Martin Henley: [00:00:15] Hello there. My name is Martin Henley. This is the effective marketing content extravaganza. And if you’re new here, you couldn’t possibly know that I want to miss you to give you everything you could possibly need. If you are looking to be more successful in your business. Providing of course, what you need to be more successful in your business is to know more about and be implementing more effectively, efficiently and enthusiastically sales and marketing in your business, which is of course what you need. If you’re going to be more successful, you need more customers more profitably and eventually everything you need to do that. We’ll be here on this channel. So now might be a really good time to like share, subscribe and comment, get involved because that will give us the motivation to continue on this epic, epic journey.

Martin Henley: [00:00:59] So what goes on is I’m here on a monday giving you everything I know about sales and marketing as part of the what the series on a Tuesday, I bring in anyone I can find with experience of sales and marketing to share with you if you’re looking to be more successful every other Wednesday, Melanie Farmer comes through. We look at the marketing news and speculate wildly about what it might mean for you in your business. And on the other Wednesday, I review so you don’t have to. On Thursdays I will very shortly be sitting here thinking out loud, and on a Friday we react to the very best and the very worst of marketing content on the Internet. So if you still haven’t, now would be the second best time to like share, subscribe and comment because we need some motivation today. If you’re watching this live is a Wednesday. It’s that Wednesday in the month that Melanie Farmer, the concierge of co-creation at Crazy Might Work comes along and we look at the marketing news and speculate wildly about what it might mean for you in your life, in your career, in your business. Good afternoon.

Melanie Farmer: [00:01:54] Melanie Farmer Hi, how are you doing?

Martin Henley: [00:01:57] I am fair to middling is what we say in English.

Melanie Farmer: [00:02:02] There you go.

Martin Henley: [00:02:04] What do you say in Australia? You say if someone’s fair to middling.

Melanie Farmer: [00:02:09] Which doesn’t mean fine at all.

Martin Henley: [00:02:13] Okay, cool. So we start with a post. You have a post?

Melanie Farmer: [00:02:18] Oh, yeah. I went to see Dave Chappelle last night, who is a comedian. Most people would know of Dave Chappelle. Yeah. What was interesting was there was 19 I don’t know if this is the post, but there was 19,000 people in the stadium and we were not allowed phones, which is the nature of live comedy. No phones, no recording devices, all that which meant nobody could tweet, no one could like subscribe and so forth. So I just thought it was really interesting. And the second thing about that was that we consumed a whole concert without one phone being visible. So it was a really weird experience, like going back in time before we had mobile phones in 19,000 people and no one holding a phone up is a really weird, unsettling thing in a fantastically good way. There you go. That’s what I.

Martin Henley: [00:03:11] Did. Yeah, that is weird because I think I’ve got a theory. I think the nineties was the last good. I think the internet killed music, like distribution Nineties was the last good decade for music. And then I think mobile phones killed live performance So yeah that’s what I think and good I’m glad that Dave Chappelle is. So how do they police that you have to hand your phones in on the way in or you just not allowed to take them or you’re not allowed to get them out.

Melanie Farmer: [00:03:39] No no you screen did you come in. You’re given I think it’s called a nonda pouch or whatever. And you have to you you’re given a pouch which is like a material thing and you’ve got to put your phone in it. Then they lock that you can’t use it. And if you need to use it, you have to leave the stadium and go to the special unlocking station and have your phone call or whatever you need to do there. So you’re allowed to bring your phone, but you can’t use it at the stadium. Once you once you’ve gone into the arena, you’re unable to use it.

Martin Henley: [00:04:17] What a mission that they have to go to like their ends they have to go to to prevent people from using them, but they have to lock them away. Well, if it’s in the bag and it starts ringing, you have to turn it off before you put it in. Do you?

Melanie Farmer: [00:04:28] Well, you will be encouraged to leave the stadium, but yes, you’re meant to turn it to silent or off before. But of course, some someone may not do that, but they’ll be asked to leave. And if anyone is caught using their phone who hasn’t declared it, they’ll just be immediately ejected and not allowed back in with no discussion. And the reason being that, you know, a comedian who’s going on a world tour doesn’t really want someone recording the anything their jokes and then posting them because that’s the end of their world tour, isn’t it? Because you heard the jokes. So. So they have to be like that with that kind of event a bit different if you’re going to see, let’s say, Radiohead people, unless it’s a new album and even then it’s it’s not the same as going in person, but in terms of a comedian. So it was a lot of staff involved and whatever, but we just left our phones at home That was so freeing, highly encouraged to do that anyway. Like it was just I enjoyed the concert more than any I’ve been to. Just no phone so good.

Martin Henley: [00:05:28] And that counts as a boast. In 2023, I went out without my phone. It’s like perfectly valid.

Melanie Farmer: [00:05:35] I did not suffer from anxiety at all. It was great.

