SAMPLE ISSUE: If TikTok Can’t Figure Out Shopping, Are We All Doomed?

In This Issue: 

🤳 Politics: Biden plans press briefing room specifically for influencers

🤖 AI: Mailchimp's new GPT-powered tool crafts marketing emails

🛍️ Commerce: TikTok Shopping's slow start raises questions about the platform's potential for e-commerce success

📦 E-commerce: Offering free shipping with an upfront membership fee can help online retailers increase revenue: Study

❓ Social Media: Twitter Circles' functionality is in question, with users reporting private info leaking publicly

🔎 Search: Twitter now resurfaces official Russian accounts in search results, despite previous bans

💰 Advertising: Industry experts debate the effectiveness of advertising on Twitter in 2023

🔗 Integration: Meta develops a new feature to share status updates from WhatsApp to Facebook

Influencers in the White House

Photo: Daniel Huizinga (Flickr/CC)

It is one of the most famous rooms in the world — or, at least, one of the most seen. The press briefing room at the White House.

The room itself isn't at all what it looks like on TV. In reality, it's small, stuffy, and tucked away at the back of the complex.

But soon, the White House may have a brand new briefing room.

Only this one isn't for the President and his spokespeople, it's for a much more important group to the Democrats: Social media influencers.

U.S. President Joe Biden is set to enlist an army of social media influencers to boost his campaign for re-election among young voters and to potentially counter President Trump's following if he runs for the GOP next year. 

🎯 Targeting Influencers 

The campaign aims to target influencers who are not already following the White House or the Democratic Party and those who avoid mainstream media altogether. And Axios is reporting, several White House staffers are spearheading the search for prominent social media figures to reach young and suburban voters, with the potential for an influencer-only briefing room.

👋 Out With the Old, In-With-The-Fluencer

Axios noted that it's a move to give influencers more access to the president as he seeks the Democratic Party's nomination for re-election and a sign that the traditional Press Briefing Room would no longer be the administration's only messaging center.

Mailchimp Goes AI

Mailchimp, the email marketing platform, has hopped on the generative AI bandwagon. 

The company launched a new feature called Email Content Generator yesterday, which uses OpenAI's GPT tech to generate marketing copy. 

The tool can suggest copy based on:

• The industry

• The email campaign's purpose

• Samples of past marketing materials (to gauge tone)

Like ChatGPT, marketers can also provide more detailed prompts to the AI system. If users aren’t satisfied with what the AI generates, they can ask it to rewrite messages or edit the copy themselves. Users are also encouraged to review the copy for accuracy and appropriateness. 

Email Content Generator is currently available to select beta users in the U.S. subscribed to Mailchimp's standard and premium plans.

Image: Mailchimp 

TikTok: Shop or Flop? 

TikTok Shopping is struggling to gain momentum. 

Back in November, the company invited hundreds of U.S. merchants to join its shopping service. However, The Information reported yesterday that as of last month, less than 100 of them were using it.

Although the U.S. version of TikTok Shop is still in testing, it's live and accessible to any user looking to make a purchase. Merchants can also set up their own storefronts on a public landing page. So why isn’t it gaining traction?

⚠️ Merchants Remain Hesitant

The report points out that TikTok's slow start in e-commerce can be attributed to several factors:

1. The lingering threat of a ban in the U.S. has made some sellers reluctant to get involved.

2. TikTok has also banned foreign merchants from selling on its shopping platform in the U.S., cutting off potential business, since some competitors, such as Amazon and Walmart, allow non-U.S. sellers. While other sellers are hesitant to use the platform's new shopping features because they want to branch out into retail stores rather than an online platform that pushes laborious live shopping streams. 

3. Finally, other social media platforms have struggled to successfully implement commerce features. Instagram recently removed its Shop tab, while Meta changed its direction on its commerce plans due to disappointing sales. As a result, brands have become hesitant to invest in social selling apps.

Shipping Memberships: The Answer to Retailers' Prayers?

Can membership-based free shipping answer retailers' prayers?

Shipping fees are the top reason why half of online shoppers abandon their carts, resulting in an annual revenue loss of about $18 billion for e-commerce brands. 

