What were some of the top stories from the world of marketing and video? Each week with Render Perfect Productions, your video marketing experts in Baltimore and beyond, we’ll take a look at marketing news this week. In this edition, we are covering some of the top stories from the week of March 21st to March 25th 2022.
Meta Cracks Down on Clickbait
Video marketers take note.
While you obviously want to lure as many viewers as you can with your video clips, some tactics on this front can be questionable, and can be annoying to viewers.
Meta is calling these tactics ‘watchbait’, which it says includes using things like withholding key information, sensationalizing content, or misleading viewers about the true nature of the video.
“These tactics can be deployed in any part of the post or video, including the text, thumbnail, or content of the video, and ultimately are used to lure or bait people into watching the full video.”
People don’t like this, and according to Meta, feedback from its users is they don’t want to see this approach in their feed. So now, Meta’s doing something about it.
“Given users’ preferences and the baity nature of watchbait videos, we use a system that detects watchbait holistically across a video post and, if detected, reduces its distribution. Videos that are considered watchbait may not be recommended to viewers and/or may receive limited ranking. And repeatedly posting watchbait may result in that Page’s overall distribution being reduced.”
That’s a pretty enormous concern – you don’t want to be tagged as watchbait and see your Page reach decline ever more, while how Meta’s automated systems determine such is also pretty opaque, which will spook a lot of creators.
So how do you avoid posting watchbait?
Meta has provided some examples of what it will now mark as watchbait in video titles and descriptions:
- Withholding – Omitting key information to create an arbitrary curiosity gap to entice users to watch the video to understand the full context
- Sensationalizing – Using exaggeration and extreme language to entice users to watch the video
- Misleading – Creating misleading expectations or deceiving viewers about the video content or “payoff”
YouTube Expands Health Labels to Combat Misinformation
YouTube has announced that it’s expanding its labels on videos from authoritative health sources to three more regions, while it will also prioritize links to these clips in local searches related to health concerns.
YouTube first launched these new health tools in the US last year, amid a rise in people seeking authoritative information about COVID-19. The tools give priority to content from officially recognized sources – in this case, as identified by The World Health Organization and NAM – but they don’t limit the results user sees. That means that users will still be able to find health info from a range of providers, but ideally, these official labels and promoted clips will help to reduce the spread of harmful misinformation in the app.
It’s an important push, especially amid the pandemic, with many people turning to YouTube for information, on a range of topics. The platform has been identified as a key source of conspiracy ‘rabbit holes’ in the past, with its video recommendations sometimes taking users into questionable territory, without them necessarily even realizing, while YouTube has also been identified as a focal platform for anti-vaxxers to spread their messaging, which can sometimes help them evade tougher restrictions on such in other apps.
YouTube has banned COVID misinformation on its platform and has enhanced its detection and enforcement. But it continues to be a source of referral links for related content, and any additional steps it can take to dilute the influence of such will help.
YouTube hasn’t provided any info on the effectiveness of the labels in the US, but the expansion suggests that it is seeing results.
YouTube further notes that it will look to expand the program to more countries ‘in the coming months’.
LinkedIn Explores Shift in Marketing Careers
The post-pandemic landscape is shaping up to be significantly different to our pre-COVID conditions – maybe not in a day-to-day sense for many, but in terms of broader shifts and changes in attitudes that have had a major impact.
Approaches to our career, and work/life balance, is one key element, and in a new series of posts, LinkedIn is exploring the effects of the pandemic on how people are looking to advance their situation, and make a change because of new conditions.
Are you looking to work from home more? Have you changed careers? Maybe it’s time to re-assess your options, and consider what businesses are now looking for in the new environment.
There are some interesting notes to consider – you can learn more about LinkedIn’s full 2022 Marketing Jobs Outlook study here.
Instagram Testing New Full Screen Home Feed
It’s been on the horizon for a while, given the developing usage trends in the app. And now, it looks a step closer to reality, with Instagram testing a new, fully integrated home feed that would do away with the top Stories bar, and present everything in an immersive, full-screen, swipeable UI.
Stories would be presented with a frame bar at the bottom of the display, showing that you can swipe left to see the other frames, while videos have a progress bar instead.
It’s a more intuitive, and really logical way to present Instagram content, which would also align with developing, TikTok-led usage trends. The update would also enable algorithmic improvements based on your response to each specific post, as opposed to the current format, which presents things in different ways, and often shows over one post on screen at a time.
Which is where TikTok has gained its most significant advantage. Because all TikTok clips are displayed one at a time, on full-screen, everything you do while viewing that post can be used as a measure of your response to that specific content. If you tap ‘Like’ on a clip, if you watch it all the way through, if you let it play twice, swipe back to it again – every response is specific to that video, which gives TikTok a level of advantage in determining the specific elements of interest in each clip, which it can then align with your profile to improve your feed recommendations.
That’s why TikTok’s feed is so addictive – and while Instagram Reels are also presented in the same way, Instagram hasn’t yet been able to crack the algorithm as effectively as TikTok has, fueling its more immersive, more addictive ‘For You’ content stream.
This new presentation style could help to change that, and would be a big step in moving into line with the broader TikTok trend, which shows no sign of slowing as yet. And given that Reels is now the largest contributor to engagement growth on Instagram, and users spend more time with Stories than they do with their main feed, it makes perfect sense.
About Render Perfect Productions:
Render Perfect has been built from the ground up to service growing businesses and help them realize their full visual storytelling and digital marketing potential. We’ve created a service offering and skill-set that spans video production, post-production, motion graphic design, 3D animation, web development, and video marketing strategy. Our insight and experience allow us to help clients make better planning decisions and get more out of their video production effort.
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