Martin Henley: [00:05:39] Good. Excellent. Okay. I don’t have a boast. I don’t think I’ve achieved anything in the last two weeks. I really feel like that. I suppose if there’s a post, I’m like, hectic. I’ve got loads of stuff to do, so that must mean I’m going to get busy. Maybe making some money soon. So. So that’s good. Maybe that’s my boast. All right, good. Well, we’re not here just to boast. We’re here really to look at the marketing news. We’re going to get on a mission to see if we can dispatch these stories in 10 minutes each. So I’m actually going to put a clip. I’m referring to my mobile phone to put a clock on me so we will know when we’ve been speaking for 10 minutes. So I need a new timer.

Melanie Farmer: [00:06:14] More than enough time per.

Martin Henley: [00:06:15] Story. It’s more than enough time. I mean, my stories are particularly uninspiring, I have to say, this week, so let’s hope yours are more inspiring now.

Melanie Farmer: [00:06:24] Martin And inspiring stories. Let’s do.

Martin Henley: [00:06:26] It. Yeah. No news is good news. Is that what they say? It doesn’t seem to me like it’s been a busy news couple of weeks, so maybe that’s good. Okay, so what has caught your attention in the way of marketing news?

Melanie Farmer: [00:06:40] Yeah, TikTok have updated their community guidelines and so that is resulting in a slightly stronger enforcement system to protect minors, to protect the vulnerable. So that’s an interesting move from TikTok. Instagram has just there’s a story on Instagram about they had started to head towards video content and there’s been a bit of a backlash. So they’ve done a U-turn and gone back to images because I think they were just trying to become a bit more like TikTok. Of course, the video platform of choice.

Martin Henley: [00:07:27] Okay, cool.

Melanie Farmer: [00:07:29] My third story is just about sort of what we’re doing here, which is the power of infotainment and how a Singapore company made $3 million in 2 minutes or something because they got it together to understand that their information channel was going to do better if they applied an entertainment factor to what they were doing. So, wow, there’s some tips from them about how to make a lot of cash through your panel or, you know, live streams.

Martin Henley: [00:08:12] Okay, cool. Excellent.

Melanie Farmer: [00:08:14] Yeah.

Martin Henley: [00:08:15] Excellent. I’m interested in that. My stories are something about the Google algorithm and how they’re downgrading news stories. So news service providers are doing less well than they were this time last year, or most of them are. And then my other story is about the resurgence of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. So it seems like they might be on their way back. I don’t think that’s a good news story. I’m not a fan of Facebook, but. We’ve spoken 50 times about how bad they’re doing. I thought it was only fair that we if they are making a resurgence, then we should talk about that as well. So those are my two not particularly inspiring stories, but let’s see if yours are more inspiring. So what’s going on? So your first story is this thing about. That’s not that one. This one supporting creators. Like, maybe I should move us down here and then we can see what this is about. Okay, so TikTok supporting creators with an updated account enforcement system. What’s going on?

Melanie Farmer: [00:09:29] Why is this so? They try yours? Oh, they’re trying to reduce abusive behavior. Anything that might be considered as sexual harassment on the platform, any anything like that. And they’re not wanting to post anything that is basically things like how to end your life. Hateful ideology which is. Potentially a subjective thing, but anything about violent extremism, posting any violence and any inappropriate content in that regard. So what’s interesting is if you click on that Blue Link community guidelines, you start to see what a little bit more like what their new guidelines actually look like. And I’m just going to take mine. I didn’t date me there, but like I’m looking at it now and they’re just getting a bit stricter about, for example, impersonating and fake accounts and so forth. Anything misleading, illegal activities, related goods, drugs, weapons, that sort of thing. And then they will actually give you warnings. So you you do get a warning and then you get deleted and permanently. So saying that, I guess it’s pretty easy to set up a new account. But the I think it’s a good thing. You know, there’s a bit of a it’s very clear and transparent what they’re doing and it’s very firm to the consequences. It’s still going to be who decides what is. How can you defend X, Y, Z? But you see their minor safety is really is some level of responsibility around around this stuff and saying that if you do this, you actually can get banned. So I mean, it’s one thing banning Trump, but wouldn’t it be nice if we start banning people who were posting videos of nude children doing things is just I’m pleased to see that they are taking that seriously enough to make a make a statement about it, make a change.

Martin Henley: [00:11:54] Yeah. And I am as well, because I tell you what I’m saying. Well, because we last time we spoke, we spoke about Facebook doing a similar thing, but that’s on the back of they’ve been in business for like 14 years and they were sued like we were talking at the back end of last year about how they were sued in Ireland for giving away the data, referring to children, a million children or something. Have Tick tock. Ever been sued for anything?

Melanie Farmer: [00:12:25] No, not that. Well, not that I know of. People may have tried, but I think what I like is it’s slightly alarming that it has to be done. I would have thought this would be before we launch. Let’s get this part right. But I guess in another way, do you really expect that you’re going to have to do this? So, sadly, yes, you do. But I like that it’s a little bit more brutal that you’re out and that’s it. Yes. And I mean, I think there’s a time and a place for that. And this is it. You know, I don’t want anyone being able to post stuff like this and. And carrying on having an account, it’s not appropriate. So yeah, I mean, here, here. Do not do it. Stop.

