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In the News

Hot Off the Press

• Clubhouse App for Business: What Marketers Need to Know
  • Clubhouse delivers a social experience very similar to an audio-only virtual event on a massive scale. There are currently approximately 1 million users on Clubhouse, and at any given time, there are a few thousand rooms where people from around the world are holding conversations about different industries, professions, and interests. If you’re a marketer or business owner, opportunities to share your brand story, connect with customers, get product feedback, run impromptu focus groups, and generate marketing awareness are ready for the taking on Clubhouse.

• Twitter considering subscription fees to ensure ‘revenue durability’
  • Twitter is considering adding subscriptions fees for some features as the company looks to diversify its revenue beyond ads, a company official confirmed Monday. “These may include subscriptions and other approaches that will give people and businesses of all sizes on Twitter access to unique features and enhanced opportunities for content creation, discovery, and engagement,” Twitter’s revenue product lead, Bruce Falck, said in a statement.
• Instagram Tests Removing the Option to Share Feed Posts Within Stories
  • While Instagram continues to add more and more functions, it also, increasingly, wants users to better focus what they post within each element, in order to maximize engagement. Instagram is disabling the ability to share (and reshare) posts from your feed to stories as part of a test to see how it changes engagement with the popular feature. The company announced the change in a notification banner sent to users in “select countries” where the test is being conducted.
• Instagram adds ‘professional dashboard’ for businesses and creators
  • Instagram is working on a new feature for business owners and influencers. The app is adding a new “professional dashboard” feature that brings all the app’s business tools into a dedicated space in the app. The new dashboard is meant for anyone who uses Instagram professionally and is available to creator and business accounts. Creators may see shortcuts for branded content partnerships and other monetization features, while a restaurant or shop owner can track their ads or set up shopping features. The dashboard will also display account analytics and link to tutorials and other helpful articles.
• Facebook News launches in the UK, the first international market for its curated news portal
  • As the United Kingdom prepares to sharpen its focus on how it regulates big tech companies, Facebook is taking a big step up in the role it plays in presenting media to the U.K. public, and into how it works with the country’s media industry by launching Facebook News in the U.K., Facebook’s first market outside of the U.S. for its dedicated, curated news portal. The portal will launch with content from hundreds of local and national media organizations.
• Snapchat is testing dark mode with select users
  • A little behind, but Snapchat is also going to enter the “Dark Mode” contest. After Google, Instagram Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, and even WhatsApp who launched their dark mode a year ago for iOS. Now Snapchat is also going to have a dark mode. Snapchat’s dark mode had been a long-wished feature for some time now, and finally, the wait is over, and the prayers are granted. Their last major update, in competition with TikTok, was in October 2020 that added a “sounds’ feature for users to add songs to snaps and stories.
• TikTok Launches New ‘Creator Portal’ Education Platform to Help Creators Maximize their Efforts
  • TikTok has launched a new Creator Portal platform in order to provide additional guidance and tips to help creators maximize their in-app presence. The online hub on TikTok.com is filled with educational resources for creators to learn the basics of getting started on TikTok, connecting with their audience, and cultivating best practices to bring their videos to the next level. This hub could be of particular benefit to brands that are looking to establish an effective presence in the app.

Creativity

Out of the Box

• Please don’t fill new channels with bad creative
  • For nearly a year, marketers have operated in a pandemic world where digital channels are all they’ve got. But saying you’re going to tap new channels and then actually delivering results there depends on just how strong your content game is. But just how quickly must you get strong? Really quickly if you don’t want to be seen as a lackluster and repetitive brand.
• Here are the best Super Bowl commercials
  • On Super Bowl Sunday, there’s one thing that matters almost just as much as the football: the commercials. And this year, they delivered. Though some popular brands were notably absent — like Budweiser, which chose to donate the millions it would’ve spent on an ad to Covid-19 vaccine awareness — many others still partook. CBS reportedly charged $5.5 million for a 30-second spot, slightly less than last year but still not exactly pocket change.

• 2 Super Bowl Ads Used the Same Stock Clip, Showing Why Exclusivity Is Worthwhile
  • The chances of one piece of footage appearing in multiple Super Bowl ads would usually be phenomenally slim, especially since marketers aren’t turning to stock video for an ad running on such a massive stage. But this is, of course, not like most years. With commercial production still heavily limited by the Covid-19 pandemic, stock footage is in higher demand than ever. And whether you realize it or not, you’re going to see quite a bit of purchased footage in Sunday’s ads. But two Super Bowl advertisers—Indeed and Guaranteed Rate—are facing an awkward moment after they both used the same piece of stock footage in their Big Game ads.
• The Weeknd’s close camera work delivered the meme of Super Bowl LV
  • Lost your mother in the grocery store? Talking to your parents on FaceTime? Eagerly watching your food heat up in the microwave? Whatever you’re up to, this clip from The Weeknd’s Super Bowl LV halftime show has got you covered.
• YouTube is getting a new logo every week this month – here’s why
  • If you happened to visit YouTube on Monday (which isn’t unlikely, what with it being the second most-visited website in the world), you might have noticed an unfamiliar logo. To mark Black History Month (BHM), the company has announced that Black artists will reimagine the site’s logo every week in February. A new design will appear on the site every Monday, with Brazil-based artist Leandro Assis’s interpretation adorning the homepage at the start of this week. Assis’s logo (below) features the familiar red play button, but with stylized ‘BHM’ lettering replacing the standard YouTube wordmark.

Tricks of the Trade

Tips and Tricks

• Facebook Dynamic Ads: 5 Tips to Drive More Product Sales
  • Do you run Facebook dynamic ads to promote your products? Wondering how to improve your results? In this article, you’ll discover how to optimize Facebook dynamic product ads for more sales by:
    • Promote Separate Catalogs for Broad and Themed Product Categories
    • Provide Contextual Product Details
    • Localize Language and Pricing for International Ads
    • Enhance Static Creatives with Frames and Pricing Overlays
    • Choose Your First Image Visual Wisely
• 5 Tips to Avoid Influencer Marketing Disasters
  • Influencer marketing campaigns are popular with brands and companies because of their powerful ability to reinforce customer loyalty, give inspiration for increased product usage, attract new demographics of customers, and drive e-commerce sales. To ensure that influencer marketing is a sustainable and efficient strategy for your brand, here are a few recommendations to avoid pitfalls and instead relish in the positive.

• How to Measure Brand Value
  • There are some things within a company that are easy to measure. At quarterly meetings and investor updates, executives can point to concrete items like personnel, new customers, revenue, and profits to illustrate the company’s progress and growth. Other things, like brand, are more slippery, but no less important. Brand value is difficult to measure, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Indeed, it not only can be done — it must.
• Organic LinkedIn Marketing: Proven Techniques for Marketers
  • The reason LinkedIn is important to professionals, especially marketers, comes down to user intent. Most people spend time on Facebook and Instagram to reconnect with friends and family or to escape, people come to LinkedIn to grow, connect, learn, and meet new people. As a result of the current pandemic and a rise in remote working, people are also turning to LinkedIn to stay in touch and engaged with their colleagues and teams. When you pair that strong user intent with the platform’s growth over the past year, its place as a global, professional networking space is unquestionable.

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