Howdy! 😊

I hope you all have been enjoying the start of July! We kicked it off with a nice 4-day weekend and sometimes that’s all you need to recharge yourself.🔋Here’s some interesting digital marketing news for your browsing:

• You may have heard about the TweetDeck becoming a subscriber feature and it’s true. In addition, Twitter rolled out a new version of the feature that will only be available to paying users in less than a month.

• Get out your popcorn, because this news is almost like a movie 🍿📽️🎬: Meta’s new text-based app and aspiring replacement for Twitter, Threads, is rapidly gaining popularity with over 30 million downloads in just 16 hours. Twitter (X-Corp) has threatened Meta with a cease and desist letter, accusing it of hiring dozen’s of Twitter’s ex-employees to make what they are calling a “copycat app”. Zuckerberg dismissed the claim, saying that no members of the Threads engineering team are previous Twitter employees. On top of this debacle, Meta is gaining further attention from regulators.

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Charity Navigator 🌟

Looking for top, trusted charities? Charity Navigator connects people with the best charities that align with their passions. They have almost 200,000 charities rated based on measures of stability, efficiency, and sustainability. Check them out and contribute to their cause: Charity Navigator.

• Did you manage to convert to GA4 before the July 1st deadline? MarTech and Search Engine Land ran a poll: 90% of digital marketers accept GA4 is 4real and they need to adopt/adapt to it. MarTech also chose to regale us with “13 of the funniest reactions to Google’s now mandatory analytics solution“.

• You’ve been hearing a lot from us recently about the E-E-A-T guidelines for creating “helpful content” to secure higher rankings in search results. There now is reason to engage in an integrated “digital authority management” discipline not only to gain improved rankings in regular search results but to elevate valuable brand visibility (and clicks) in conversational/generative search environments like Bard, GPT, and Bing’s Co-Pilot Chat, which provide link citations in their responses. It’s definitely a concept worth reading about, if not exploring for your brand.

Why We 💗 What We Do…

One of our newest clients, Vetigel, has received FDA approval for humans. Vetigel is a plant-based hemostatic gel that can stop bleeding in seconds. We’re so happy to support them on their mission to save lives.

• Freebies can be great for both parties… if they’re done right. In the case of OpenAI’s “Browse” feature in Bing Chat, that would be a negative. People have been surpassing the ChatGPT Plus paywall and coming back with “content we don’t want”. See MediaPost for the scoop.

Just some thoughts… 💭

Speaking of AI chatbots, our VP of SEO, Marc Engelman, discussed the gap between Bing Chat and its impact on your analytics. He hosted an experiment. 🔬🥼 The question: How will Bing Chat be attributed in our web analytics? Read the blog to see what Marc discovered.

I hope your July is happy and healthy 🙂

Natalie

People actually held funerals for Universal Analytics.

Check them out for a giggle: UA dies at 11.

Oh, and send your buddies this signup link to join the WHW crew!

Guess what 😊

IT’S HERE! Your favorite digital marketing newsletter has arrived in your inbox! 🔥🥵 See what’s hot this Wednesday:

• Twitter and Meta in their own hot messes:
• Following in Twitter’s footsteps, Meta is laying off 13% of its workforce. Meta says Apple’s privacy policy updates have caused the company’s net Income to plummet and they need to restructure. We are sending positivity to all the workers affected by these changes.

• * “Who Are You” by The Who plays in the background* Twitter’s recent blue check verification issue caused quite a scandal. (If you’re not up on the tea, Twitter allowed Blue subscribers to display a verified blue check on their account. This caused a slew of imposter accounts to spread false information.) But don’t worry too much, they are working to return the official gray verification checks back to the true accounts.

• In the pandemonium, alternative social platforms are gaining traction:
• Look in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s BeReal! MarketingCharts has the deets about this hot new social platform including its apparent appeal to young women. 66% of BeReal’s adult audience members are women ages 18-24! And the app also seems to be reaching men 25-34. Maybe BeReal will become more of a real deal in the year ahead.

• Mastodon users have been surging since Musk’s takeover. The increase in uploads on Google Play and the App Store was quite cuckoo worldwide. The decentralized social platform is definitely a contender to watch with these numbers….

Do Good Spotlight
🌟 Lasagna Love 🌟

We learned about Lasagna Love from Melissa Latham, who is one of the volunteer chefs. (Another awesome person we learned about through The Connective!) This amazing global nonprofit and grassroots movement aims to positively impact communities by connecting neighbors with neighbors through homemade meal delivery. They also seek to eliminate stigmas associated with asking for help when it is needed most. Their mission is simple: feed families, spread kindness, and strengthen communities. You can learn more here.

There are lots of ways to help, we made a cash donation but perhaps you can volunteer as a chef, a la Melissa.

• 2023 is just around the corner and 2023 budget planning is well underway. It’s the time when setting expectations for ROI is critical to gain approvals for your marketing initiatives. SEO is one of the hardest digital marketing initiatives to explain to executives in terms of time and results. Get some guidance on how to define and manage SEO expectations.

• Want less data but more insights? This MarTech article explores using “decision playbooks” to identify the most important success metrics you need to quickly get agreement on next steps. 👣

We hope you’re finding ways to stay positive in these digitally tumultuous times. Sometimes the best thing to do is keep on keepin’ on,

Natalie

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