To tackle this issue, more retailers are offering membership-based free shipping. Under this model, customers pay an upfront membership fee for unlimited free shipping, similar to the Amazon Prime model.

A recent study in the Journal of Marketing examined the efficacy of membership-based free shipping to see if it's the cure for e-commerce's revenue loss woes. 

📈 Increased Spend Over Time 

The study found that while members may not initially increase purchases, they do over time. At first, customers may take advantage of the free shipping perks by breaking down larger orders into smaller ones without increasing their total spending. As a result, retailers may not immediately gain revenue due to increased shipping costs.

🚧 The Switching Barrier 

However, over time, the free shipping benefit builds a ‘switching barrier' that encourages customers to increase spend and make more frequent purchases with larger order sizes. The model also changes consumers' purchasing behaviour by broadening product categories and increasing impulse purchases.

The study also found that the model is an effective marketing tool for increasing customer retention, particularly for those who like to purchase from diverse product categories. 

🎯 Target Light Buyers 

However, the report noted that profitability varies across customer segments. The study found light buyers contribute the highest percentage change of revenue after enrollment, while heavy buyers tend to split large orders into smaller ones, resulting in a reduced profit margin.

Photo by Artem Podrez

Why Are Private Tweets Leaking Publicly?!

Twitter Circles is the latest feature to fall victim to glitches as several users have reported their supposedly private content being visible to everyone on the platform.

This lets brands and users choose who can see and engage with their content on a Tweet-by-Tweet basis, by adding select users to an exclusive Circle. Some companies used this for marketing, sharing special coupon codes or sales alerts with a specific group of people. Some even used it to share semi-confidential information with employees.

But for the last week or so, users not in these circles have been able to view and interact with these tweets.

One software engineer reported that he was able to get a friend not in his Circle to like a tweet and that even people he wasn't following had access to some of his Circle tweets. He added that Twitter seemed to be failing to filter private content before offering it to users in their “For you” feeds.

In the past, the Circles feature has been glitchy. A couple of months ago we reported that some users weren't seeing the green banner that appears with a Circles tweet, causing concern that their content was public. However, this is the first time users report seeing posts that should be contained to their private community.

🌐 Russian Government Accounts Unrestricted 

In other news, Twitter appears to have removed restrictions on Russian government accounts a year after imposing them, with accounts of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Embassy now appearing in search results, timelines and recommendations. 

A former Twitter employee suggested the change may be related to the company's recent policy changes regarding government and state-affiliated accounts. 

The policy was updated to remove a section describing how Twitter limited the reach of such accounts, and Elon Musk recently confirmed that the company will no longer "prompt or limit government accounts".

Images: Twitter, Brett Jordan

Tweet or Retreat: Should Advertisers Invest in Twitter?

With reports of platform glitches and Musk reinstating the Kremlin account, should you advertise on Twitter this year? 

Despite Amazon and Apple reportedly spending again on the platform, several big agencies have yet to advise their clients to end their pause. As advertisers continue to reduce spend, a report from Insider Intelligence today expects Twitter's worldwide ad revenues to plummet by nearly 30% in 2023. 

As a result, Twitter's ad business is projected to shrink to its 2019 size.

Consumer attitudes toward marketing on Twitter are also mixed. A recent Gartner survey found that more than half of U.S. adults said brands should stop or reduce advertising on the platform. 

The report notes that many brand advertisers are not likely to return to their pre-Musk spending levels this year. That said, Twitter has never been a critical component of most advertising strategies, and the platform's content moderation and ad performance issues existed before Musk's takeover. 

But as budgets remain tight, there’s little reason for brands to resume spending on the platform.

Image: Insider Intelligence

Meta Developing Way To Share WhatsApp Status Updates on Facebook

Meta continues to push messaging – This time it's updating the process for sharing a Status update from WhatsApp to Facebook Stories. 

Although WhatsApp users can share a Status update to Facebook, the current method requires manual sharing. With the new feature under development, certain status updates will automatically be shared when the option is enabled.

Images: WABetaInfo