COMING AT YOU THE WEEK OF 7.5.22
This week’s most important Marketing News
Commissioner Brendan Carr wrote as himself to make this request to the CEOs of Apple and Google. In other words, this letter isn’t from the Federal Communications Commision. It’s from a guy with background in this subject area.
He argued two points to persuade them to remove TikTok from the app store:
- “TikTok poses an unacceptable national security risk due to its extensive data harvesting”
He gives a lot of evidence to support this claim. Because there’s no way around it—TikTok has repeatedly displayed sketchy behavior when it comes to handling personal data.
- TikTok’s data handling goes against Apple and Google’s app store policies
Google’s Play Store policy on user data begins with, “You must be transparent in how you handle user data.” And that’s the heart of Carr’s argument—that TikTok has been misleading about how it handles users’ data.
The timing of this letter relates to the release of a Buzzfeed article titled, “Leaked Audio From 80 Internal TikTok Meetings Shows That US User Data Has Been Repeatedly Accessed From China.”
From where I’m sitting, it’d be difficult to argue that TikTok has a clean, functioning system for keeping user data safe and secure. The real question is how willing are we to do something about it? It’s likely that Carr didn’t expect Apple and Google to really do what he asked. But his message is more likely meant to get everyone (including executives at Google and Apple) talking about and evaluating user data policies and laws.
GOOGLE’S TRYING OUT PROS AND CONS TO SEARCH RESULT SNIPPETS
Search Engine Round Table shared a few instances people had captured Google populating a short list of pros and cons in snippets. Like this example below. You’ll see the pros and cons listed last.
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AMAZON IS LAUNCHING AN ANALYTICS SERVICE FOR PHYSICAL STORES
Amazon explained, “With Store Analytics, brands will have access to details on how their products are discovered, considered, and purchased in applicable stores to help them inform decisions related to selection, promotions, and ad campaigns.” Could be cool.
NEW GOOGLE MAPS FEATURES AVAILABLE
I’m going to let Search Engine Land speak for themselves here: “The Google Maps Platform has added a bunch of new features for businesses to add deeper integration with its Google Maps Platform APIs to help those businesses streamline some of their integrations with Google Maps. These include the ability to embed Reserve with Google on your site, a new embed a store location tool, a Locator Plus feature, store locator analytics and more.”
GOOGLE WILL NO LONGER USE RICH RESULTS TO DISPLAY “WIDELY PROHIBITED OR REGULATED GOODS”
In their guidelines for Product rich results, Google added “We don’t allow content that promotes widely prohibited or regulated goods, services, or information that may facilitate serious, immediate, or long term harm to people. This includes content related to firearms and weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco and vaping products, and gambling-related products.”
Rich results are any search results that go beyond the regular blue, linked text and snippet.
BY END OF JULY, YOUTUBE CHANNELS CAN’T HIDE SUBSCRIBER COUNT
YouTube knows that not all accounts that hide their subscriber count are nefarious. But unfortunately, many accounts that hide their subscriber numbers do it so they can look more established and trustworthy than they actually are. This forced transparency will have benefits like easier transparency between sponsors and influencers, spying on your competition’s numbers, along with the intended purpose of cracking down on spam.
GOOGLE RELEASED MORE DETAILS ABOUT THE 15MB LIMIT THAT GOOGLEBOT HAS WHEN CRAWLING CONTENT
I mentioned last week that Google specified that their Googlebot caps out at 15MB of content. People had a lot of questions about that, and so Google addressed some of them. It’s main clarification is that this 15MB limit has existed for years, they just recently wrote it out for us.
USEFUL LINKS
A site that connects advertisers to newsletters. Here you are, a marketer reading a newsletter. So you get it. People engage in the newsletters they connect well with. Swapstack makes it easy to find and advertise in newsletters that match your ad strategy by showing you the newsletter audience type, number of subscribers, and their avg. open and click rate.
A bionic reading chrome extension. Bionic reading bolds certain letters of words to help your brain read faster. Not a terrible chrome extension for someone who reads article after article to research marketing industry news. Or maybe whatever you do.
