July 2023: What's new in the world of digital
Posted on 10th August 2023 at 17:00
Read Time: Approx. 7 Minutes 24 Seconds
Author: Lewis Stretton & Liv Rutter
Welcome to July's edition of the Digital Revolution, where we provide you the latest updates from the world of digital.
Elon musk rebrands Twitter to X
What is it?: On the 22nd of July Elon Musk announced that the well-known blue bird will be gone forever! He shared that ‘X.com’ now redirects to ‘Twitter.com’. The iconic vocabulary known with Twitter has all changed with him stating people will now ‘X’ rather than ‘Tweet’.
Why is it important?: Since Musk confirmed the takeover of Twitter back in October, he announced that many advertisers spendings declined or completely stopped, that resulted in an approximate 59% drop in Twitter’s US ad revenue. This has affected the global Ad revenue percentage and could be the thought process of why Elon Musk believed a rebrand was the solution to fixing this. The CEO of Twitter has stated the change is for the future, she called it a ‘Global Marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities.’ The change could also be a response to Threads, Metas’ new social media creation, that saw outstanding growth within the first couple of days of launch. However, the change may have caused more problems than solutions, as many people are discussing how the change to X will perform, one key factor being the changes to SEO. Many Tweets are embedded on to sites across the web, meaning these site owners will have to keep a keen eye to see if these embedded tweets break or stop working, because it will affect SEO on their site. The team at ‘X’ are working very hard to make sure this does not happen, as they know this will also affect the SEO of ‘X’ as well.
What action should you take?: We understand that ‘Twitter/X’ was not in every brands social plan, with all the changes happening so quick and the future of ‘X’ being unclear. Twitter is known to be more of a B2B platform, therefore it will be interesting to see whether this change will adopt more of a B2C perspective. We would recommend that if you are currently using ‘Twitter/X’, to review what other brands in your sector are currently doing with ‘X’. If ‘X’ isn’t currently in your social media plans, do not rush to include it, with many declining metrics being reported on ‘X’, there is scepticism whether this change was for the better or worse.
TikTok Launches Ads Transparency Library
What is it?: TikToks Ads Transparency Library is a Commercial Content Library that allows marketers to access key data to improve their campaign strategies. It offers information such as when the advertisement ran, the main parameters used for targeting and the number of people who have seen the ad. In addition to this, TikTok has also given marketers access to a Commercial Content API, which is where you would submit your application so your data can go into the Ads Transparency Library. This was created to clamp down on the misuse of data
Why is it important?: This is important as it gives marketers key information such as who is interacting, watching, or ignoring their ads, allowing them to adapt and improve their campaign strategies to get a larger reach and higher impression rate. The TikTok Ads Transparency Library is very similar to the Meta Ad Library, as they both have the same mission of gaining insight into the advertising strategies of businesses and solo affiliates on their respective platforms. This is another sign of how TikTok is trying to help advertisers increase their investment in the platform, as they compete with budget from media platforms such as Meta.
What action should you take?: We recommend anyone who posts on TikTok, to use this tool as it will give you a greater understanding of what’s happening with your videos once you have posted them and what you need to do in order to meet your goals. Don’t forget, if you want access to the Commercial Content API you must create a Developers TikTok account!
Looker Studio Makes New Data Fields Available from GA4
What is it?: With less than a month until the official migration date to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Google announced that they had made 170 new data fields, previously not available to utilise in Looker Studio (formally known as Data Studio).
Why is it important?: Looker Studio is one of the most commonly adopted data visualisation tools, due in part to its seamless integration with Google products, the ability to add connectors such as Zapier or Funnel.io for other channels and the fact that is free to access and use. Most marketers and data analysts will have had some real challenges transitioning existing reports, which used Universal Analytics data, as Looker did not have a large chunk of the metrics available. Whilst not all the data views are replicable, this release is a massive move forward.
