Has your business focused all its digital marketing resources on one platform or strategy?
Savvy financial portfolio managers know it is important to spread risk by diversifying their investment portfolios. It’s time to do the same for your digital marketing strategy.
Don’t believe me? Let’s use Facebook as an example. Before 2016, Facebook took money from any business that would give it to them in exchange for promoting “Page Likes.”
The proposition was simple – set up a budget for your business, and Facebook would get people to “Like” your page. Then nearly everything you published would be seen by that audience (it was actually more like 16%, but that is still a pretty good number).
We know some businesses spent tens of thousands of dollars per year to build “Page Likes” and ensure their page posts were seen.
Then, in 2016, Facebook abruptly changed its algorithm. Between January and May of 2016, publishers saw a 52% decline in organic views from the very audience they paid to acquire over many years.
The Golden Goose was getting sick.
Today organic reach on Facebook is 2% or less. Nobody is paying to get Page Likes, and those businesses trying to get their messages across are struggling with increasingly high ad costs and complicated conversion tracking.
I’ve been thinking about that story a lot lately, and it made me want to list a few other 2023 “Golden Goose” candidates that may be threatened soon.
The Golden Keywords
If you are working with an SEO company that is only focused on putting you #1 for a handful of keywords, are you prepared for when Google continues its trend of adding info to the top of search (like snippets, etc.)?
Google’s very clear objective is not to serve websites but to serve answers. Tomorrow that could mean stealing your content for a snippet at the top of the search page, so people no longer click to visit your site.
The Golden Social Platform
TikTok remains the fastest-growing social media platform, which makes it undeniably attractive to content creators and advertisers. But recently introduced legislation might mean that the popular platform is not going to be available on any governmental devices because of serious concerns about foreign ownership. Some are calling for it to be banned entirely in the US.
The Golden Audience
Targeting specific users online by interests and demographics has seemingly never been easier. But if you have a digital strategy that relies on a social media platform to deliver your messages based on interests or demographics, you might already see a decline in the quality of the responses.
Privacy settings on iPhone devices have all but killed the ability for apps to track and learn users’ behavior without explicit consent. Not only has this reduced the quality of ad campaigns, but it has restricted the supply of ad targets, resulting in higher ad costs.
Don’t Get Stuck with a Golden Goose
Ultimately, what’s successful today can change instantly; if your business isn’t utilizing a variety of digital marketing tactics, those changes could kill your business.
So what can be done to make sure your business doesn’t die along with the Golden Goose?
We recommend using complete strategies with a major focus on first-party data. If you are wondering who the first party is, it’s you! Building an email list or CRM that is well-segmented and up-to-date is the simplest and best way to ensure you control your destiny.
Usually, these lists are portable for many uses, so not only can you send effective email campaigns, but you can upload lists to most social media platforms to create ad audiences that you already know – and that likely already know you. These are dollars well spent.
How do you create your first-party data list? Stay tuned in the coming months of 2023 as we dive into different ways we approach building these lists.
*Spoiler alert: we do not recommend buying lists. It will take some creativity, sincerity, and, as always, valuable content.
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