11. Digitas' James Whatley on the evolution of social media

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Geek Out with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Inspire your audience and grow your company on Pinterest with a free business account. Learn more at business.pinterest.com. It's time to geek out.
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[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to Geek Out with Matt Navarra, sponsored by Pinterest. I am Matt Navarra. And I'm Martin SFP Bryant.
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Now, if you're the kind of person who listens right to the end of the podcast every week, you might have been expecting me to say that our guest this week is someone from TikTok.
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Unfortunately, illness means he won't be with us today. Hopefully, the illness is short and not looping, but he'll be, uh, joining us in a future episode. Oh my God. [laughs] Jesus. Can we say things like that?
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Anyway, uh, in his place, though, we do have someone who has, um, been a social media geek longer than most of us, um, but he's come a long way since the early days of blogging and podcasting and stuff.
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These days he's a well-known name in the world of marketing and, uh, digital and social. So James Whatley from Digitas UK will be joining us shortly.
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Don't forget, you can always get in touch with us on Twitter, so you can find me there as @MattNavarra. And I'm @MartinSFP. So Matt, what have you been doing this week? All I can think of is two things.
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That is being on trains and, and, and being in London with you doing stuff for work, and then we, um...
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And being nailed and, and drilled, I should say, by my, uh, sergeant major kind of personal trainer guy three times a week. He's destroying me, and I'm aching- [laughs]...
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every- any- I didn't think I could ache in places that I am now aching, but I'm hoping I'm gonna start seeing some benefit to this, uh, kind of thing that I've decided to get myself into. But what about you?
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Well, it can't have escaped many people's views. If you, if you pay attention to the news, uh, even if you're not in the UK or in Europe, uh, the UK left the EU last Friday.
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And, uh, I was trying to keep my mind off that by, uh, thinking about other things that were big that were happening the same day, and one of the big things for me, and I was kind of hoping that Boris Johnson when he came and gave his address to the nation would've been about this rather than, uh, the, uh, leaving the EU.
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It was the new episodes of BoJack Horseman, which is the absolute, my favorite Netflix thing by a long shot. I've never watched it. I've never watched it. Oh, it is brilliant. It is, it is fantastic.
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It's a, it's a cartoon where animals and, uh, humans kind of i- interact, uh, in a, without anyone even noticing that, uh, there's a horse and a human chatting to each other or in a relationship or whatever.
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And there are so many media jokes and d- digital publishing jokes and things in there. You'll, you'll like it.
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Um, and, uh, but there's also a lot of, uh, exploration of depression, mental health, all of that kind of thing as well. And, uh, they're just coming to the end of it now.
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So, uh, I would recommend go back to the very start, watch from season one, 'cause you need to watch it all, and then, uh, you'll eventually get to these, these final few episodes they're showing now.
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And, uh, yeah, it, it, it, it was a massive highlight for me that, uh, took my mind off the, uh, the other news. Well, I, I had a big decision to make this week.
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It's the decision, uh, it's kind of a super first world problem, is I had a meeting, um, to speak to some people, um, at Facebook this week.
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And if, if anyone has ever been in there or knows anything about Facebook and their offices, particularly the ones in, in the UK anyway, they have a, a huge pick and mix kind of thing.
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You can just go up, and the staff and, and people who come into the offices can take what they want as much as they want, and they have the bar and the food and the dr- It's just, like, ridiculous.
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And every time I go in, they sort of offer, and I kind of think, "I kind of really do wanna take a load of that pick and mix right now and, like, fill every, um, hole in my bag with pick and mix," but I don't think I can, so I don't.
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I don't. Have you done that? Have you had to be into Facebook, Martin? I, I've not, I've not been into... I don't, I don't... Have I ever been? I have been into Facebook offices. Not in London, though.
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And, uh, no, I've, uh, I've not experienced that. I have experienced similar, where, you know, you, you know, there is, uh, fancy things on offer, and you always go, "No, no. I'm okay. I'm okay."
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And then afterwards you're like, "Oh, I wish I'd said yes," but it's kind of not cool to say, "Oh, yes. I want. Give me all those sweets." I normally use my kids.
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I just say, "Oh, yeah, my, my kids would love that" [laughs] And then, then I take it, and then I get outside, and then I just scoff the lot. So I completely lied.
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And you turn up again a few weeks later with, uh, one tooth left in your mouth. Like [laughs] Yeah.
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Unfortunately, I don't have those sorts of meetings where I can get to do that often with Facebook, but it was nice to do it this week anyway.
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Our guest this week is James Whatley, who's a strategy partner at Digitas UK and also a really good friend of the kind of geeky UK digital sort of space. So, uh, hello, James. Hello, Matt. Hello, Martin. Hello.
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Thank you so much for having me on the show. Now, we, uh, we've been completely honest with James.
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We, you know, we had TikTok lined up today to be, um, recording with us for the show, and unfortunately, um, the person that was gonna come on is, uh, unwell, uh, at the last minute.
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So we had to scramble to think of someone, and it was really easy to think of someone to bring on, 'cause, uh, James, we've conversed for quite a while, haven't we? Uh, that's, how long we've been chatting now online?
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Uh, now see, this is the kind of question you should have asked me before, uh, before we started recording, 'cause then I would've gone back and searched Twitter for the first mention of each other's names in the same tweet.
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Ah, actually. Do you know what I mean, when you do that thing? You're like, "When have I first spoken to this person?" But yeah, for you and for Martin, basically, we've been online friends- Oh, for a decade...
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for a very long time. Oh, for a decade. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well done. So I don't think we've actually met, have we, face to face, I don't believe. No, we've spoken on the phone, spoken on the podcast. We DM a ton.
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But, um, you know- Yeah... we're Twit- we're Twitter friends. I think we're more than Twitter friends, to be fair. Come on. I think so too.
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[laughs] Well, and, uh, we've got loads to find out about James and what he's actually been doing recently and also a bit about his background. So we can, uh, go into that a bit later on.
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But first of all, let's talk a little bit about the news this week, and Martin, what has been going on in the world of social?
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Well, uh, first of all, we got some figures that we previously didn't know about two of, uh, the biggest names in social media.
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So, uh, Google, uh, in f- in the face of some disappointing financial results overall, uh, gave us a glimpse at how successful YouTube is.
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Uh, it says it's a $15 billion a year business, so that's how much YouTube makes in advertising revenue, which prompted Bloomberg to reveal via sources, who I'm sure were very keen to get this across, that Instagram is apparently a $20 billion,
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uh, a, a year business, uh, in terms of ad revenue. So, uh, there we go. Uh, I w- To be honest, I thought 15 billion a year, uh, from YouTube was really, really impressive.
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Obviously, Instagram apparently, if this, uh, figure is right, is even better. Uh, the markets weren't so impressed at, at YouTube.
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There was a bit of disappointment there, but, uh, but still I think, you know, that, that, that's a, that's an im- impressively large number. So large it's quite hard to get a handle on it. Matt? Yeah. I see.
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I'm useless when it comes to this stuff 'cause when it comes to geeky techy stuff, I'm all into all the features and kind of platform strategy and all sorts of things, but when it comes to kind of valuations and kind of what, you know, monies people are making, I kind of start to zone out to be honest.
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[laughs] But nonetheless, uh, in terms of the figure for YouTube, I, uh, from my limited knowledge in that kind of part of this, um, um, world, I would say that I was thinking it would be bigger to be honest, but at the same time it is still a huge number, and I think for, for Instagram's point of view, it, um, it's the interesting tale of actually how much that's contributing back to, um, Facebook as, as a total and, and how much that's of an importance, uh, for discussion.
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Um, I'm sure, um, James- Yeah. It's, it's more a quarter of Facebook's sales. Yes. James, what do you think? I think it's fascinating.
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Um, so quite different to you, Matt, um, with my nerdy head on, I tend to go deep diving into the core of the earnings reports 'cause I find it a fascinating read.
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Um, and this kind of thing is always a bit of a misdirection. So you're completely wrong, on the money to say, you know, they've released this figure, but actually their revenues weren't as high as expected.
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The profit's up, but the revenue's low, and this is a misdirection to say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't worry about the, don't worry about the revenue being low. We're not just relying- Mm-hmm... on a search engine.
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We've got this amazing video thing over here, and that's making us tons of money. Don't worry, Wall Street. Don't worry."
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Um, so it kind of got uncovered quite quickly, you know, it, but it did calm down the nerves of the, of the investment market a little bit.
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But, you know, it's really interesting to see numbers finally being revealed around YouTube from Google.
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And how do you think about, how do you feel about YouTube at the moment in terms of how it's positioned versus other options that people have got for consuming video content?
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And, uh, is it placed well, and what, what are your, what's your take on all the other things that are going on in that area? Um, it's, that's a really good question. So there's a... Depends on who you talk to.
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You know, people talk about lean in video, lean back video, portrait video, landscape video, high def video, 4K video, second screening. There's all kinds of different things.
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From a marketer's perspective, you have to go, "Okay, which, what mix of these would be best suited to the audience I'm trying to reach?"
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Um, one of my constant bugbears, uh, with any trade press, with any kind of Twitter fight that happens, it's always like, "Oh, this is better than this", or, you know, "What's better?
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Is it Instagram Stories or is it Snapchat stories, or is it this versus that?" And I'm always like, it doesn't have to be versus or an or. It's an and conversation.
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So YouTube and Instagram for a marketer can be really effective together. Um, so I don't really fall down on the one is better than the other. It's horses for courses, using the right tool for the right job. Got you.
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Um, well, I was gonna start diving into the discussion there about, uh, TikTok, but I think we're gonna come onto that a, a lot later on anyway.
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But I w- was interested to hear what your thought as well, James, about, uh, Instagram's contribution back to Facebook and its role and its, its pivotal role in terms of their income over the coming years.
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I mean, that's fascinating. I mean, it's textbook.
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You know, there's no, it's not, um, it's no secret that there's no love lost between Facebook and Google, and the fact that this has just kind of been uncovered, you know, people familiar with the matter, the standard.
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Mm-hmm. You kind of go, "People familiar with the matter have told me this." So basically it's a phone call saying, "Oh, Google did this, but Facebook did this."
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So it's good that they're making a l- a lot of money, but again, you've gotta kind of raise one eyebrow and go, "Why is that suddenly in the news?" It's just a dig, a competitor. Everyone's making money. It was the...