HOW TO KEEP A PULSE ON YOUR WORK WITHOUT RELYING TOO MUCH ON OTHERS’ OPINIONS
I did great in school. I was in honors programs, skipped a grade, took advanced classes. I ended with a C in one class my entire school experience (including college). At least, I don’t remember another C. And I think I would remember it because—obviously—I was motivated by getting high grades. I like to learn, but my love of learning wasn’t the fuel for those grades. It was that outward, obvious sign of praise and accomplishment that came from seeing As on my papers, tests, and transcripts.
It was all good and dandy those years I was getting a formal education in public school and at university (…kind of…). But then I started my first salary job. How was I supposed to get high off of all As on my report card when there was no report card?
Here’s what I’m getting at: I like clear, obvious signs that what I’m doing is good. I like feedback. I like to hear over and over again that what I’ve done was done well, was even above expectations. I know it isn’t super healthy, but I like to have proof that my work is amazing. That I’m amazing. So sue me!
And I know I’m not alone. I know that so many of those kids who sat next to me feverishly studying our anatomy flashcards before test day have felt similar pains to me since leaving school and entering the real world.
And I also know that revealing my uncensored thoughts here also shows off some problemental patterns and tendencies. And that’s really my whole point here.
The point: Sooo many of us crave proof that we are “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous” (Nelson Mandela anyone?). So many of us were brought up to look outside ourselves for that. To look externally for someone else to judge both our work and our worth. And it’s not serving us.
So instead let’s figure this out. How can we keep a pulse on our own work performance without relying too much on the opinions of others?
Define what success means to you
I’d make a bet that few of us have formally written down what career success looks like to us. Here are some reflection questions to help you define this for yourself.
How do I know that my career is serving me well?
Here’s my response for reference.
It’s giving me the ability to put my family first. It’s giving me a platform where I feel I’m helping people. It makes me proud, like I want to tell the people close to me about my projects. It allows me to financially live the life I’m comfortable with.
What are the signs I use to gauge if I’m fulfilling my work responsibilities?
Write down all kinds of signs. Ones you’re paying attention to but shouldn’t. Ones that aren’t working but you care about. Feelings. Metrics. Anything you can think of.
What about my career am I proud of? What am I not proud of? Why?
This is straightforward, but tells a lot about what success means to you.
Choose whose judgment matters to you
Now that you’ve set up a foundational definition of success for you, let’s talk about other people. While we shouldn’t use people’s judgement as our primary indicator of success, we still need to navigate relationships to function. Seems to me that the key is being selective and intentional about the judgement you put stock in.
Here are some questions and exercises to decide this.
Who’s opinion of me affects my work?
Write a thorough list here—don’t filter it based on who should or shouldn’t affect your work. Here’s my answer for reference.
My team members, my mentor, my husband, my parents, my brothers, my readers, my social media viewers and commenters, my peers.
Decide if you’re willing to alter your work to keep those people’s opinion of you positive
Ranking the people (or groups) on a scale of 1-5 helps.
1 – I am not willing to alter my work based on their opinion
3 – I will situationally consider their opinion
5 – I will frequently prioritize their opinion
Rank them based on how you hope to behave, not on how you’re currently acting. If you’re bending over backwards to keep a coworker happy but you realize that’s not important to you, give them a 2 or something. I felt a little savage while ranking people, but the power of setting boundaries coursed through me. 💪😆
Make a short list of whose judgement is a 4 or 5
Vet your short list. Ask yourself why you’re willing to prioritize these people’s opinions. Check if they should really be here.
An example of a good reason
If my manager doesn’t think I’m a valuable employee, I will lose out on raises or lose my job.
An example of a bad reason
If social media commenters leave negative comments, our brand will suffer.
Apply boundaries to the judgement you will heed from your shortlist
Here’s what this might look like
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Here’s wishing all of us luck and consistency as we work toward self-improvement, career growth, and confidence!
INTERESTING STUFF
👩💻 Deepfake Technology Pros & Cons For Digital Marketing – Search Engine Journal
🦸🏼 Ryan Reynolds’ marketing hero origin story – MediaPost
🛋 Ikea’s new app deletes your living room furniture so you can buy even more – Fast Company
🚗 Apple eyes fuel purchases from dashboard as it revs up car software – Reuters