Martin Henley: [00:13:17] Yes. And I think especially I think especially if these are marketing platforms, like if people are using these platforms like this as a marketing channel to promote their products and services, then they shouldn’t be profiting from the abuse of children or crimes against children or anything to do with children they shouldn’t be profiting from. They were fined 5.4 million for online tracking shortcomings in France at the beginning on middle of last month. Yeah, but the thing I like about this is that we haven’t heard so with Meta or Facebook or the existing platforms, it typically goes they get busted doing something really horrible that involves children and something. And then two months later, oh no, we’re going to tidy up our act. Whereas I’m not aware of TikTok having been in any trouble for this. And here they are saying, look, this is the way we want people to behave on our platform. And why not? You know, I mean, why not? The other thing that kind of indicates is that it is possible. So, for example, like historically Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, now it’s just too difficult. It’s too difficult. Well, I think what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter is kind of demonstrating that there’s nothing too difficult where there’s a will, there’s a way and tick tock doing the same thing. You So there’s no excuse. Oh, I’m sorry. There’s pictures of children being abused on our platform. What can we do? Do something about it or shut down the platforms? You know what I mean? Set your priorities as what I say so good. I think this is really encouraging from TikTok.

Melanie Farmer: [00:14:49] And I think what I like is the specific like. You know, it’s easy to say that we don’t encourage violence, whatever. But there’s been very specific, like they’re saying, the non natural slaughter or death of animals. There’s a very specific. So you can’t say, well, I think it’s fine. It’s pretty black and white, you know. So they’re giving very specific examples of what they actually mean by animal cruelty and gore. And so you’re not left trying to get around things. It’s saying you’re going to get ejected from our platform if this is what you post. So just, you know, fair warning and you know the consequences. So don’t be. Yeah, there’s not a lot of recourse. Yeah. And so.

Martin Henley: [00:15:41] Yes. And there’s also a what they’re showing here helping crowds understand their account status. So you’ve got a kind of traffic light system, you know, what’s going on with your account because this is.

Melanie Farmer: [00:15:55] That issue or whatever.

Martin Henley: [00:15:57] Yeah. So this is the issue with YouTube and Facebook, isn’t it? And Twitter historically, I don’t know if it’s still going to be the case, is that it’s like, well, my account’s gone, there’s no recourse, I don’t know what’s going on, blah, blah, blah. Well, here it looks like they’re going to be showing you exactly what went wrong. Tick tock. I think in principle, at least, this quickly becoming my favorite social media. It’s like they just seem to be doing sensible, nice things, you know what I mean? Whereas the others are all mired. Maybe Twitter will come along in second place and maybe linked in third place, but the others just seem to be doing not particularly nice things, you know? And not until they’re actually broken, until I actually find themselves in court.

Melanie Farmer: [00:16:43] Right? Yeah. I mean, there’s definitely a. Alongside accountability is transparency. So saying that they’re going notify creators if you’re on the verge of having your account permanently removed. So, you know, they understand. But like it’sa no brainer that I think they’re just saying, look, these things are not okay. We’ve put that in writing in detail and whatever. And. And it’s a change. So it looks like they’re increasing their security on that. And. And, you know, I mean, this is the time once they’re building their building audience, and that’s the time when you might say, like, our focus is on growth. And now this will have the effect of having a focus on quality, I think, and and also deliver a different type of growth.

Martin Henley: [00:17:39] I think. Um. I just think it’s a really good thing. I think if you’re if you have to be in some way exploiting children to grow, then I don’t think that’s growth that’s worth happening. I think, honestly, if there was an instance of any kind of child abuse or child exploitation, exploitation on any of the platforms, they should just be immediately taken down and then like go round to Mark Zuckerberg’s house and tell him to switch his toy off until it’s not there anymore. You know, I mean, that’s that’s the way I think it should work. And this the thing is, I think what this. Alludes to is the fact that actually. People at that level may be don’t prioritize these things, but people at A-level do. Do you know what I mean? Like the normal person walking around is disgusted by this stuff, you know, and doesn’t tolerate this stuff. So it feels to me like TikTok are much closer to understanding how people actually feel about these things maybe than some of those other platforms. Good story, good news story as well. A social media platform behaving responsibly without having been taken to court first.

Melanie Farmer: [00:18:46] Yeah. It boggles the mind, isn’t it?

Martin Henley: [00:18:50] Yeah. And I’ve had a few conversations with people on the talk marketing thing who are specifically performance marketing people. So they are running ads on all these platforms and they say Tick tock is absolutely kicking everybody else in terms of performance. So it looks to me like TikTok all the way around is a perfectly lovely social media platform. Long may it continue.

Melanie Farmer: [00:19:14] Long may it continue.

Martin Henley: [00:19:15] Long may it continue.

Melanie Farmer: [00:19:17] Okay.

Martin Henley: [00:19:18] The time is we did that story with 30 seconds to spare.

