Putting the “You” in YouTube

You know how it goes with YouTube — one minute, you’re watching a TEDTalk, and the next, you’re on your third hour of ASMR videos. With such an enormous amount of content available, it can be difficult for marketers to pinpoint precisely where they want their ads to fall. Luckily, the platform added new tools to help, including the “dynamic lineups” category targeting feature.

Thanks to machine learning that can understand what a video is about, YouTube’s dynamic lineups targeting now gives marketers more specific and contextual ad placement options. The feature helps you hone in on particular categories (think “content marketing” instead of the broader “marketing” option). 

Views are soaring this year as YouTube becomes a growing alternative to popular TV. These new tools make the platform an increasingly great place to market to highly niche audiences, which is vital for B2B brands. Reaching the right consumers for a fraction of the price of a traditional TV campaign? Sign us up.  

TL;DR: Advanced category targeting will allow marketers to tighten YouTube ad campaigns and reach the right audience for lower costs.

Anotha' One

We’ll never say all Facebook does is win, win, win. But we are intrigued by the recently launched Facebook Business Suite management platform. The sweet, Suite deal serves up a combo of management tools from across the Facebook app family, like post analytics and scheduling, into an all-in-one solution for digital marketers. (Sorry, Ad Manager users, you’re left out of this one.)

Managing cross-channel social media efforts is a lot to take on, especially for small businesses or fledgling brands that don’t have access to those high-cost analytics solutions. This tool lessens the lift, letting you compare campaigns and analyze content performance and manage and plan posts all in one spot.  It’s like a command center control board for your brand’s social strategy. DJ Khaled would (probably) say that’s a “No Brainer.”

TL;DR: Facebook’s Business Suite provides an all-in-one management solution for small-biz owners and social media marketers.

Marketers, Start Your Influencer Engines

The pandemic has changed many things (i.e., seeing your boss in a sweatshirt every day), and marketing budgets are no exception. Instead of events or promotional materials, social media marketing and influencer marketing have undoubtedly become every marketer’s best bet. More than 17% of companies said they plan on spending over half of their total marketing budget on influencer marketing this year. 

And with good reason: engagement on publisher videos and influencer content is up 67%. While branded or sponsored influencer content rose *only* by 21% from March to July, engagement with that content was up 101%.

With more people living the at-home lifestyle, it’s no surprise that consumers have more time to stop and well, engage in a much more significant way with what’s coming up on their feeds. So if you’ve been hesitant to wade into the influencer marketing world before, now is the time to dive in. Mainly because these new engagement habits are likely to stick around long after you start seeing your boss in a suit again. 

Tl:DR: Engagement is through the roof as consumers spend more quality time interacting with content.

ICYMI