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Yeah, it was a- Yeah... funny coincidence that came out. Yeah. [laughs] Exactly. What else? We've got something else about Instagram and the talking about Instagram.
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What, uh, what else was happening this week in the world then? Yeah. Yeah.
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So it's been almost a year since Instagram pledged to reduce the spread of vaccine-related misinformation on its platform, uh, reported HuffPost this week. Uh, and, uh, it turns out it's not quite been doing that.
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Uh, HuffPost, uh, they looked into this and found that, uh, Instagram still has plenty of, uh, misinformation about, uh, vaccines on there.
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This is something that, uh, they have been, uh, and in fact across all social media have been criticized for in terms of spreading this kind of stuff. And, uh, yeah, last year there was quite a drive on this.
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Our, our own sponsors here on this show, Pinterest, uh, recognized as one of the leaders, I have to say, uh, totally unrelated to them being a sponsor. It, it's true, they are, uh, one of the leaders on this.
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But, uh, Instagram maybe not doing what they said they would, which unfortunately seems to be quite a theme with Facebook. Yeah.
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I, uh, on this one, I, I'm the, I have quite a lot of, uh, interest in it because it involves, you know, the young children as well and, and things like that.
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And so i- for me, this is one where they really do have to do better than they are doing. But I do have a pragmatic opinion of the fact that the- there is a big challenge.
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Now, and I was looking a few weeks ago, someone pointed out to me there was hashtags such as depressed, d- depression, depressing, and variants of other mental health kind of, uh, hashtag terms.
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When you search them, they come up with kind of a, a, a notification that they're saying that this has been filtered down. It's been kind of slightly, uh, blocked from doing things on that particular hashtag.
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And it's always- Wondering why they choose those specific terms, 'cause some of the terms are actually quite useful.
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But in terms of this particular one as well, you know, this is gonna be a constant game of whack-a-mole I would have thought. James, what do you think? Um, I mean, we're three people agreeing with each other.
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[laughs] There's no way to look at this and say, um, "Oh, you know, they could be doing... Why, why haven't they done better?" You know, the, the... They should be doing better, right?
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Everybody knows they should be doing better.
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Um, the misinformation and often disinformation around anti-vaxxing is dangerous to the health of human beings, and therefore it breaks their terms of service, and therefore sh- they should be hitting it a lot harder.
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You say whack-a-mole. No, ban. You know, blow up the whole thing. You know, there's gotta be a way to go nothing around, um, vaccinations goes through without being checked by a person.
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Um, and I know the platform has grown massively, but if you go back, what, l- less four to five years when Instagram first rolled out its advertising product, every ad that rolled out was checked by a person to make sure that it met the Instagram photographic platform standards.
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You're talking about pre-stories. This is all just feed-based stuff. And you're like, when it comes to making your own money, you seem to be okay to put human testing around it.
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When it comes to actually doesn't matter because, um, you know, we can worry about that later. No one's really legislating for it.
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Then we'll just do whack-a-mole, and maybe we'll fix it, maybe we won't, and not really worry about it that much. I'm sure there's effort going on, but it's just not enough. Mm.
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And I think they're, they're not trying to defend a- any particular side of this, but it's certainly a case that there's people now, you know, w- they circumvent some of the stuff that, um, Instagram has put in place to try and tackle it, such as people will put out some of this content using, uh, linking itself to other hashtags that are unrelated or that are popular.
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So then you've got content to do with anti-vaccine, kind of stuff to do with Trump 2020, or things like that. And so there, there are these kind of nuances which will always kind of come up again. It'll be a problem.
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They'll have to tackle that problem again, and it'll, it'll always be one thing that they'll have to be challenged on.
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So do you, do you think it's realistic that, that we can expect them to get to a place where they don't have any of these problems at all? I think it is realistic to place that expectation on them.
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Whether or not it's realistic that they can meet it, I don't know. I'm saddened and disappointed that they're unable to meet it.
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I'm yet to see any evidence, um, that suggests that they've done significant amount of work to try and meet it.
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Uh, and you know, with everything, to y- you know, to the point that you're making, the, the pragmatic perspective, I get it.
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Of course there's gonna be hundreds of thousands of people trying to do this, trying to spread this misinformation. Um, but work harder. Sure.
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And what would you want to see, uh, what would be, give you enough confidence that you think that they are working harder?
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What sort of things can you envisage seeing them doing that would, uh, make you feel more comfortable with that, then?
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Um, strengthening of policy, strengthening of internal AI systems to detect this kind of stuff, um, blanket bans.
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You know, this, the, the kind of thing that you see across other platforms or the kind of thing that you, [clears throat] you know, even to the point where... I know, I...
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It's, I think it's a middle ground, but the other end of the extreme is having worked in advertising for quite a few years now, you come up against quite rigorous standards and expectations if you want to go and put any kind of message on any channel that isn't digital.
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And those kind of, that kind of legislation should apply to social and content. Admittedly, it's down to a governmental level for that legislation to come in.
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However, platforms should be able to self-legislate properly to, to not allow this level of, um, content to appear. Oh, quick, quick question on that one.
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Do you think the, um, the p- public sort of, what's it, court of Facebook they're trying to create with the board of members and stuff, um, do, do you have a view as to whether that's more just kind of smoke and mirrors, or you think it's- [laughs]...
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something they're gonna try that's gonna fail? Or what do you think? That's a great question because I quoted this podcast when I wrote about this particular thing last week in my newsletter actually. Hey.
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Um, I said, "As Damian Collins MP put it so eloquently way back in September via the always fantastic Social Media Geekout podcast- Woo...
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he, he said, 'This is a body created by Facebook, paid for by Facebook, recruited for by Facebook to sit in judgment on Facebook.'"
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So that sentence alone tells you what I think of it [laughs] because I just, I just sat there nodding away going, "Oh, yeah".
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And then here we are, what, four months later, and it turns out they put, put a whole bunch of guardrails around this, um, super board that can make decisions about Facebook that ca- you know, that can ultimately be overruled.
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And like, well, what's the point? Why do it in the first place? Yeah. No, I, I, I think you, you've got, got absolutely the right, uh, angle on it from, certainly from where I'm coming from on, on these topics.
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There are other things that I'm a bit more kind of, uh, not persuaded by when people sort of lambast, uh, sort of Facebook and other social platforms.
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But at the moment, there's, you know, they're getting barrage hits with, uh, all of these things which are things that need to be done and done better. Um, another story this week is about Twitter, though.
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What's going on with Twitter? I, I have to say, though, uh, you were mentioning whack-a-mole there. I just, I've just been sitting here thinking about eating some guacamole.
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[laughs] Your brain goes in different places to me. It does, yeah. It seriously does. Whack-a-mole, guacamole. Anyway, uh- Guacamole, guacamole. [laughs] Indeed.
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But, uh, yeah, so if you're a big social network, you need, in 2020, a deepfakes policy, and, uh, Twitter has, uh, released its, uh, not just for deepfakes, but for what it's calling more broadly manipulated media.
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So things like really intentionally misleadingly edited videos, that kind of thing, uh, as well as the, you know, the proper deepfakes where it's, uh, something that's not what it seems at all.
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Uh, so what they're gonna do is if it's been deliberately misleadingly, uh, edited and, uh, manipulated for harm, they're going to be removing those. This is from next month.
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And anything else that's manipulated but isn't judged harmful will be labeled as manipulated so people will know, uh, that it is.
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Uh, I think this sounds, this sounds great, but it sounds like a lot of work to do, so I'm really interested to see, uh, how they're doing it. But Matt, what's your thoughts? Yeah. I think this is great.
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I, so I, I think I tweeted about this saying that I thought as much, um, a few- whenever it was yesterday, whatever. And, uh, yeah, I think it's a, it's a great step.
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Um, I think it's surprising it's taken, um, uh, this long to start having things like these sorts of labels on videos.
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It's been something that's a trend over the last few years in terms of kind of like covering certain things or labeling it, labeling it as kind of a certain ad type or whatever it might be.
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Um, and I think this one's a good one to add to it. But in terms of, uh, the workload, yeah, it's like a lot of these things.
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When this comes to, uh, moderation or there has to be some sort of filter passed through it with a human eye because AI is not, you know, proficient enough at this time to, uh, tackle it, uh, with enough accuracy, you- you do think how, you know, how are they gonna scale up to this?
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Is it, is it viable? But I hope it works. And James, what do you think?
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There are three things that I find interesting about this, and the first thing is what you said, Martin, around, um, as we approach 2020, you need a s- a, a piece of legislation or a strategy to, um, go against synthetic media or manipulated media or deepfakes.
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And I, when I heard you say that, I started laughing because I was like, "Yes, you do if you're a social platform. Also, if you're a government.
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Also if you're a country", because we are not ready for this, um, which is my ongoing argument when it comes to deepfakes.
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Um, the second thing which I find interesting about it is I read the blog post that they put up about, um, the synthetic and manipulated media piece, and what I really appreciated was the transparency.
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So, you know, they did a survey.
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I think they gathered just over 6,000 responses, and they've, they've been really upfront around what those questions were, what the responses were, and the action they're taking off the back of it.
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You know, if we lean back into the question we were just talking about regarding Facebook and what else could be done, well, the fact that being upfront and open around this is why we're doing this, this is, um, this is why we're taking this content down but leaving this content up.
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This is what we're marking and this is what we're not.
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And that I find interesting and useful, especially Tw- Twitter as a platform, I would argue, gets almost as much, um, bad press around what it does online with its users than the other platforms.
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And the third and final thing, um, is this is great in theory, but let's see it in action. Mm.
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Um, and you know, I think one of you were making the point just now about how much work this is going to be, and rolling this out meaningfully, the proof will definitely be in the pudding, and I say good luck to them.
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I think a certain presidential election has been the, uh, the catalyst here for a lot of this.
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Yeah, I think that's true, and I think, um, I'm, I'm interested to know what, um, you both Martin and, uh, James think about kind of which of the platforms, say, in the last 12 months as y- use that timeframe as, as proven itself to be at least not the best, because I don't think any of them are the best because they're all sort of not doing good enough.
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But has maybe done more than the rest or has made more successful changes to, to, to deal with this stuff with manipulated media and policies around all sorts of things on the platforms for safety.
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Um, what do you think, James? Is, is there one that stands out as doing better than the rest? Uh, I just sort of pick up on the point around the presidential election. I think you're right.
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We're coming up to a dangerous time in politics.