Melanie Farmer: [00:19:23] There you go.

Martin Henley: [00:19:24] Good. 9:00 again to go. This will be a short story as well. So this story is about it comes from I will show you. It comes from here. Press Gazette The Future of Media How Google has downgraded Importance of News Websites in Search Results. So data from SEO experts districts reveals big losses for news domains in organic search. In 2022, news websites saw a significant drop in their prominence on Google Search results in 2022, according to data from Independent Search Visibility performance company Citrix. They have looked at so many new sites. We can go straight to the tables. So this is proper news services like maybe not my London News, Irish Times, AI News, Entertainment Daily. The Economist, The Sun, Al Jazeera. These are the biggest drops. So The Irish Times, The New York Times, The Guardian, for example, is down 36%. So this isn’t down 36% necessarily on traffic, but this is down 36% on actual rankings. And then they’ve got the most search visibility is the Guardian, which fell from by 125, whatever that metric is. The Sun, The New York Times, The Daily Mail, The Independent’s Co.uk. The biggest gains were the Northern Echo, the Irish Mirror, the Daily Star, the Leicester Mercury, Root.com. Now, what it doesn’t tell us is why. So Forbes is up, Daily Star is up in terms of search visibility. So this is down in terms of search visibility and this is up in terms of search for relative search visibility.

Martin Henley: [00:21:21] And this is up. So Forbes, the Daily Star, the Irish Mirror. Um, it’s a little bit like my new thing is going to be thinking out loud. There aren’t really any, um. Conclusions here. Like it doesn’t tell us why, but we know that Google has been, um. Preferencing is that the words prioritising news like current content. So it’s kind of interesting to see that some of these news services are down. It doesn’t tell us what they’ve been replaced with. It doesn’t tell us what the motivation might be. It doesn’t really tell us anything more about that other than the fact that it’s down. So I suppose the news for marketeers is maybe focus less on the news if you want to be appearing in the search results like we’re talking about the news. So is that going to be as useful anymore? I don’t really care if two people find it and take use it and that’ll be good for me. But it’s just kind of interesting to remember that Google is deciding what they want to rank and when they want to rank it and how they want to rank it and all of those things. And I suppose marketers need to keep an eye on that to see what. How their content is going to be. Um. Prioritized rank to what? Otherwise? What do you think?

Melanie Farmer: [00:22:50] I think that’s really interesting. Um. Yeah. I mean, I wonder. Because it doesn’t you know, it would be interesting to look at visitors side by side to see whether visibility and visitors are dropping together. Yes. Because like, if your strategy, say, at the Guardian is X, Y, Z, you’ll visit visibility dropping in Google might not actually have a bearing on your visitors because you’ve got some great strategy. And they’d be interesting to compare how well these platforms are doing. And how important is visibility if your brand is strong, for example, on that basis or if you’ve got other strategies for driving visitors. So yeah, that would be very interesting to cross. Check with those most affected. And I noticed there’s some have gone up.

Martin Henley: [00:23:50] Some have gone on. I think the overall is that it’s down. So those that have gone up, those that have had the biggest gains, the Northern Echo, this is UK centric. So the Northern Echo, that’s a north of England type thing, the Irish Mirror, the Daily Star, the Leicester Mercury. So that would be local news. Our Rt.com MSN.com. I mean it is fascinating because it doesn’t tell us like there’s more questions than answers in this news piece. It doesn’t tell us what it’s been replaced with. Like has it been replaced with local news? Has it been replaced with independent news? You know, what Has it been replaced? What’s driving the decision? Is it that people are taking less value from these traditional news sites and so they’re not performing in terms of getting the clicks and and holding the visitors. You know, so there are more questions than answers. But overall, it would seem that Google is no longer prioritizing the news. And it was for a period of time, you know, you wanted to have the most relevant thing on your website or the most current thing on your website, because Google would prioritize that. But now not anymore. And we don’t know why.

Melanie Farmer: [00:25:08] Yeah, I think and it’ll be interesting to see if that sustains for, for a period of time.

Martin Henley: [00:25:14] As I say, this is a decline that has been going on for a number of years. So it would seem that this is.

Melanie Farmer: [00:25:21] Gradual.

Martin Henley: [00:25:22] Direction.

Melanie Farmer: [00:25:24] Yeah. Interesting to see for those who grew. What have they been talking about? What have what’s their current strategy been? In general, what stories are they covering that and has that? It’s the reverse trends. I’d be interested. You’d be worth checking out there. You know, in the last the last year or the last few months of what their focus has been is publications and and side by side with those who’ve dropped the most and see what are they talking about that because that potentially also indicates what users are most interested in potentially, but also what Google is most interested in as an algorithm that that we could we could learn from. And of course, they change the algorithm all the time. So just when you’ve got your act together and you suddenly the Irish post or whatever it was, they’ve changed it back. So it is famously nebulous.

