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Tomorrow is National 🍬 Hard Candy Day, Reader! Rhubarb and custard… 🤤 mmmmmm.

In today’s edition:

• Today's 👉 Tip of the Day is for social strategy

• A two-step strategy for 🪝 selling on YouTube

• Google’s new Chrome browser experiment: 🕵️‍♂️ Tracking Protection

• 🫥 Anonymous User Access controls for Spaces

• 📺 YouTube TV’s latest ads update

Need to give your social media strategy a refresh for the new year? Looking at what your competitors or complementary businesses are doing can help you generate ideas, save time, and improve performance.

3 Keys for Competitive Analysis

First, identify competitors or businesses that complement yours by asking your audience what other brands they follow, searching related keywords, etc.

Next, compile the data on those brands’ followers, engagement, posting frequency, etc.

Then, review their most and least engaged posts to get ideas for content that resonates or doesn't. 

Use what you learn as inspiration for new topics to cover, platforms to test, or strategies to experiment with.

Today's tip is inspired by Latasha James, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World. Source: YouTube

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You work for a business and your job is to sell products or services for the business.

The YouTube algorithm's goal is to keep viewers on the platform by pairing them with the right content. 

If you're constantly sending people off the platform to buy your products, the algorithm won’t look favorably on your content and it won’t be shown to as many  

A 2-Part Strategy to Selling on YouTube 

The keys to successful sales on YouTube are in how and when you sell.

Deliver a Soft Ask 80% of the Time

80% of your YouTube content should be about giving to your audience—teaching, helping, and providing value—which will help build your brand.

To do a soft pitch on YouTube, you might include an opt-in or freebie link on your About tab or in the video description. 

This works because you’re not sending people somewhere from within the video or disrupting the viewing session. They're deciding to dig deeper by going to the video description, your channel page, or your About tab.

Instead of pitching and sending people off of the platform, you could say something like, “While I'm talking about [topic], I have a link below in the description where you can go check that out.” 

Pro Tip: Don't pop the link across the screen or draw a ton of attention to it because that would send viewers off the video with an easy click.

Deliver a Hard Ask 20% of the Time

The other 20% of the time, you can ask your audience for something.

Start by making sure the topic of the video is going to do well on its own. Your YouTube analytics should give you a sense of what content will perform well with your audience. It needs to be a video you expect to do well because you're already stacking the deck against it by sending people off of the platform with a hard ask.

Next, create or choose an opt-in that's related to the topic of that video. Now you’re ready to deliver your ask.

First, add the link in the video’s description, and be sure to use a link card. It's also helpful to put the URL across the screen during the video and tell viewers that the link is in the description because mobile users might have a hard time clicking on the card or seeing the URL.

After your hook and intro, mention the freebie and where viewers can find the link. Be sure to reiterate these details in the last 20 seconds of your video. Instead of wrapping things up and asking viewers to subscribe, say: “Don't forget, check out (your opt-in).” 

The Results

While 80% of your videos may not get people to download your freebie or buy your product, they prove to YouTube that your content can keep people on the platform. This mitigates the impact of the 20% of videos where you ask viewers for something.

Today's advice is provided with insights from Jessica Stansberry, a featured speaker at Social Media Marketing World.

Have Big Marketing Goals for the New Year?

Imagine checking ALL of these boxes within the first quarter of 2024:

✅ Discover new strategies that improve your marketing results.

✅ Fortify your AI marketing plans. 

✅ Become much more valuable to your company or clients. 

If these are important to you, we can help you make them happen.

Get advanced training on marketing strategies, AI, and so much more, at Social Media Marketing World 2024—taking place February 18–20—in Sunny San Diego. 

This is your chance to elevate your marketing value. 

I want to level up in 2024!

🗞 Google Tracking Protection in Chrome: On January 4th, Google will begin testing a new Chrome browser feature called Tracking Protection, which will restrict third-party cookies by default for 1% of Chrome users globally. During the Tracking Protection test, randomly selected users will be notified when opening Chrome and third-party cookies will automatically be restricted as they browse. If a site breaks due to a lack of third-party cookie access, Chrome will detect issues like repeated refreshes and prompt the user to temporarily re-enable them for that particular site. Google aims to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome completely by the second half of 2024, pending approval from the United Kingdom's regulatory body overseeing competition concerns. Source: Google

🗞 X/Twitter Spaces Hosts to Control Anonymous User Access: X has introduced a new feature that provides more control to hosts of its social audio app Spaces regarding anonymous user participation. The "Allow Incognito" toggle lets hosts choose whether anonymous listeners can join their Spaces conversations or if participation should be limited to identified, logged-in users only. Source: Radu Oncescu via Threads

🗞 YouTube TV Ads: YouTube announced several updates to improve the streaming experience on connected TVs. First, they will have fewer, longer ad breaks during long-form content to reduce interruptions. Over half of test viewers had 29% longer sessions before an ad break with this change. Viewers will also see the time remaining in breaks. Second, Shorts video ads will now appear globally on connected TVs, with view growth over 100% this year. The ad experience mirrors mobile, with remote controls for skipping. Advertisers can now buy Shorts ads more easily. Finally, YouTube aims to provide an always-on, fresh library across screens. By listening to user preferences, they hope to build a more modern, seamless ad experience for viewers and advertisers on connected devices. The changes roll out soon. Source: YouTube

Did You Know?

About 1 in 5 pairs of twins are left-handed. That’s roughly double the rate of the general population.