often stream for 6-8 hours a day, and their subscribers are paying attention to those streams for hours. So it’s a perfect chance for a savvy company like Wendy’s to promote a service the streamers and audience will need; food!
#Wendy's gets its #game(rs) on #Marketing https://t.co/4NMPG6aue0
— Katy O' Shaffner (@katyoshaffner) December 8, 2020
Hope you have a wonderful week, see you back here tomorrow!