Martin Henley: [00:26:27] Yes. And the interesting thing is, if there’s a natural justice to this, which they kind of always want to suggest there is, then it would suggest that these these new services that are on the climb are actually doing a better job, being more interesting, attracting more traffic, holding more traffic, doing all of that stuff. And those at the top are not. So it’s interesting to see that art are on the climb. For example, they are the one, two, three, four, fifth biggest gainer. That’s Russian something, isn’t it.

Melanie Farmer: [00:26:56] Russian Russia today.

Martin Henley: [00:26:58] Russia today is what it is. Yeah. So yeah, it’s interesting. Just interesting to know that like you say, they changed the algorithm 300 times a year. There’s typically something major happens on the algorithm once a year. Google are deciding what they want to promote and what they don’t want to promote on their search engine. And so marketers have to be aware of that. So maybe invest less in putting up news on your on your websites. Good. And the good news on that story is that we nailed their story with 2 minutes to spare. Smashing in. Good at this. So that takes us beautifully, then to story number three. Your story number three is the Instagram U-turn. On not being like Tik Tok. Is that what they’re saying? What’s going on?

Melanie Farmer: [00:27:52] Yeah, look, they they so Instagram were basically seeing the rise and rise of tick tock. And as a result, they started to shift like, you know, everything’s video. Video is a feature. So they started to upgrade and change, adapt their platform to be more video friendly. And they got a big backlash from some of their their big users, Kim Kardashian and so forth, saying we we like these we want images. If I wanted video content, I’d go to the video place. But I’m here because it’s an image platform. Yes. So go back to what you were, please. And so so they had to say terribly sorry. We’re going to continue supporting photos. But I think it is interesting that there’s an execution in strategy lesson here where if anyone was thinking right, I’ve noticed that there’s a lot of video I’ve got to jump on board. That’s not necessarily true. So, you know, when you’re executing any kind of marketing strategy is understanding how you’re going to win over others. And while video might be the way there might be merit in exploring other than actually asking your customers, which is a very modern thing, I’d like to see what are they enjoying? What were they most likely to, you know, to value rather than just making a change? Because you’re and I will say this about Instagram, it’s a classic response where you have created a category called Postcard Instant Postcards, and then you’re noticing someone over here entering your category in a way that was something different.

Melanie Farmer: [00:29:54] And then you decide you’re going to now compete in the category that Tik-tok created rather than create your own category and stay as the leader of of that category. So you start to become a follower, not a leader. And and that that had a negative impact here and they they in their defense stopped what they were doing and said, you know we should rethink this and understand who we’re serving and why they are using us. So, yeah, it’s an interesting one for for any of us thinking that we should go with what’s popular, that it’s not necessarily true. Focus on value and understand your customer and don’t be distracted by shiny things, which is like trends of other companies I think is is the message I would say from that.

Martin Henley: [00:30:50] Yeah, well, we we spoke about this a number of times last year, didn’t we, that they were moving away from what they were good at and chasing. Tick tock like they’re saying here Tony. Tone. I would imagine Tony. Tony is famous. She doesn’t like it. The Kardashians don’t like it.

Melanie Farmer: [00:31:09] Oh yeah.

Martin Henley: [00:31:10] Nobody liked it. So the thing is, I think you’re right. You think about it as categories. Instagram were winning the photo category. They were doing okay with the stories category.

Melanie Farmer: [00:31:20] It was really the correct word, Pinterest, Pinterest and Instagram. They were the creators of the category.

Martin Henley: [00:31:26] No, Instagram created it long before Pinterest even came along. So yeah, just own your category, I think, and don’t be distracted by the latest shiny thing. But this also goes if there’s a theme emerging today, it’s like, what is the point of being in business? Is the point of being in business to make the most money in your area, or is the point actually to deliver value to your customers? Because if you’re delivering customer value to your customers, you shouldn’t be moving every 20 minutes just because somebody else comes along with something that’s a bit different or a bit better. Okay, 32 minutes. We’re going to have to stop now because we’ve got a little visitor coming. Oh, he’s not bothered about us. He’s gone. Okay, go. But he is going to put the TV. Okay, let’s see how that goes. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So I think, like, this is the ugliness I think, of these platforms. Facebook in particular is like, how dare anyone try and be in this market with us and take a penny away from us. You know what I mean? And what’s interesting is that my story is going to say something different about this, which Mark Zuckerberg said, apparently. But I think, yeah, own your category. That has to be the you know, and don’t just because somebody else comes along and they’re also making money from an app doesn’t mean that you have to rewrite the rulebook like people have hated this because I’m interested in photography. I follow photography type people. They hate it, the models hate it, everyone hates it. Instagram is about images. It should always be about images Just because someone comes along as doing something different doesn’t mean that you should change. Rewrite your whole rulebook. That’s what I would say.

Melanie Farmer: [00:33:10] Good. Yeah. So they got schooled. And last point when that is that for me anyway, is that they got a backlash saying I am I don’t want video but I do want to see images that my friends post. Not all these other bloody rubbish.