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Um, I kind of had a wry smile on my face, uh, that Twitter's doing this, uh, you know, in the lead up to the US election when the winner of the last US election is arguably the reason why they make money today.
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Um, and the, the second point around who's done the most, well, I can't really say. It's policy introduction.
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Um, I've been a, you know, I jump on Facebook whenever they mess up on this stuff all the time and, and I just think you have to see, uh, how the policy is enacted and how the policy rolls out before you can make a meaningful judgment.
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Yeah, you can judge them all on their past and what they've done before. You know, Instagram and anti-vax, it's taken them a year and nothing has changed.
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Facebook and its, um, whatever the name of the board is, it's, they, they introduced it and actually doesn't do anything. Twitter's introducing this policy today. Let's see what happens. Okay.
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And do you think that TikTok's sitting on a bit of a, uh, kind of a major bomb that's w- just about to go off in terms of it hitting a certain threshold of whether it's in this because of the spotlight's going to be shone on it or, or the number of users grows even more that, you know, they're starting to sort of see more and more of these issues for it, and I, I just don't know how prepared they are technically and, uh, policy-wise.
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What do you think? I'm fascinated, but I do not know enough about it to, uh, to, to form an opinion, but I'll be watching it very closely. Yeah.
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That's gonna be one that's gonna be, uh, in the news, I think, for the coming 12 months. So I think we'll wrap up the news there. We've got lots of things to talk about with James again in a moment.
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Geek Out with Matt Navarra is sponsored by Pinterest. Each week, we share tips to help you make the most of the platform. People use Pinterest to shop, and your brand could be their next great find.
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You can upgrade your existing account to use business features or sign up for a new account. Visit business.pinterest.com to find out how to get your products onto Pinterest. So I'm joined by James.
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And now James, as I mentioned earlier, is a, a good friend of the show and someone that we've known for a long time, and I'm sure he's very well established.
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But for those few people in the world that don't know all about you already, can you just tell us a bit about your past and your career and your interests and things? I mean, you're very flattering.
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I don't deserve any of that, but thank you. Um, so my name's James. I'm a strategy partner at an agency called Digitas. Digitas, get the, get the elevator pitch out of the way quickly.
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Uh, we create digital-- connected digital experiences that bring brands to life.
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Um, and that's basically just looking at The holistic way that any brand talks to any consumer across any digital channel, and then figures out how to do that meaningfully across all of those different touchpoints.
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Got you. And I could talk about that for ages, but I won't 'cause that's not why I'm here. Um, I've been doing this kind of stuff since, I would like say about 2006, um, when I joined a mobile app startup pre-iPhone.
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So I was building Symbian apps and Java apps. So for some of your older listeners, they'll be like, "I remember that N95."
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[laughs] Um, although s- most of your au- audience I would imagine are quite young, be like, "What's he talking about? What's a Symbian?"
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Um, and we basically started doing user testing, customer research, going to forums, getting customer feedback, and talking with our customers and our users in this thing called social media.
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And, you know, as, as, as I'm sure many people who have a career in social media who are around my age, just kind of fell into it.
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Um, and then from there, went from startup land to agency land and to big advertising agency land, which is kind of where I've stayed ever since, but always social, digital, stuff like that. I got you.
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And so, so can you, um, tell us sort of some of the companies you've, um, worked for as, as some of your clients, or could you just tell us a little bit about some- Oh, crumbs. Okay...
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uh, some of the sorts of things that customers will ask you to do? So when I first went agency side, so let me get... So I tell you what. Little, I'll try and pick one or two things along the way.
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So when I was at my mobile app startup, that's when I started a meetup group called The Mobile Geeks of London.
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Um, and that's how I got to know quite a few mobile nerds living across London, and the mobile and social media Venn diagram was quite close at that time. Um, and I'm a strategist. I only speak in Venn diagrams.
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[laughs] And basically, then from there I went to an agency called A Thousand Heads, and my main client there was Nokia, and traveled all around the world doing amazing social media-y things for Nokia.
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Um, my highlight was doing a digital activation off the back of, uh, Dark Knight Rises.
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We created, um, Gotham City in Nokia Maps and, uh, and it was like, I'm a huge comic book nerd, I'm a huge social media nerd, I was a huge phone nerd. It was like all of my three passions coming together at once.
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[laughs] It was amazing. Um, and then when I went to big ad land, well, I've worked on some phenomenal brands. Um, everything from Converse to Cronenberg, to Cadbury, to, um, Honda, like amazing, incredible brands.
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Some of them I'm still working with today. So yeah, I'm pretty, pretty lucky in the, in the stuff I get to work on. This week's gonna be a bit different, I think.
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So we, we mentioned earlier that we were meant to have, um, TikTok on to speak with us, but then the person was sick, unfortunately.
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So, um, James has stood in, and we've got some great stuff that we wanted to talk about that, uh, o- off the cuff kind of thinking about overnight, really.
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And so we're thinking rather than just kind of like doing any formal interview or whatever, it's kind of just like three geeks hanging out. [laughs] It's just three, three mates talking about nerdy social media stuff.
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So we just thought you could, uh, all out there who are listening can just tune into our conversation as if you're in a pub somewhere and are curious of what the geeks are chatting about. Mm-hmm.
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And then you can hear what we're talking about. So we're just gonna ramble for the next hour, I guess. But, um- I think the collective noun for a, for a group of nerds is a podcast, isn't it?
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[laughs] Perfect placement then.
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So I just want to kick off just talking about the, the, the nostalgic days of social media, kind of some of your early memories of playing with, uh, what was then maybe not recognized as social media, and also kind of how things have changed since then until now.
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Um, that's a great question. Um, you know, we used to, crumbs, doing social media in London in the late noughties, I think there were about 50 people that were doing it, and everybody knew everyone else.
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Um, so you would go, "Oh, I'm gonna go to the social media cafe on Friday and see everybody at the social media cafe." This is not a joke.
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This thing existed, and people would go and hang out and compare notes on Twitter and on Facebook. The Tuttle Club. The Tuttle Club. Exactly. You were there, Martin. Wow. Yeah. You were a member.
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I, I popped along sometimes. Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. It's, it's just 2008-ish- Yeah... wasn't it? 2000-- Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you would go, and it'd be, and it'd be really, like, busy.
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[laughs] And there'd be a lot of people there. Yeah.
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And but you'd be talking to a head of social media for this massive brand, or this head of social media for this new startup, or this head of social media for this new agency, and everybody was learning from each other.
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Everyone was sharing knowledge, and that was really exciting. And loads of meetups fell off the back of it. So there was Twitter picnics, and there was, um, Harvest Festival where we were raising money for charity.
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Um, all kinds of things, and that kind of, that earnest wholesomeness has kind of fallen out of it a little bit w- with, over the past few years. Now it's about all the likes. Yeah. Get the likes.
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[laughs] Well, you say that. It's interesting. So I've, I've got this, um, I, I've got this chart that I use, and I'm giving away my trade secrets.
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But I've got this chart that I use when I'm talking to a client around the history of social media, where we've been on and the journey we've been on.
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Um, if you think about kind of the mid-noughties, um, uh, and we'll come onto this, this is another theme.
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But it's not to say that these things have gone away, but just how these things have grown and shaped over the past, [laughs] oh, my God, it's 15 years. Um- Yeah. No.
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[laughs] If you go to the mid, the middle of the noughties, everything was about influence. And so if you had a couple of thousand Twitter followers or, you know, if...
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and that, that's the numbers we're talking about, you could get a couple of tickets to go and fly somewhere and do a review, and if you wrote about it on your blog, then you've done your job.
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And that was everything that everybody considered social media to be around that time. You know, if we get a good blog going, then I might get some free stuff, and I might get to see the world.
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And some of us did that, and that was pretty cool. Um, and then from there, you kind of went into then Facebook arrived and, you know, suddenly everything was about chasing those likes.
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So if you had a company, if you had a brand, you're like, "Right, I wanna get- A hundred thousand likes. I want to be a million likes.
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And those of us working on agency side, and I'm sure there's a few people listening now, would've got that brief from their client that said, "Get me a million likes on my Facebook page."
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Some of them may even have that brief right now, and I feel their pain. But that thing just kind of- Oh, that kind of reveals it.
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If anyone's got one of those out there, they can kind of, kind of do some redaction on it and get it out there. Let's have a look. It sounds good.
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[laughs] I, I may have heard one, I think within the last 24 months I've definitely heard that from a client. Wow. Um, and I'm not saying where or which one. [laughs] But that has been heard.
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And, but that, you know, kind of gives you the idea that the knowledge just hasn't got that far. For me, the third stage was all around the targeting aspect.
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So, you know, and the, the way that enters the public sphere was around, um, you know, the Brexit vote. You know, they did dark posting and they did, you know, s- super targeting, and, um, leave.eu had 450 variations.
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And everybody was like, "Oh, this is really, really bad." And all marketers were like, "Well, this is just the stuff we do every day. I don't know what you're talking about." [laughs] Yeah, yeah.
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All of you see different ads every day because that's what we pay Facebook to do for you. Yeah. Um, and I find that fascinating. And, and now we're moving again to back to mass audience stuff.
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So over the past year or so, I'd say since, um, uh, say two years, How Brands Grow by Byron Sharp has kind of reorientated the marketing industry a little bit and made everybody think about mass marketing, mass penetration, getting the message out to everyone as much as possible.
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And so reframing again how, um, advertisers are looking at social media. That was quite a lecture, but, um, but as I said, it's one chart. [laughs] But you put up one slide and I can talk for 20 minutes.
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[laughs] Well, I'll, I'll bring us back down to earth with, uh, Friends Reunited. [laughs] Those days of Friends Reunited. Yeah. So on it, it's 147s at your school, blah, blah, blah.
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And then the, the, the kind of the lacking features it, it now seems to starkly show as not having. Um, what were your kind of platforms that you remember that were kind of call it years and years ago?
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Friends was obviously one as well. FriendFeed. Mm. I'm old enough. FriendFeed. FriendFeed. FriendFeed was the best social network for a, a certain amount of time, not only in terms of the community on there.
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It was a fantastic community, but the, the quality of the tech, they were way ahead of everything else, uh, in terms... They were the first to do real-time feeds.
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I remember the day they, they launched real-time feeds, and everyone lost their minds.
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I remember logging into FriendFeed and this real-time feed, it was scrolling at an insane rate, and they'd just turned it on, and, like, it was amazing.