What action should you take?: Whilst there are new data visualisation capabilities available directly in GA4, our view and from speaking to other industry peers, is that solutions like Looker Studio have a place and allow more flexibility for reporting. We would recommend that if you haven’t already, you attempt to migrate all the existing dashboards you have (refresh your data sources in GA4), understand the gaps and see if GA4 is able to support with this.
Meta launch their new social media platform, Threads
What is it?: On the 5th of July Meta released their brand new ‘Threads’, Mark Zuckerberg’s latest social media creation. Meta have followed the same look as Instagram and is being described as Twitter and Instagram mixed in to one app.
Why is it important?: With Threads being the fastest growing social media platform and receiving over 100 million sign ups, it's important to see that this has the potential to overtake its rival, Twitter now known as X. With many multinational brands joining the platform within days of launch, such as Nike, Walmart, Calvin Klein and so many more, it is proving that this new media platform can’t be taken lightly. With these brands on Threads, it could suggest that it will be primarily a B2C platform. Meta stated that when joining Threads, it is important that you engage with your followers, talk about Threads, and make a grand entrance.
What action should you take?: Threads reached an outstanding 150 million downloads within its first two weeks of launching; however, it is showing signs of the hype decreasing, with Similar Web reporting 49 million daily active users on July 7th to 24 million within a week later. We recommend that before you add Threads to the social plan, firstly, understand the target audience and then develop a plan on what is required to successfully launch. It is important the plan is not a replica of what you are doing across other platforms.
Instagram Reels Content Creation
What is it?: There have been some new features introduced on Instagram Reels as of July 18th this year, making it easier for brands to hop on trends and more efficient and less time consuming when creating and editing reels. Users can now access Reel Templates, which allows them to recreate Reels that they have previously made or ones that they liked from their feed. You can now browse the different templates via categories in the template browser, the categories are organised into Trending, Recommended and Saved. When using these templates, whether they’re saved from another creator or they are recommended templates, the audio, AR effects, number of clips and duration of clips are automatically installed into the template.
Why is it important?: This new update is important for brands and creators, as it simplifies the process of creating reels by making it so creators don’t have to worry about editing each video before condensing them in to one. This makes it less time consuming, which is great for smaller brands as they may not have a specific department for content creation. On top of this, the trending templates help maximise reach by capturing the attention of people who normally wouldn’t be aware of your brand. Finally, this is great for any business as it allows consistency in the format of their reels.
What action should you take?: Try playing around with Reels, see what you can do differently. You can use other Reels as templates by first finding a Reel that has the ‘Use Template’ feature in the bottom left of the video. If that is there, you can then select the three dots ‘…’ and then click use template. Alternatively, create your own template and create a brand standard format throughout your posts.!
Bonus Updates: Media giants Microsoft, Meta and Google report Ad Revenue/Spend changes
As Q2 came to an end, we found out what the media giants had to share. Despite an Ad revenue increase by 3% for Microsoft, these figures were behind what they expected, due to lower Ad spend. Meta reports outstanding growth with an Ad revenue increase of 11.9% YoY (Year on Year), this is the first time Meta has received double digit growth since Q4 2021. Google Advertising announced their Ad revenue increased by 3.3%, because of this, advertisers suggest ad spend to increase moving towards the important periods of the year and Q4.
It is important to know that IMRG, an Interactive Media Retail Group have seen a decrease for retail revenue. One of the included categories is Clothing, which reported positive growth in July 2022 (over 20%), however July 2023 was reported as -10%. Some categories, such as Health and Beauty are reporting positive YoY growth. Overall retail is not following the same trend, however some categories are following the trends as these media giants report.
Our final thoughts ...
Another month of social media dominating the updates, with many new features available on many different platforms. The launch of Thread rivalled with the rebrand of X. Changes to Instagram Reels that make content creation quicker and more efficient and the release of the new TikTok ad transparency to rival paid marketing on all social media platforms.
If any of our July updates have interested you, feel free to get in touch to understand how we can help you.
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