Martin Henley: [00:33:25] Okay, cool. So Instagram learning the lesson. Don’t chase the quick buck. That’s the lesson. Don’t change everything to chase the quick buck. That’s a lesson for everyone who’s in business. Okay, cool. So that takes us then the news on the time with that is I didn’t set the timer, so we’ve got no idea how we performed against the time for that story. I’m saying the time of first story number four.

Martin Henley: [00:33:45] Story number four is Facebook is back. So tools are. I’m also on the BBC Facebook Quarter of global population news site Daily. In December, the number of people using Facebook daily grew to an average of 2 billion. In December, about a quarter of the world’s population. The bigger than expected growth helped drive new optimism about the company, which has been under pressure as it costs rise in advertising sales slump. Shares in parent company motor surged by more than 15% are after Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 the year of efficiency. He said We’re in a different environment now, pointing to the firm’s revenue, which declined in 2022 for the first time in its history. After years of double digit growth, we don’t anticipate that’s going to continue. But I also don’t think it’s going to go back to the way it was before. Mattel, which also owns Instagram, ET cetera, etc., have cut 11,000 jobs, 13% of their staff. The firm said those moves cost it $4.6 billion, but it still brought in $23 Billion in profit. That’s what they’re saying. And somewhere here, he says it’s because I hear Mr. Zuckerberg said the company was making progress with its video product product reels, which it has been focused on as it faces off with rivals such as TikTok, which have gained traction, especially among younger users. What this means for Mark Zuckerberg is that his wealth increased by $12 billion on Thursday. That must have been like a week last Thursday. Interestingly, I don’t think my wealth increased by $12 billion a week last Thursday or anything like so it looks like Facebook is back. How do we feel about that?

Melanie Farmer: [00:35:28] Hmm. Well, putting aside the 12 billion cash wealth, maybe your wealth increased in happiness and joy. So they were. What do we feel about that? I mean, I am.

Martin Henley: [00:35:46] Do we believe.

Melanie Farmer: [00:35:48] I am cynical about that data and what what? You know, what’s behind it? You know, this feel like it could be misleading this. That’s all I think.

Martin Henley: [00:36:04] I don’t think a quarter of the people I know are on Facebook any longer. Like I get messages now, it will be three weeks before I see a message on Facebook because I am never there. That obviously isn’t the most scientific study, but all I’m saying is that my lived experience is quite different from what they’re reporting here. I don’t believe a quarter of the population of the world are on Facebook daily. Like if they were to say, maybe logged in once a month, that would be a different thing. Maybe it just goes to show what we all know is that it’s all just stories. So if this story is in the ascendancy, then the share price will go up. If other stories are in the ascendancy, then maybe the share price will go down. I don’t know. But like I said before, I just feel like we spent enough time bashing Facebook last year. If they have managed to turn the tide. I mean, this is exactly. He’s saying it’s because Reels is working. Your story is saying reels is going away because it’s not working. You know, it’s all just stories.

Melanie Farmer: [00:37:02] I wonder about Facebook Marketplace, which is kind of your eBay equivalent. Sort of what people are doing on Facebook is, is my question, because I know that I use Facebook marketplace more than I used Facebook to interact with my friends. And that’s partly because my friends are like every 10th post. And even though I continually going in and turning ads off and this and that, the other somehow rather there’s a loophole, but I don’t need to sort that out and I end up with all these ads. But I am, however, finding that it’s very good for local sourcing of marketplace stuff that if I. Yeah rather than buy new which is always nice.

Martin Henley: [00:37:47] Yes. So 100% I would say that the only time I go to Facebook these days is if I want to go to Facebook, go to Marketplace and see if there’s something that I want to buy, if I’m looking for something specifically to buy. But it seems counterintuitive. They don’t they’re not leaning into the thing that you and I are finding useful. They’re rather looking at, oh, these guys are doing better than us over here. Let’s do what they do. Do you know what I mean? So it seems like we talk about data based decision making and all these things, and these are supposed to be the leaders in it. And we talk about businesses being nice, but it just feels like they don’t do anything that they say. And so they struggle. But now they’ve managed to get a good news story out.

Melanie Farmer: [00:38:27] Was that I mean, I wonder if they are grappling with the challenge of being too big when you get to this size, you’ve got you know, you got so much data that your data could prove everything in every direction depending on how you slice and dice that data. You know what I mean? Like, I wonder if there’s a point where you just decay because there’s a there’s a journey. But saying that, you know, there’s the reinvent yourself lesson. And I think there’s, you know, they have made some changes and there is nothing like downsizing to regroup and say, what are we doing? And look at what’s left of our data now and look at that data differently and make different decisions about who’s working for you and things like that. So I think they’ve made some good decisions about regrouping and yeah, so that that might be starting to pay off. I mean, the world is changing anyway. We’re all out and about again, so we’re probably posting a lot more and reading it. You know, we’re getting involved in travel and this and that. So I do wonder if they could do nothing and grow because the world is not asleep anymore. Yeah, that something that’s happening in life. Firstly.