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Um, it sounds stupid now, but, uh, yeah, FriendFeed, uh, was, uh, was, yeah, amazing. ICQ. ICQ. ICQ. Well, that was, that was a, um, a messaging app, wasn't it, I suppose?
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It was a, a pr- precursor to WhatsApp or something. It was, and there was some other ones I was thinking of a moment ago.
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But I just remember, like, even the things like chatting to people in a, on who are online, in that social element, that real rudimentary stuff when you had the bloody 500 hours of free AOL time stick stuck, disk stuck on something, and you whack it in and you have to kind of disconnect it when you're finished, and plug it in and plug it, you know, turn...
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It turned off the internet. And there was a joke with Kevin Bridges, as he talks about, there was a day when you could turn on the internet for a few hours, and then you just unplug it at the end of the day.
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It wasn't a consume- First social netw- First social network for me, Yahoo Profiles. Wow. I, I, I met so many- Ah. Nostalgia...
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I met so many people through messaging people through their Yahoo Profiles and, um, yeah, it, it, it was, it was great. Yeah, I think I did that. Yeah. I, I had so many contacts on there.
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And, uh, I've still, still got that Yahoo account from all those years ago but, uh, haven't logged in for a long time. Yeah, no, it's, uh, those things have changed so, so much.
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Um, I was sat down yesterday, completely changing the subject altogether now.
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I was just sat on the train coming back from London after me and Martin had been, um, doing some project work and, uh, and I was looking at some of the news I'd missed, and there was a digital news report that was put out from, uh, the We Are Social Hootsuite Digital Report, which comes out.
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It's really good, so if you haven't seen it, you should have a read of it. It's really cool.
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Um, there were some just crazy stats in there, and I just thought, "I wonder what people would make of these, some of these stats."
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There was one there was, there are more social media users today than there were people in 1971. Uh- Madness... uh, TikTok is now the sixth largest social network.
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Uh, 80% of the time spent using TikTok is by Chinese users, 10% is by Indian users, leaving only 10% by the rest of the world, the rest of their user base. So the growth potential there- Whoa. Huge... is huge.
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And then Reddit's monthly active users up by 30% in the last year, 29% for Pinterest, and then the final one I was reading while I'm having the same thing, 2.5 billion Facebook users, 400 million bogus accounts is estimated.
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Um, kind of some of those... Can you believe 1971, t- there are more social media users today than there were people in 1971? Any of those kind of stand out for you, uh, James? It reminds me of, um,
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being able to open Twitter, and the first thing you would see is the firehose.
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Before they introduced an algorithm, before they introduced your friends-only feed, like, if you go on Twitter today, you can only see your friends.
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Yes, you can put in search terms and stuff, but when you used to be able to open Twitter and literally you would just see what everyone in the world was tweeting at that time. Madness, yeah. [laughs] And, uh, but it...
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You could make sense of it. You're like, "Oh, okay, this," like... Yeah. And then you would find your friends in there because that's how little people were using it. Um, and now we're at those kinds of numbers.
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Yeah, it's just kind of... There's a little bit of me which is like, yeah, global population is growing. That's, that's a bit of an issue.
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[laughs] That, that, that's probably something we should look at as well instead of admiring Facebook's numbers, but that's 'cause I'm getting old. [laughs] But remember, Mark Zuckerberg says he doesn't need to be liked.
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He says he doesn't need to be liked, he just wants to be understood, or wants Facebook to be understood. Do you think that's true? That worries me a little bit.
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It's like, um, I, I'm not even gonna tr- gonna try to be liked anymore. I'm, uh, I just want to be understood, you know? It, it, it, it, you can take that- So do what I want. [laughs] Almost, yeah.
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I mean, you, you could interpret it that way, definitely. Facebook has this phenomenal habit, um, almost an impulsive, um, obsession with making itself the story.
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So no matter what happens, if it's, um, a manipulated video of Nancy Pelosi, if it's, um, a new policy around something really inane, um, or benign, and you just go, "Yep, sure, that's fine," and then somebody says something or does something it just puts Facebook's PR policy slap bang in the middle of the story, and I don't know why or how they do it.
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What, what on earth was he thinking to say such a thing? What- how on earth would you think that would be reflected? It's just I don't understand how it manages to do it every time. No.
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Well, uh, we, we've been round this topic I think a few times, and, uh, I, I sp- was speaking to some people, um, who've worked for Facebook in the past recently and, uh, and we were just saying how, how do they ever get to a place and, and in what timeframe where people do see Facebook in anything other than this kind of like dystopian kind of crazy, you know, bizarre kind of world that Mark Zuckerberg people think he's, he's creating.
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I don't know how they get away from that. Do you think they can? Will they ever? Um, not without, not without removing, um, the C-suite, I don't think. Mm.
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Because the- And do you think it's more, it's more than, do you think it's more than just m- about Mark Zuckerberg, or do you think it is, it's all about him and it is his story?
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It's just you need an outsider to understand how you're viewed from the outside.
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And, you know, if you think about the journey that Uber's currently on, for example, completely tangential, um, but if you look at the journey that Uber's been on since, um, I forget his surname, but Travis what's-his-face left, who was ar- Kalanick.
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Thank you. Who was arguably the, the source of the main issues that have, were going on there.
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And I'm not saying that any of those issues are solved, but you can see that there's been going-- there's been a, quite a shift in the way that it handles itself, the polices, policies it's introducing, um, the PR that it's doing around itself, the protection it's doing of its reputation, the rebuilding of the reputation.
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And you go, that's because they've now got a new CEO who came in from the outside and goes, "Right, this is a company that we now need to look after, not your baby because you're a founder, and you've got this vision how you're gonna change the world, but maybe the world doesn't agree with you anymore, so somebody else should run this ship now."
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Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a- Yeah... it's a common narrative and, yeah.
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I, I think, I think another problem is we'd, we've never seen a company of this size before, a ginormous corporation with this many users doing this kind of work, essentially the biggest advertising company, um, uh, with active users, et cetera, you know, with so many people touching so many lives, so many, such a huge proportion of the population.
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Uh, we've never seen a co- corporation quite like that operating like that, and it's up to all of us, not just Mark Zuckerberg, to understand how to make sense of that because there may well be other comp- companies like that of that size in the future.
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And, uh, yeah, it, it, we, we're all learning how to make sense of Facebook. What do you, um-- Oh, sorry, James, do you wanna finish up on that point? Yeah.
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It just kind of that leans into a kind of a parallel point around leg- the legislation piece that we've touched upon already in this.
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The-- I had this discussion on Twitter recently, and in fact, somebody from Facebook has messaged me about it to have a just a separate conversation because
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rightly Facebook is saying, um, "We have too much power over this. If you want us to do more with this, we can only do so much. You should legislate us, individual governments, individual countries."
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And my argument to that at the moment is you can't put-- you can't say that to governments and countries, um, and pretend you're having that conversation in a vacuum.
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You've gotta look at the wider context of what's going on in the Western political landscape and so on and go, right, well, why is it in, for example, um, President Trump's
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interest to legislate Facebook against lying in political ads? It isn't, and so therefore that legislation will not be forthcoming.
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And so if you take the argument out of the vacuum, then I think it's incumbent-- You, you're right, Martin, it is incumbent upon all of us, and I include all of Facebook in that, to do something about the issue.
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We're talking all about Facebook, um, but um, the, the name that also comes up when you talk about Facebook right now, for me anyway, with the conversations I have is, is TikTok.
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Uh, it's kind of the other if I'm not talking about Facebook, I'm talking about TikTok with somebody.
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Uh, in those stats, TikTok the sixth largest social network now based on active users, and, uh, it's in the news as much at times as, as Facebook. Um, what, what do you make of TikTok? Let's talk TikTok.
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And James, what, what's your view on all of this? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna adopt m- the marketer perspective on this.
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Um, and TikTok for me, parking its size, parking, parking the novelty, parking the sheer fun that exists on the platform, I love it, um, from a marketing perspective, this is the new new boy.
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And what I mean by that is, um, working in advertising, you always talk to a client about, right, where do you wanna put your budget for this campaign?
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And you always go, "Well, I'm gonna put 70% in the channels that I like, 20%, um, in up-and-coming channels, and then 10% we'll do, uh, an experiment or a piece of innovation or do something new and build something new."
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And in that, in that 30% at the end, there's always a little bit that might go, "Oh, should we give Snapchat a go? Or should we do, um, should we try and do a Facebook Live?"
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Um, and at the moment, this year and going into this year, so back end of last year, that 10%, that 15% is going, "Oh, we should be doing in, something in TikTok. Can we, can you find out more about that?"
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So it, the bleed is happening through to marketing land, which, which I always find interesting because, you know, you go back,
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you go back five years, and you'd have to wait for your client to read something in Wired before you get the call and say, "Can you do QR codes?"
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Um- [laughs] But now everybody gets their sources of information from the same place.
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They're seeing these things at the same speed as you are, and so you're getting the question, "I've read about this thing called TikTok. Can we do something in that?"
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And so, um, a lot of agency people right now, myself included, are genning up as quickly as possible to learn as much as possible to find out what, um, and how they can be used for advertising. Yeah.
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Well, everyone loves... That's what makes a social network- [laughs]... work really well.
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Um, so in terms of TikTok at the moment, you know, it is still question mark, is this a flash in the pan or is this a, a, a big giant that's here to take on, on the big, bad Facebook?
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But I don't know if you've sort of got a sense of that yet or what we'd need to see to be able to sort of get a sense of that. I don't think it is a flash in the pan.
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I don't think we're looking at another Vine, for example. Um, and the reason for that is, as you've quite rightly pointed out, it is already massive.
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It's not a startup being run out of someone's garage with a CEO in their pants trying to figure out how to get the servers working at the weekend when they've got loads of users.
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Um, and the fact that before the end of the first month of this year, they managed to roll out a self-serve advertising platform, that's just like that all the eyes have lit up of marketers across the world and go, "Okay, well, they're, they're obviously adults, they obviously mean business, and they've got the content and the users to back it up."
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Um, so no, I don't think it's a flash in the pan. Um, it'd be interesting to see how the landscape shifts around it or what it does to the landscape when it starts to really establish.
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You know, if you go back to the days when Instagram was just getting going, um, and, you know, it was bought for a billion dollars, and now it's making $15 billion a year, uh, sorry, $20 billion a year, um, you know, that's, that's the kind of speed that these, that, that happened.
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And as we all know from this industry, things happen faster and faster and faster. So TikTok has arrived arguably in the West out of nowhere and is grow- growing at an unbelievable rate.
