Latest Social Media Updates
The month of July has been a busy and interesting month for the Digital Marketing landscape as several social platforms come under scrutiny all around the world, bringing some positive changes for us marketers and business owners.
Facebook Boycott
At the forefront of everyone’s mind is the Facebook Boycott, with big advertisers and companies such as Unilever, Coca-Cola and Disney demanding the platform to improve the policing of hateful content amid the Black Lives Matter protests and ‘Stop Hate for Profit’ campaign, which had been organised by civil rights activists. In light of the current pressure, it is great to see that Facebook is proactively listening to its community and slowly taking steps towards evolving its policies.
It recently announced it will add labels to all posts from federally elected officials and presidential candidates which mention voting or ballots, irrespective of whether posts contain misinformation or not. Although many large businesses are still currently refraining from advertising on Facebook, there is still a vast number of large to SME businesses that depend heavily on online advertising to draw in their company revenues. To those, we recommend speaking to a digital marketing consultant, who can help you address your needs based on your brand values and what your key objectives are. At CEEK Marketing, we create bespoke marketing campaigns that are reflective of your goals.
India’s Digital Growth
This month we have also seen India witness an enormous amount of traction by multiple tech giants who recognise and see the huge potential to innovate and grow India’s digital ecosystem. It is already the second-largest smartphone market in the world which is significantly rising, which explains why both Google and Facebook have jumped at the opportunity to cement themselves as key platforms for the region by investing nearly an accumulative figure of $15 million dollars.
With the current situation of lockdown in mind, this financial stimulation is a key turning point for the nation as local businesses look to shift online to cater to the evolving demands of their consumers, with Google and Facebook playing large roles in helping to achieve this. It will be interesting to see how India utilises this opportunity and financial support to propel itself as a digitally led nation.
TikTok
Speaking of India, it recently also banned 59 chinese owned apps, with one major player at a huge disadvantage – TikTok. Following suit, may also be other global nations such as the US and the UK, who share common fears of national security and geopolitical privacy concerns.
We are yet to see the outcome of the vast political debates that have commenced majorly in the US and whether these talks will stunt TikTok’s meteoric rise, and if when banned, users will simply jump to the next available app. After all, it is the content that people get hooked onto and not necessarily the app, hence other rival apps such as Dubsmash, Snap or Byte can benefit from the woes of TikTok. Tech giant Facebook, has in fact, already jumped on the bandwagon by introducing Instagram ‘Reels’ globally hoping to gain TikTok’s market share.
Facebook is also in the process of, like Instagram, removing the ‘like’ button on a Facebook Page to focus primarily on the ‘follower’ count, as you can see below.
This change will emphasise the more important details of a Page such as the Profile photo, the name, a brief statement/description beneath the photo and the follower count. This will allow brands/users to actually communicate with the audience/followers that are genuinely interested in them, instead of those who simply ‘like’ out of necessity or habit.
Google’s Shoploop
Last but not least, when you thought e-commerce could not potentially see any further developments any time soon, Google surprises us again with ‘Shoploop’ – a platform that combines social, video, e-commerce and influencer marketing all in one place by bringing consumers fun, shoppable and entertaining 90 seconds videos. The idea for this was created when analysing all the multiple steps users go through before making an online purchase, hence as Google put it, Shoploop is ‘a video shopping platform for discovering, evaluating and buying, all in one place’.
This is an incredibly smart and strategic move as Google already has a comprehensive database of all available product listings, and is currently still the leading search engine where people get the majority of their information from. With the retail and e-commerce landscape quickly moving uphill with increased demand from users looking for innovative and interactive ways to shop whilst at home, Google has joined the big social media gang of Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and Pinterest in the fight to stand out, but who will shine – only time can tell.