Martin Henley: [00:39:41] I think it’s interesting, but I think yeah, I mean, good for them. If it’s true, if it’s happening, good for them. But I just. What do I just think? I just think yeah. It’d just be a nicer business like deliver value for your customers. Don’t sell their data. Don’t sell the data to children. You know, maybe it’s not difficult. But the thing is, if you’re a big company, you can’t innovate. And the thing is about being a data company like they are. They’re making their money from the data. They should have learnt really how how to make it make sense, you know, for them also. And maybe they have now because it seems like they’re on their way back or they’re not either they’re becoming more like TikTok or they’re not becoming like tick tock at all. Who on earth knows? The good news is that we only spent 7 minutes talking about the recovery of Facebook. So we are today we are nailing this.

Martin Henley: [00:40:34] Okay, cool. Which brings us then to our final story of the week, which is a good news story about a Singapore startup raking in almost $3 Million in sales in two months all through Facebook. This is Singapore dollars, which is there’s about 2 SGD typically to the pound. So it’s about £1.5 million in sales, maybe 3 million AUD in sales, something like that. What’s going on with this company, Moda?

Melanie Farmer: [00:41:02] Yeah, look, I think they are talking about how to make money through live streaming. So live streaming is more and more becoming a effectively a place where your your live endorsing stuff and people are making buying decisions at the moment of listening to you live stream. So a little bit like pay TV where you’d be watching the jewelry channel at two in the morning or whatever because that’s what they they back in the day. But this is sort of saying, you know, tune in to our live stream. We’re going to be walking you through X, Y, Z. And they understood that it was more than information or the e-commerce side of things. They realised that they had to be entertaining. And so this company has done. What have they got? More than 5 million live stream views. They’ve got more than 28,000 followers in a very short space of time. And now they’ve got 30 employees. And look at them go. So it’s about I think 11 million us is what they’re saying towards the bottom. So on the on the radar, I suppose, for how to do it Right. And they’re talking about human human interaction and building trust. And we do like humans. And when it’s live, that’s a very different thing to a recorded thing. So if people were alive with us now chatting, there’s something quite human about that. And and they just realize that this is this is where the magic happens. Is that interaction.

Martin Henley: [00:42:47] Excellent? This does seem to be it says here this is the future. This is typically Singaporean and. A Singaporean modesty where their CEO and co founder. Where’s it gone? Ceo and co-founder. You need to plan your show because this is not just selling, this is infotainment. Entertainment needs to be high. And that can be very challenging because sometimes even I myself run out of ideas.

Melanie Farmer: [00:43:15] God forbid. No, surely not.

Martin Henley: [00:43:20] I think that’s very Singaporean kind of modesty there. I think this is I was talking to who was I talking to? Cat Sale. She runs the House of Performance and she was singing the praises of Tik Tok. And she says this live selling thing is like a real thing. So you can tune in any time of the day or night and you’ll find someone selling wigs, for example, and they’re saying, Show me that wig on hook number five, whatever, and and model it for me and blah, blah, blah. So I think this I don’t know exactly what it is, but I think this kind of community life selling thing is really picking up. And yeah, so I mean, it always went on, didn’t it? Like people were doing tarot readings and stuff on Facebook. I remember at one point in Facebook.

Melanie Farmer: [00:44:04] Yeah, really was going around all that psychic readings and, and then just tune in because these, these people are just live and of course they, they’re not they’re muting you so you just all the likes and hates and whatnot. But the ability to read comments, take questions, do product demos and so forth and say, we’re going to be live at 12:00 on Wednesday and tune in and ask us stuff, ask me anything. There’s those sorts of segments and there’s quite a few, I guess, celebrity kind of characters who offer services, professional services, several different types of services. And they are sort of saying, I’m having a coffee, I’m off to Starbucks, how’s everyone doing? And so it’s it’s sort of a feeling that that’s your friend, I think, and that they’re real and that’s building trust. These guys have sort of got a bit more than that, a bit more formal, like it is a studio, it’s a presentation as a panel. But they’re it’s a conversation as opposed to a presentation. Yes. And then through that, you make it, you build a bit of trust and they’re understanding. I don’t know if they break into karaoke or what, but but, you know, they understand that it has to be entertaining, not just, you know, features of a product, for example.

Martin Henley: [00:45:32] I think what’s nice about it is, well, what’s interesting is this news story that you think they would give us a clip so we get a sense of what it is that they’re doing. But what’s nice about it is it’s that sense of interaction again, isn’t it? Which is nice. And that sense also of empowerment is like wherever you are in the world, you can you can leverage these platforms to improve your life. They’ve had more than 5 million livestream views. It’s still a volume thing, isn’t it? It’ll be interesting to see what they look like. Did their first Facebook Live stream. There’s a link there. It’s just going to take me. I mean.