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Um, I, yeah, it, this thing is gonna be around for a little while yet, I think. Uh, do Byte... Well, how do you, how does Byte play into this? You've, have, you've... It's a very new early on the scene.
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For those that haven't got to sp- up to speed with Byte yet, this is the, come from the founders of, uh, Vine originally and their team, um, Dom behind that, and now they've come up with this app which is kind of short video.
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It has, bears the hallmarks of kind of the likes of a TikTok and some sort of story features. What, what do you think of, of Byte in all of this?
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What strikes me about Byte is that they're a new startup, and then as you were saying there, James, TikTok is this huge thing from ByteDance, which is an enormous, uh, Chinese company.
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And it makes me wonder now, I don't th- I don't think it's anywhere near realistic for a new social app to come from a startup these days.
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A, a new, properly huge, uh, world-changing social network to come from a startup. You kind of need that scale.
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Like, when I fired up Byte for I think the second time, the first thing I saw was, let's just say, uh, some, um, a, a certain part of a man's body [laughs]- [laughs]...
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uh, on, on the screen, and I, I'm watching the course of it. But I, I, I thought, "Hang on a second," right?
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I wonder i- if they've got anything plugged into this to deal with this kind of thing 'cause, because the, the amount of things you need to think about in terms of moderation, in terms of compliance, all of that kind of thing, it's so much more than it was what we were talking about, you know, 10, 15 years ago when people were first starting to do social networks, mobile apps, et cetera.
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Um, and so I do wonder if the bar- barrier to entry is so high now that you can only really expect something like TikTok to come in at the scale it's come in at.
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Uh, yeah, and it, it, we might not see many true social startups that change the world, uh, from humble beginnings. Well, when was the last big one? Oh, God, that's testing the memory.
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[laughs] What would you, what would you define as the last- But exactly. I mean, that ex- Ah. Yeah, you'd have to say Snapchat, right? And how long has that been around? Five- Mm-hmm... eight years? Long time, yeah.
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Yeah. Right. So it's been a while. We're due one, right?
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Um, I, I mean, I'm trying to make a serious point, but in the back of my head I can just, I've just got this image of m- me and Matt talking about TikTok while, while Martin's in the corner playing chat roulette on Byte.
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[laughs] [laughs] That, that sounds about, about right. But we- [laughs] You, you touched on, you touched on the Snapchat. I, I had some scribbled writing here.
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I think it's some words from me saying, "Snapchat, what next?" And I guess that's, that's a good question. What is next for Snapchat? What do you think? Haven't they just missed their earnings?
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They, yeah, they, they did, I think. I f- It was literally yesterday, wasn't it? Um, still playing catch up. It might be the same thing, which is revenue's down but profits are up. Same thing as Google.
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Um, but they didn't get such a kicking just because they're doing so well on the innovation front. You know, where Snapchat go, everyone else follows. Mm.
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And while the, the numbers aren't massive, they're still at the forefront of, of, you know, laying down the, um, laying down the innovation for AR, laying down the innovation for photography.
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Um, you know, they laid down the roadmap for stories for Instagram, and that, if they keep up that rate of innovation, then I think they're gonna be around.
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It's, it's a similar thing for me where I've kind of turned the corner a little bit on Snapchat in that I used to kick them left, right and center, and if you'd have seen me give any talk, any trend presentation over the past five years, I would have often said they're not long for this world.
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They're gonna get bought or they're gonna disappear because they're just not doing enough.
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And I've kind of been won over a little bit because having seen the numbers up close, having seen the constant dedication to that ongoing innovation, you kinda go, "Maybe they've just carved out their niche", and, you know, comparing them to Facebook, comparing them to TikTok, comparing them to Twitter is, is fundamentally wrong 'cause, yes, they're in that space, but that's not the kinda platform that it is.
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We've got the guy from Snapchat on next week. Uh, the guy being Ed Couchman, who's the UK general manager for Snap Inc. Um, and so I, I'll have to start thinking of some questions coming up soon.
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But for me, for Snapchat, people tend to talk about the spectacles, and they talk about the map, Snap Map, and how both of those are the things that they would see new bits coming from and seeing things that could be exciting and interesting.
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Do you think there's other things that Snapchat could be doing or should te- maybe making more benefit or getting more out of, or?
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They're in danger of being squeezed out, I would say, for even just from a marketing perspective. Coming back to the point I was making around TikTok being the new 10, 20% of marketing budget, um, newbie,
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that place used to belong to Snapchat.
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So if you're not bu- delivering meaningful returns on investment for your clients and partners who are buying the advertising revenue where you make your most money, then you're gonna get squeezed out of that little gap s- 'cause you need to get onto the permanent roster because TikTok's snapping at your heels for that innovation budget.
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Innovation in, you know, in inverted commas. Um, Snapchat's done a really good job in the US on its TV product, and I forget the name of it.
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It might be just Snapchat TV, but it lives in the content part of the, of the app. And the numbers they're seeing there are, are ridiculous, and that's launching in the UK this year, I believe.
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And if they do the success that they've done in the US with that here, then I can see clients opening their wallets again and hopefully helping them hit their earnings next time around. Yeah. Got you.
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Well, um, what we haven't talked about is things to do with brands and brand marketing, and specifically, uh, any particular brands that you think, uh, are doing, um, doing well.
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I was gonna chat to, to Martin about this as well. You know, do you, do you... What do you see in your newsfeed that comes up and has made you go, "Wow" or you've heard about that's good?
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'Cause most of the stuff that I see in my feed is drivel [laughs] and doesn't really- [laughs]...
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It might be slipping around their own places or something, but I'm just not seeing anything that's making me think it's amazing at the moment. What do you think?
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What I'm interested in is your definition of drivel before I go on. Drivel. Oh, well, it's based on my feed.
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If it's Facebook, it's just the usual crap, someone selling, you know, crap pills that are diet pills that don't work, through to someone kind of vague booking and saying they're feeling, feeling like someone's annoyed them at work today and not wanting to name who.
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It's just real drivel. It's just kind of pointless, inane kind of stuff that, uh, I can do without sometimes. What, [laughs] what would you just define it as? Um, poor, uh, poor ads. Poor ads are rubbish, and
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by poor ads, you go, you look at it and go, "That, that copy on that ad doesn't make sense" or, "Why, why am I seeing this ad?" I get a lot of gambling ads, and I've, and I don't gamble, and it annoys me.
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Um, and I'm always muting it, and I'm always deleting it, and I'm always blocking it, and that's the only thing that annoys me when it comes to advertising. Ads which are rubbish, poorly targeted, um, they're boring.
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I like to focus on the stuff which is good.
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So, for example, um, there was a really cute one knocking around today, which basically it was from HMRC Revenue saying, "Thank you for filing your, your tax returns", and it was just tar with a kiss on the end.
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And I'm not explaining- [laughs]... it very well, but there we go. Thank, thank you, Martin. Thank you. V- and I think- I get it... although that's really cute copywriting, and seeing that, you go, "I get it. That's fun.
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It's clever. It's playful." Um, you know, one of the examples that's loved and hated, lambasted at the moment, I think it's good, is the, um, the Oatly work. Have you seen the stuff from Oatly?
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They're an oat milk product. No, I haven't got a taste for that. Yeah. Yeah. So the ads are always kind of self-aware.
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They know they're an ad, and they talk to you as if they know that you know it's an ad, and they're having fun with you.
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So it will say things like, "Don't tell anyone that this is an ad for oat milk" or, "Everybody else on this tube doesn't know that oat milk is the best thing- [laughs]... 'cause you've just read this ad" kind of thing.
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I'm getting it horrendously wrong. Yeah. Yeah.
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But that kind of stuff where somebody's just gone through a bit of effort and tried to make it work, um- Yeah, they've taken the kind of the twee copy of things like, um, innocent smoothies, which, uh, I think a lot of people have taken too far, that kind of
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knowingly twee. Uh, but they've taken it in a slightly different direction, which I quite like, and it helps I do like the, uh, Oatly oat milk. Um, so that's probably, uh, influences my opinion slightly.
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But, uh, yeah, uh, it, there's a, there's a nice touch to that particular kind of copy. Yeah. Oh, I know what I was gonna ask about. It was political social media. We've just come out of a, an election.
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We've seen fun things from social platforms- Hmm... uh, from pl- uh, the Conservative Party and, uh, from, from other parties. [laughs] Fun. Uh, I, [laughs] I'm treading very carefully until, uh, we get into the topic.
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Um, but yeah, what, what, what did you make of all the different kind of g- um, goings on in terms of social media for the political parties in the UK this year?
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Um, I mean, it's the same point I made about Trump earlier on. The... I don't think that any one party, and the party in government right now probably wouldn't do it.
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There is a cross-party movement at the moment to introduce legislation that, um, is as powerful and is as strong as the, um, CAP Code for the ASA, and that just doesn't- Just what's that?
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Just really don't, don't understand that term. Oh, so the CAP Code is basically what the ASA, who are the Advertising Standards Authority, um, they rule over all advertising.
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So if you see an ad [clears throat] that says, "This ad will make..." Um, sorry, "This Mars bar will make you taller,"
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you can complain to the ASA and say, "This Mars bar will not make me taller," and then the ASA will, will ban Mars bar from putting that ad out again.
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Um, and if you break that, the ASA can go to the government and say, "Can you help here?" Or they can issue fines and so on and so forth. I think that's kind of how it works. It's self-regulated.
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It's, um, everyone who works in advertising knows the CAP Code, knows and understands it, and if there's bits of it you don't know, you have to go and read about it. Um, there was one in the press today, um,
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where Ryanair ran a couple of ads saying, "We're the lowest cost airline and we're als- also the lowest emission airline. Um, [clears throat] if you fly with us, you're gonna be putting out lower emissions."
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And everyone knows that air- flying, flying is the highest amount of carbon you can be putting out to the air when it comes to transport. And so the ASA ruled against the advertising,
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and Ryanair are not allowed to say that on any ads again in future. Now, [clears throat] anybody who works in advertising has to abide by the ASA's CAP Code.
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If you get a letter from the ASA, you're about to enter a whole world of pain. I've seen it happen. Um, and you just have to prove it very, very quickly that you, you're being able to do what you said you would do.
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So I can give you a real-world example of this. We did a campaign, um, when I was at, when I was at an un- unnamed agency for an unnamed, um, alcohol brand with some influencers. All the influencers were over 21,
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and all of them, um, put, um... I think it's when Instagram introduced Sponsored By. Um, you could have a Sponsored By tag in, in feed. And Matt, you'll know about, probably know more about this than I do. Yeah.
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But there was a, there was a time, it might still be around, where you could have, "This post is sponsored by, um, this type of vodka or this type of, um, alcoholic drink." Yeah.
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But that would only appear in feed, not on profile. And so if you viewed that ad on pro- if you viewed that as sponsored content on profile, you wouldn't know it's sponsored.
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And, and the team that I was sat near when that letter from the ASA came in were like, "Oh my God, [chuckles] we need to fix this. We cannot get gutted by the ASA."
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And you just, you have, you know, suddenly you are in some pain. Point being, anyone who works in ad land, in marketing has to abide by it. Um, and that's it, period, the end. There's no arguments.
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The ASA's CAP Code does not apply to political advertising. Right. [chuckles] So to- So you can say whatever the hell you want if you're a politician. There's no rules around it whatsoever.
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You wanna say Turkey's joining the EU, you say it. If you wanna say that, um, you know, you've got no money because of those bloody immigrants, you can say it, and it's awful, absolutely awful.
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As I said, there's a cross-party movement right now that try, is trying to get this to the top of the agenda, but it's just, it's slow, and you're working against a force who is in government with a majority, whose benefit it is not in to make this happen.
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Did you have much fun with the shitposting that went on in the campaign? 'Cause I think I remember seeing some of your tweets about it, to be honest.
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Uh, I think depending on, uh, your experience or background in, in, in digital or social versus not s- sways heavily as to what you thought of it, but, um, if you can try and extract it from your political opinion, but what did you make of it all?
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Well, they call it, I think they call it the dead cat strategy. Is it called the dead cat strategy? Oh, it's a new term on me, but go on. That's a strategy, yeah. Yeah.
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Where basically somebody's talking rubbish or s- starts needling you about a particular question. Like, you know, "Martin, why did you do that really horrible thing yesterday?"
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Martin will produce a dead cat and put it on the table, and everybody- Hmm... will stop f- and forget what Martin did yesterday and instead talk about the dead cat. Hmm. Um, that is, in inverted commas, a strategy.
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I think it's a tactic, but it's a strategy. And you go, "Okay, fine." And the, the modern-day equivalent of that is shitposting. I'm just gonna talk utter shit. I'm gonna post stuff in Comic Sans.
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I'm gonna really wind up the people who hate us to make sure they're constantly looking in the other direction while we're doing all this other stuff.
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Um, and there's loads of benefits of doing it for the person doing the shitposting. You're misdirecting attention.
367
00:58:06.384 --> 00:58:15.804
You're put- you're basically putting a big target on all of the people gathering around the dead cat, um, for all the people who are all on your side to come and point and laugh.
368
00:58:15.824 --> 00:58:24.504
And ultimately, if it works, you know it's gonna w- if it works today, you know it's gonna work tomorrow. And so again, it comes back to these things should be legislated.
369
00:58:24.704 --> 00:58:29.084
It's not gonna be legislated because the people who are in power have no interest in legislating it.
370
00:58:30.124 --> 00:58:38.384
So d- how, how did, how do you find it separating yourself from your political view and your, and your professional view? Like, I d- you know, d- you don't know if you like the Conservative Party.
371
00:58:38.404 --> 00:58:45.644
I don't know if you do or you don't, but you admire their p- um, what they did in terms of the strategy and how effective it was. You know, d- do you have that kind of feeling about any of this stuff?
372
00:58:46.364 --> 00:58:53.364
So that's a really good question about cognitive dissonance. And so I, I face this all of the time.
373
00:58:53.444 --> 00:59:02.604
So I can sit here and talk to you about how annoyed I am around the lack of policy, uh, implementation from Facebook around deepfakes and manipulated media.
374
00:59:02.704 --> 00:59:08.664
Um, I can also then go and tell my clients and say, "Facebook's the best way to reach your audience, um, with the advertising that you've got."
375
00:59:08.744 --> 00:59:19.944
You've got this real kind of constant battle to say, how, how and where does this fit in? And fundamentally, yes, you could say professionally, I admire the effectiveness of the strategy that they've adopted.
376
00:59:19.964 --> 00:59:28.774
But as a human being, I just think it's fundamentally wrong to mislead the populace knowingly and try and get them to do something based upon false knowledge.
377
00:59:29.184 --> 00:59:41.254
Misinformation and, and disinformation is the most dangerous thing that's ever happened to our media. Um, combine that with the putting mistrust in the journalism that's g- genuine journalism that is happening-
378
00:59:42.180 --> 00:59:44.060
Moves us into a very dangerous place indeed.
379
00:59:44.280 --> 01:00:03.080
Martin, you're normally pretty opinionated on this, yeah, 'cause I, I, I think that, um, I can admire from afar some of the tactics that were employed, but I, um, yeah, I kind of slightly agree with, with James really, that kind of like he-- that it's like one of those, you know, uh, you may not have broken the law, but you broke the spirit of the law kind of things, you know?
380
01:00:03.120 --> 01:00:14.280
Yeah. It's not about that. Or just I don't know if you agree, but [laughs] Ah, I, I, I think that they are very keen to take advantage of be- kind of get the first-mover advantage and try something new.
381
01:00:14.740 --> 01:00:37.720
But the thing is, once you've got people used to a certain level, which is very low, of, uh, of, of discourse and persuasion and advertising, then you've set the bar very low for everyone, and it shows a, a, a kind of level of contempt for standards and for standards of public life really.
382
01:00:37.800 --> 01:00:46.880
And, uh, I, I, I do worry that, uh, everyone-- basically, if you look at, I mean, the, the right is, to get political about this, the right is leading on a lot of this kind of stuff.
383
01:00:47.280 --> 01:00:53.840
Uh, you know, you look at the, the Trump campaign and, and some of the things they do. Uh, and it happens in, uh, in the UK and, and elsewhere.
384
01:00:53.920 --> 01:01:01.100
Uh, the-- a lot of people who are kind of on the center-left are saying, "Well, if we're ever gonna get in power, we need to start taking that approach as well."
385
01:01:01.120 --> 01:01:12.180
And so you're probably gonna start to see a lot more on the other side as well. And then any kind of sense of consensus gets broken down, and everything is about conflict and being
386
01:01:13.160 --> 01:01:25.800
just cheeky enough that you're breaking some rules and, uh, annoying the right people. And, uh, yeah, uh, how we come back from that, I don't know, but I hope we do. You've hit the nail on the head for me actually.
387
01:01:25.880 --> 01:01:38.340
The normalization of that kind of communications is frustrating and scary, and yet it's already happened. Mm. I am in a pub here, so I've made myself a drink.
388
01:01:38.420 --> 01:01:47.020
You know, we are in a sort of geeky hangout, so just in case you wanted to get yourself a beer or anything. [laughs] Um, but- It's got quite nerdy qui- quite deep quite quickly. Sorry, gang.
389
01:01:47.640 --> 01:01:56.540
[laughs] So we're cracking on with the time, and there's loads of this bits and pieces on my paper that I kind of scribbled last night furiously when I was DM-ing, uh, James to come on the show.
390
01:01:56.580 --> 01:02:03.920
And, uh, one of them that I got written down is about kind of brands and authenticity and kind of stuff to do with climate change.
391
01:02:03.940 --> 01:02:10.500
And wh- and what I meant by that, I think at eleven o'clock last night, was about the fact that it's now such a big political football, the climate change thing.
392
01:02:10.600 --> 01:02:14.920
Rightly so, it should be, you know, high up in the profile, um, of, of people's priorities, I should say.
393
01:02:15.480 --> 01:02:27.290
Um, but at the same time, brands are just starting to scramble to kind of be that bit more authentic or at least try to be authentic and also try and l-leverage the climate change and being right for the community and all that sort of stuff.
394
01:02:27.620 --> 01:02:36.100
Do you get a lot of that kind of vibe in, in adland, as you called it? Yes, and I think the, the penny is starting to drop a little bit.
395
01:02:37.000 --> 01:02:48.080
Um, and one I've-- So to, to give this some context, last year I worked on two significant pieces of industry, uh, climate change work.
396
01:02:48.380 --> 01:03:00.960
Um, one w- one was the adland-wide climate strike, where I think for the, for the global climate strike, we did climate and strike, where create and strike basically, where we all came up with a creative idea to take to the climate strike.
397
01:03:01.880 --> 01:03:05.799
Um, Digitas, for what it's worth, created an, um, an out of office that everybody could use.
398
01:03:06.520 --> 01:03:16.459
And, um, and then I also worked on the getting two million people, two million young people to get registered to vote with climate in mind ahead of the election.
399
01:03:16.540 --> 01:03:36.940
So as a strategist in advertising, in communications, your job is to understand, um, a topic in the, in the most and best possible way you can in the, in the short amount of time that you probably have to get to the bottom of that topic, and then within that topic, find insights that will then inspire a creative team to get to some good work.
400
01:03:38.080 --> 01:03:40.280
Given the brief for the climate change work,
401
01:03:41.200 --> 01:03:51.940
I had to get really, really deep on the climate issues facing the planet, and I just go, "Oh my God, it's, it's frightening how much we're being lied to about the stuff we need to change and so on in the world."
402
01:03:52.020 --> 01:04:13.240
And, um, the impact, to bring it back to your question, the impact that the clie- the create and strike work has had on the advertising industry I find fascinating, more so because I'm sat in client meetings and I've got people working on my team asking the client directly, "What are you doing about climate change?
403
01:04:14.420 --> 01:04:26.640
Um, how does this particular part of your product chain, um, get recycled? How does this particular thing, um, impact your footprint? And what are you-- And if that is an issue, how are you working to impact that?"
404
01:04:27.340 --> 01:04:42.990
You go back, I would say more than-- less than three years and a, um, somebody on an agency side wouldn't dream of challenging a client in that way, wouldn't dream of saying, "Yeah, but you know, your green credentials are pretty rubbish, so, so why should we do the work?"
405
01:04:43.960 --> 01:04:58.020
And, and now the fact that there's the courage to push back and people are feeling more empowered, the, the tide is slowly beginning to s- to turn, and it's, it's actually really inspiring to see.
406
01:04:58.460 --> 01:05:08.400
Well, I, um, I just see so much of it now, these kind of ads coming out, and I can just imagine the, uh, clamoring of kind of brands trying to find a way to do something with it.