Melanie Farmer: [00:46:08] Talk about feedback though. I mean, if you if you’re doing live streaming and taking comments and reading them out, one of the big lessons in it is having somebody or more than one a team very closely monitoring and interacting with that audience so that you don’t lose them. Because I know that if I’ve been in those things and I type something and then it just disappears and nobody responds at all, which is going to happen when you have such a volume. But saying, look, if you’re if you’re the presenter saying, look, a lot of people are saying X, Y, Z, a lot of people are asking X, Y, Z. Thank you so much, Brenda from Sydney who says such and such. So some level of interaction that makes it feel like you’re in a relationship with these people and even it’s reversing and saying, what do you guys think about this? Oh well, Sonia says this and such and such says that, you know, thanks for the likes and styles and all those things, but I like the fact that I. I mean, I can see why it’s more powerful than presenting in a webinar and things like that, which are really silence in the audience. You are monitoring and controlling what the audience hears. But you are encouraging live interaction and they are clued into the fact that it needs to be entertaining, not just, you know, here we are and we offer accounting services which are terribly good. Ask me about tax instead. They probably, if you were in that category and you’re you’re watching us today, talk about this. You want to be thinking like who you really want to hear, who’s really effed up in the facts in the tax department. Tell us a really juicy story and what went wrong and maybe how you fixed it. But, you know, we love it when someone went to jail and we get a story going. It’s entertainment. So that that for me is the lesson.

Martin Henley: [00:47:56] Yes, 100%. I’m with you. And it’s good to see businesses coming from nowhere and going somewhere really quickly. You know, I mean, like it seems like that is something that used to happen a lot in the noughties. You know, you see businesses come from nowhere and do really well by leveraging these platforms. And it felt a little bit to me like maybe that opportunity had gone away. But these guys are proving otherwise. Good. Excellent. And the good news about that is that we managed to expire that story in 8 minutes.

Melanie Farmer: [00:48:27] We just we’re really good at this.

Martin Henley: [00:48:29] We just need to focus on being efficient. That’s what we need to do. Okay, super cool. So it has been quite an interesting couple of weeks, hasn’t it, really? Maybe it’s just me not engaging enough. Um.

Melanie Farmer: [00:48:42] Yeah. Yeah. Cool.

Martin Henley: [00:48:46] Why am I busy? It’s a shock to the system being busy.

Melanie Farmer: [00:48:50] It, ironically, for me, looking at today’s stories. For me, this the last couple of story sessions we’ve had. On the one hand, computers are taking over the world with artificial intelligence. And another way, human interaction is more important than ever. So it’s quite interesting times for the world of marketing.

Martin Henley: [00:49:09] And have seen and I think we’ve got to find a balance at some point because like since we looked at the eye, like I told you before, I chat chatbot, like my position has solidified like you do 40 or 50 kind of requests and you start to see the same things coming back, you know, So you’re going to have to be a very clever teacher to work out what’s been written by AI and what’s not. And the other thing that I’ve realized since then is if you put in tell me about this thing and show sources, then it actually refers to the sites that it’s plagiarizing and then you can actually use it in an academic thing. Do you know what I mean? Whereas yeah, but what I’m seeing everywhere now is make 10,000 a month with chat GPT. I don’t know I saw was 10,000 a month. It’s almost 10,000 a month but I don’t think it’s going to go that way, particularly in.

Melanie Farmer: [00:49:58] Chat and ask them why is it 10,000 a month and tells you, Oh well man, as you can see, don’t make it. So that’s the most number. Everything’s 10,000, 10,000 steps. Remember for health.

Martin Henley: [00:50:14] 10000 hours of experience.

Melanie Farmer: [00:50:16] 7 hours, 10,000 a month. So that’s probably why.

Martin Henley: [00:50:22] I’m sure three is the other magic number.

Melanie Farmer: [00:50:25] Oh, yeah, Yeah. You need three pillars. Everything. Three?

Martin Henley: [00:50:28] Yeah. Not for all three. It’s very nice. Magic number.

Melanie Farmer: [00:50:34] Yeah. There you are. If there’s a song written about it. Must be true.

Martin Henley: [00:50:37] Yes, 100% must be true. Okay, Super cool. So we did the news. I think we did it in record time. How long have we been here? Are we been 52 minutes? It is a record. I think if we hadn’t been running a clock, we’d still be here in 25 minutes time. Right. But we’re not. Is there anything else you want to add at this juncture?

Melanie Farmer: [00:50:55] No, I’m good of. I don’t think I can offer anything, any wisdom from here. I’ve covered it.

Martin Henley: [00:51:01] Okay, fantastic. But interesting things happen in the next couple of weeks, and I will see you here. Then I’m going to put something in your diary right now.

Melanie Farmer: [00:51:10] Things.

Martin Henley: [00:51:11] You’re an absolute legend. Melanie Farmer, thank you for being here again.

Melanie Farmer: [00:51:16] Sign you now.

Martin Henley: [00:51:22] Thank you for taking the time to check out this episode of Marketing News. If you found this interesting and useful, then YouTube thinks you’re also going to enjoy this. And this is the latest thing that we’ve produced. If you haven’t yet and you could take a second to like, share, subscribe and comment. Get involved. That will give us the motivation to continue on this epic, epic journey.

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