407
01:05:08.420 --> 01:05:18.280
And I just-- It makes me cringe because most often just the, the small to medium-sized campaigns I've seen have been pretty awful, whereas I think some of the bigger ones have so far have got, got away with it.
408
01:05:18.320 --> 01:05:32.580
But, um- I just want to pick up on something that you've said there, which I think you're getting at something, which is around brands trying to do something that might impact climate change or might do something that makes them look a bit greener than they are.
409
01:05:32.689 --> 01:05:46.600
Mm-hmm. I went to an amazing event last year called One Question, and the one question they posed was: Does purpose really drive profit? And one of the speakers, um, was talking about, um, how much they-
410
01:05:48.612 --> 01:05:53.032
Don't really shame people for not getting it right yet.
411
01:05:53.132 --> 01:06:03.732
Um, and I think it was a guy from Patagonia saying, "Look, we take on suppliers who aren't always got the best green credentials, but eventually they will do, and we're gonna try and help them get there."
412
01:06:03.742 --> 01:06:13.772
And so while I am dead against brands doing what it might be called greenwashing, and there was a great piece by Mark Ritson talking about this the other day, um, but greenwashing, fine.
413
01:06:14.332 --> 01:06:21.202
If you're doing all this bad stuff in the background, that's awful, but if it's a meaningful step forward in the right direction, then I'm all for it, and we shouldn't shame people for it.
414
01:06:21.752 --> 01:06:34.172
I, I hope that that's, uh, the case is that we don't just have lots of band- brands jumping on, on the bandwagon and then, and it becoming a cringe fest because I think a lot of the, the, the political points that need to be made there, as well as the, you know, action that needs to be taken is quite a serious one.
415
01:06:34.252 --> 01:06:40.792
So it's just, uh, let's just see what happens in that space, I guess. But I'm just no- look, I'm sort of looking at my clock, and I've poured myself a second drink.
416
01:06:40.832 --> 01:06:47.112
I'm on my second JD and Coke, and it's now, we've probably been recording for about an hour or so. [laughs] And I've got tons of these scribbles all over my page. Right.
417
01:06:47.132 --> 01:06:54.472
What I'm thinking is I'm just gonna rattle through a couple of them with you, James, seeing as you're our guest of honor, and you can just give me your sort of instant thoughts on some of these.
418
01:06:54.572 --> 01:06:58.392
Verification, should we get rid of it now? What for? Why would we get rid of it?
419
01:06:58.912 --> 01:07:04.652
It just causes so much argument, and it causes my DM box to go crazy, and I, it's starting to wear me, and I can't be honest I knew that that was gonna be the answer.
420
01:07:04.852 --> 01:07:13.131
Please can we get rid of verification so I don't have to keep answering idiots asking me for a blue tick. That's the bas- that's the question. [laughs] Basically, that is it. That is exactly it. No is the answer.
421
01:07:13.192 --> 01:07:20.292
You need verification because especially when we're moving into this world of distrust and mistrust, knowing who is verified when they're speaking is a good thing.
422
01:07:20.552 --> 01:07:26.922
So I speak to so many people who, who when they're honest after a few drinks after work, you say to them, "Come on then, talk to me about social media and ROI.
423
01:07:27.132 --> 01:07:34.752
How are you proving what you're doing is the right thing to do and the rest of it?" And like, "I don't really know. I don't like analytics," or, "My boss doesn't really get it." And it kind- there's still a lot of that.
424
01:07:34.812 --> 01:07:39.332
It's unbelievable. I'm sure that can't possibly go on on, on the big brands that you're working with, James. Now, would you? No, of course not.
425
01:07:39.432 --> 01:07:49.532
It's a redundant question, and if you don't know how your, uh, if you don't know what the ROI of your social media spend is at the moment, then you probably shouldn't be working in social media or marketing.
426
01:07:49.812 --> 01:07:52.392
Oh, [laughs] that's hard. Strong words. That...
427
01:07:52.412 --> 01:08:00.732
But the thing is, is 10, 10, 10 years ago when I first started out doing social media for public sector and, and then for some brands, it, it, that was just kind of no one really looked.
428
01:08:00.752 --> 01:08:02.622
But now I, I'm super hopeful that it's not like that anymore.
429
01:08:02.622 --> 01:08:12.061
Um- I'm shaking my head because, like, almost every presentation I think I've ever given in, on this always starts off with one slide, and it's big white impact p- font on one black slide that says,
430
01:08:13.072 --> 01:08:18.852
"What is your objective? What is it you're trying to achieve, and how can we do that?" We're using the tools we've got available to us.
431
01:08:19.132 --> 01:08:25.592
And if you don't set out what it is you're trying to do before you do it, then you don't know if you've done it by the end of it. And that's how you measure the ROI of it.
432
01:08:25.672 --> 01:08:34.532
[laughs] And you'd think it would be simple as that, wouldn't you? Well, apparently it's not, uh, so according to the people I speak to anyway. Uh, influencer marketing, hype, a lot of it. I remember sticking...
433
01:08:34.632 --> 01:08:46.602
I've got myths versus realities. What, you know, go dispel some of the myths about influencer marketing briefly. Well, uh, mm, no. I don't want to. [laughs] Because I think- You do. You do...
434
01:08:46.612 --> 01:08:54.751
but it's, it's such a poison chalice. It works for some people. You... All, all you're ever hearing is the people who are taking the piss out of it and people who are getting it wrong.
435
01:08:54.872 --> 01:08:58.172
People are earning loads of money off the back of brands that don't know what they're doing.
436
01:08:58.272 --> 01:09:19.472
And while there is a ton of really good influencer marketing work going on, and it's done at such a scale that you probably don't see or hear about it, um, and there's not gonna be a huge award-winning influencer, um, case study out there because it does sm- it does small things in increments, and there is a role for it in certain brands and in certain marketing mixes.
437
01:09:19.692 --> 01:09:30.692
Um, it's just a shame that it's mired by, by idiots at, at either end, either getting it wrong or just making the other influencers look stupid. I think I could go along with that. I think I could support that cause.
438
01:09:30.772 --> 01:09:38.712
Um, regulation. I've, I've... Two, two things that we should be having- [laughs]... in place in the next 12 months that would regulate Facebook and, and any others that people have problems with.
439
01:09:38.752 --> 01:09:49.952
What would you be sticking in place? Um, I would be putting in a piece of legislation around health advertising and... In fact, no. It's, it's one.
440
01:09:50.112 --> 01:09:59.792
I would regulate social media as harshly and as stringently as we do regular media. That seems reasonable to ask. Martin, would... Do you, you normally get involved in these discussions.
441
01:09:59.852 --> 01:10:06.872
I've seen you on Twitter talking about BBC and things. Quick- just quickly, what, what do you make of kind of like regulating social media the same as normal media?
442
01:10:07.092 --> 01:10:12.632
I, I don't think you can regulate it the same as normal media 'cause it, it, it's totally different. The same standard, I think. Martin said same standard. Yeah, yeah.
443
01:10:12.672 --> 01:10:20.002
I mean, I, yeah, I th- well, I think you need to in, in some way. You, you... It's a sign of, uh, it's a positive sign really.
444
01:10:20.022 --> 01:10:25.332
It's a sign that, uh, social media has come of age, that it, it needs to be regulated in some way.
445
01:10:25.812 --> 01:10:32.172
Uh, and I'm, I won't go into it, every single form of regulation that's needed and everything, uh, every single type of regulation that's needed.
446
01:10:32.232 --> 01:10:40.052
But, uh, but yeah, um, uh, the idea that we can just scoot on as we are, uh, no, uh, I don't think so at all.
447
01:10:40.092 --> 01:10:47.352
I think, I think, um, governments need to get serious about it and, uh, a- and yeah, governments need to get serious about it in the same way that the
448
01:10:48.452 --> 01:10:59.592
public policy departments at the big tech companies are in their lobbying efforts to make sure they're regulated in exactly the right way that benefits them. Yeah. Let's not make sure that happens. Yeah. Yeah. Right.
449
01:10:59.642 --> 01:11:10.492
Some quick ones then. LinkedIn, is it, is it come back? Is it cool now? Is it cool to be using LinkedIn now? Why would it be cool? Well, the, a lot... People seem- [laughs]... to be wanting to do more with LinkedIn.
450
01:11:10.552 --> 01:11:17.232
So again, people are, um, walking around saying, "LinkedIn, should I be doing something with LinkedIn? It seems to be better these days, and things are- [laughs]... things are different now on LinkedIn."
451
01:11:17.292 --> 01:11:22.572
Uh, do, do you think that's the case? LinkedIn has matured, um, when it comes to this advertising offering, yes, definitely.
452
01:11:22.832 --> 01:11:31.962
Um, and if you wanna speak to a, a certain type of audience, then of course it should absolutely be in your marketing mix. But, but don't do it because you think it's cool. That's- That's, that's not-...
453
01:11:31.962 --> 01:11:41.224
is the road to follow. [laughs] That is not, that's not good, is it? No. Uh, have we, have we reached peak Facebook, as I've written down here? Uh, yes Interesting.
454
01:11:41.264 --> 01:11:49.484
I think that's, that on its episode on its own I can see would be, would be good. Uh, la- last couple, uh, bots and messaging apps, you know, is there a place for them? Is it gonna...
455
01:11:49.524 --> 01:11:55.104
Is it this year gonna actually something meaningful gonna come out of that space for kind of brands and social networks and social media managers?
456
01:11:55.744 --> 01:12:06.444
It's the same thing as the influencer question, I would argue, in that there are millions of messenger bots doing great jobs for hundreds of thousands of users today.
457
01:12:06.484 --> 01:12:10.634
None of them are setting the world on fire, but they don't need to. They're answering a task.
458
01:12:10.684 --> 01:12:18.604
They're answering, um, a need, a user need, and, and if they're doing that, then that's what they're built for, and that's okay. Good, good answer.
459
01:12:18.684 --> 01:12:21.024
I think that's as good a, good, better answer than what I would've come up with.
460
01:12:21.104 --> 01:12:34.284
Um, but in terms of the last question, would, any apps, toys, tools, social media, digital things online that you found are cool recently that you think, "Oh, that was pretty awesome"? Mm. Great question. Great question.
461
01:12:35.404 --> 01:12:43.884
I have been... The thing that I s- I missed the other day was the, this isn't a digital thing, but it was an ad. The Super Bowl ads all dropped. Yes.
462
01:12:44.264 --> 01:12:52.744
And the first thing I do after the Super Bow- Super Bowl is I wake up and I watch all the movie trailers. Yes. This is my little priority as I do this first. I, I'm glad I'm not the, the only person. I do this.
463
01:12:52.924 --> 01:13:03.344
Yes, this is me as well. In fact, I made a playlist of all the movie trailers, and then I watched the movie trailers. [laughs] Awesome. Um, but then I started watching all the ads, and they were really good.
464
01:13:03.764 --> 01:13:04.344
But then, um,
465
01:13:05.344 --> 01:13:16.144
there's a chap called Patrick Collins, Paddy, who writes a, a newsletter called Because The Internet, and he included one on his most recent edition called Smart Park, which I'd missed, and it was really, really funny.
466
01:13:16.164 --> 01:13:22.784
And it has, um, Chris Evans in it from Captain America, and I just thought it was really good. I was like, "Oh, I missed that. That's good. People might like that ad."
467
01:13:23.104 --> 01:13:29.564
Uh, well, I've seen some of the stuff from the Super Bowl this year, but the, the, to me, again, it's never as good as it was years ago.
468
01:13:29.624 --> 01:13:36.664
There's, there's some things I've seen in years gone by that have blown me away, but I haven't seen anything this year. Other than Facebook have done their first ad, didn't they? We should say that really.
469
01:13:36.704 --> 01:13:48.344
They've, uh, dropped a big, uh, Super Bowl ad about groups, and, uh, if you haven't figured it out yet, you're gonna be seeing a lot about groups and messaging, private messaging from Facebook in terms of the product features and the development.
470
01:13:48.404 --> 01:13:53.864
I can... You know, they've even mentioned it in their forward-looking statement I think actually for the year ahead in, uh, which was the other day when it was released.
471
01:13:53.924 --> 01:14:04.044
So anyway- Groups are the only reason I have a Facebook, yeah. Well, it, it's increasingly becoming similar to me. I, I barely do it anything other than groups in there. Def- Yeah, I think you're right. That's true.
472
01:14:04.624 --> 01:14:11.804
Um, on that bombshell, I think that's stolen from another program, isn't it? [laughs] Um, could, uh, you tell... Okay, Alan Partridge. Alan Partridge.
473
01:14:12.144 --> 01:14:21.804
[laughs] Could you tell, tell everyone about, uh, things that are interesting to you and where they can find you online 'cause, uh, you do a lot of cool stuff. Uh, there are three things I can tell you.
474
01:14:22.024 --> 01:14:33.724
One, you can find me on Twitter, I'm Whatley Dude. That's probably my platform of choice. Um, two, I've got a newsletter. If you're of interest, um, it covers some industry stuff, some social stuff, mainly nerd stuff.
475
01:14:34.104 --> 01:14:36.024
That's pinned at the top of my Twitter feed if you're interested.
476
01:14:36.544 --> 01:14:48.924
And then the third and final thing, 'cause I promised, um, my friend that I'd talk about this, uh, we're working on a charter to, um, increase diversity and inclusion at conferences and events.
477
01:14:49.444 --> 01:14:51.864
And, um, if you're interested in
478
01:14:52.804 --> 01:15:02.884
increasing diversity and inclusion at conferences and events, please follow me on Twitter because, um, I'm gonna be tweeting about it a lot in the next week or two weeks or so, and it's really, really useful.
479
01:15:02.944 --> 01:15:08.544
Everyone can pick up and use this thing that we've built, and I'm so excited. Thank you for letting me talk about that. That's awesome.
480
01:15:08.624 --> 01:15:19.764
So that's @whatleydude on Twitter, and, uh, and also, uh, big thanks to, uh, uh, Digitas as well for freeing you up to make sure you're ready for this today as well. So that's a big, big thanks to them. Okay.
481
01:15:19.944 --> 01:15:27.804
Don't stop him now, he's having such a good time. He's having a ball. Don't stop him now. If you want to have a good time, just give him a call.
482
01:15:27.864 --> 01:15:38.284
It's Matt with the latest tests and updates from social media companies in quick hits. This can't keep- Matt. [laughs] This can't keep happening. This ke- If this carries on, where does, where does this end, Martin?
483
01:15:38.344 --> 01:15:49.444
Where do you get to? It's ridiculous. Anyway, moving on. It never ends. Uh, let's rattle through these things then for you. So 117 new emojis coming later this year.
484
01:15:49.704 --> 01:15:58.664
More gender-inclusive options are gonna be there as well. I haven't got the dates in front of me for when these will hit, but, uh, they are coming, so if you like emojis, they're on their way, new ones.
485
01:15:58.674 --> 01:16:06.034
Snapchat launched Bitmoji TV, and that is, uh, something that I have no clue about because I don't actually use any of it at all.
486
01:16:06.144 --> 01:16:15.604
But it will be something that a lot of other people are interested in, and I think that they're gonna start using it to put it in curated content and featuring part of different kind of cartoon strips and kind of video content.
487
01:16:15.884 --> 01:16:19.324
So for those of you into all that, that is now available or coming soon to some people.
488
01:16:20.384 --> 01:16:34.604
Facebook's also got new moderation tools for gamers, so this is kind of some of the features we've seen previously for moderating live streams and kind of controlling what's going on in them and giving more, more to the gamers with the live streams they're putting out there to sort of prevent some of the issues that they've seen.
489
01:16:34.704 --> 01:16:45.244
So if you're into gaming and live streaming, Facebook's got new moderation tools for you. Instagram's got emoji reactions for direct messages, so we've seen these in many places.
490
01:16:45.304 --> 01:16:54.764
There's not great innovation here, but Instagram has got, uh, a test going on to test them for direct messages. So if you've got it, take some screenshots 'cause I don't think I've seen many of them yet.
491
01:16:54.864 --> 01:17:06.184
Uh, Twitter conversation threads, those who've been on this sort, uh, little T app as, uh, it was named in the first episode of this, this, uh, beta, public beta app for Twitter, uh, you would've seen there's a lot of tests going on for conversation view.
492
01:17:06.244 --> 01:17:15.884
Well, iOS has now got this in the main app for everybody to enjoy. If, if you like it, that is, a, a threaded view of the conversation and more, uh, you'll start seeing that pop up on iOS.
493
01:17:15.904 --> 01:17:20.684
And Jane Wong has spotted about Facebook is testing a different default for the like button.
494
01:17:20.754 --> 01:17:35.464
So at the moment when you're sort of reading a post in, in your newsfeed and you can see the, the, the like, the thumbs up, um, she's seen some examples or found examples of them trying out different defaults so that love is there or, or some of the other options you can have, uh, when you're choosing to kind of react to a post.
495
01:17:35.544 --> 01:17:43.334
So be interesting to see if that's something that they're also experimented, uh, with widely. Facebook's also launched a new online community hub for groups.
496
01:17:43.494 --> 01:17:56.854
So those of you who are managing and moderating a group, a bit like the Social Media Geek Out group, then there is a, a resource now which has got videos, it's got kind of frequently asked questions, it's got kind of case studies of people with groups, it's got all sort of links and everything that you need.
497
01:17:57.174 --> 01:18:06.174
So we'll put the link to that into the notes for this, uh, podcast, and you'll be able to go and have a look for the new groups hub for Facebook. TikTok's also testing a new design, profile design.
498
01:18:06.214 --> 01:18:10.284
Looks very similar to, uh, Instagram is, is the comment that most people are making.
499
01:18:10.314 --> 01:18:19.734
Uh, moving around where you see the total followers and then some of the bio information to look a little bit like something we've seen before. Uh, not sure how many people have got that. I have not got that myself.
500
01:18:20.674 --> 01:18:28.494
Byte has hit one million downloads. They've had another good week. We had spoke about Byte last week, and, uh, it seems that they've started with mixed blessing by the sound, sounds of it.
501
01:18:28.504 --> 01:18:36.834
They've had issues with spam and other content issues, but they have kind of sped up and been the... I think they were the number one app in the US at one point, uh, for the last week for, for what they're doing.
502
01:18:37.764 --> 01:18:48.754
And Instagram has also, uh, suddenly rolled out the ability to reply to stories with GIFs, which I kind of thought you should be able to do already anyway, but this is something that they've now formally made available.
503
01:18:48.834 --> 01:18:59.314
So when you're replying to a, a, a someone else's story, rather than just kind of the emojis that you can slap against as a reaction, you can now start typing a term, and it'll allow you to search for a GIF and reply with a GIF.
504
01:19:00.134 --> 01:19:01.174
And then finally today, I've...
505
01:19:01.234 --> 01:19:09.994
Someone pointed out that Twitter has multiple account login switching, uh, feature on desktop, something you can do within, certainly within the iOS app and I'm sure with the other apps as well.
506
01:19:10.014 --> 01:19:19.144
But now on desktop, if you have multiple accounts, social media manager, and you wanna log between the two, steps to make sure you're not kind of posting the wrong thing on the wrong account, then, uh, you should be able to do that now on desktop.
507
01:19:19.234 --> 01:19:32.214
Uh, it's available certainly to me through Chrome browser. There we go. There we go. And that's it for today. Now, as Matt mentioned earlier, next week we will be joined by Ed Couchman, who heads up Snap's UK operation.
508
01:19:32.354 --> 01:19:41.794
So any questions you have about Snapchat, or indeed the future of cameras, he's your guy. Make sure you hit subscribe in your podcast app of choice so you're notified as soon as the next episode is available.
509
01:19:42.074 --> 01:19:52.163
Geek Out with Matt Navarra is a Big Revolution production. Find out more at bigrevolution.net/podcasts. We also have a daily newsletter to help you keep up with the tech and media news.
510
01:19:52.494 --> 01:20:05.914
Each weekday edition has a big dollop of analysis of a current trend or story from me as well. So visit bigrevolution.net/newsletter for more information and to sign up. You can find me on Twitter as @martinsfp.
511
01:20:06.234 --> 01:20:14.654
And I'm @mattnavarra on Twitter. So don't forget to tell everyone about the podcast. Join the Facebook group. It's amazing. There's still thousands of people joining the group. It's incredible. It's great.
512
01:20:14.754 --> 01:20:27.954
So Social Media Geek Out, uh, on Facebook. Find us, join us, and, uh, there'll be more of this ridiculous kind of geek chat out there. So I think that's about it from us. See you soon. Goodbye, geeks. [upbeat music]