💌: TikTok strike, cookies, & GA4 is 💩

👋 Welcome to another week of the most interesting things happening in marketing. A big shout out to everyone who joined in the last week, it was the biggest week for new subscribers so far. Writing this each week truly brings me joy, so thank you for being a part of that! If you’re new here, reply and let’s chat!

And with that, let’s get into this week’s news!

🤳 Social Media & Creator Economy

• Alright, we love TikTok on this newsletter (obviously) — and we’ve previously talked about how savage the algorithm is — savage in this case meaning scarily accurate. Pretty sure it’s the end game for algorithms that are designed to serve content you might like. TikTok recently revealed how it works, so check that out and get a peek behind the curtain.
• Speaking of good ol’ TikTok, here’s one of the top trends of the week: Black TikTok creators are striking to protest uncredited viral dance trends The short story is: black creators on TikTok are refusing to create a dance for Meg Thee Stallion’s new song. Why? They’re tired of being uncredited when more famous white TikTokers blow up and get the credit for it. With virality usually comes money, so in this case being uncredited also means not getting paid. There are so many layers to this pop culture onion, and this is a story as old as time in music and media. I think we’re at an interesting inflection point in our collective history, though because this is one of the few times going on strike has an immediate and intended effect. Bonus: this thread by the author is gold.
• Here are the world’s top 50 influencers by number of followers. Number one on the list is a sports ball person, perhaps you might not be shocked by that, but I was. Anyway, remember when we didn’t know what an influencer was? What a time.
• YouTube has only gotten bigger since the start of the pandemic, and here’s the list of the top 100 channels around the world from last month. For all of you parents out there, rest assured Cocomelon is on the list.
• Last week we mentioned Facebook was beta testing their Clubhouse clone and this week they officially launched Live Audio Rooms AND podcasts. The race for your ears is heating up!
• Is Tinder becoming a social media network? They added a bunch of new features this week that puts them dangerously close to social app territory.
• A little pro-tip to round out this section: You can now share Tweets directly to an Instagram story. No more screenshot messiness!

✏️ Copywriting, email marketing, and advertising

• This NY times article about Moray eels has been making the rounds this week on Twitter and among my journalist friends. It might be one of the best headlines ever.
• We’ve talked about the AIDA copywriting framework in previous issues, here is a Twitter thread by @jmosser of some others, with examples of them in action.
• No link on this one, just a crazy stat: Google, Facebook, and Amazon accounted for almost 90% of the US digital ad market in 2020, per ad agency GroupM.
• Buzzfeed has confirmed their intentions to go public via a SPAC. They’ve come a long way since click-bait style listicle articles. They even won a pulitzer this year! Going public is a big deal because they want to use funding to acquire other media companies. Why? To become a bigger network for marketers to advertise on. They want to grab part of that 90% from the point above.
• Google has decided not to block cookies until 2023. Why is this a big deal? They were supposed to begin blocking as early as the middle of this year, and the news sent many companies scrambling to acquire first party data. This is why so many newsletters and smaller media companies have been getting acquired left and right. Hearing news of the delay, advertisers everywhere celebrated and got drunk, probably.
• In a recent issue, we talked about Apple’s iOS 15, and how it’s going to change email marketing. The last time we discussed, we talked about how the new privacy-focused changes could hurt newsletter creators. Here’s an alternate take: it could actually improve email marketing as a whole. The basic thought: email marketers will have to focus on making better, more impactful email instead of focusing on vanity metrics like open rate. If you’re not familiar, here are all the changes iOS15 brings for privacy.

🖥 SEO (making Google happy)

• GA4 (the latest version of Google Analytics) has been given the universal thumbs down so far. Some people say it even made them cry when trying to use it. I haven’t read a single positive thing about it so far, and the collective opinion is Google took a difficult-to-use product and somehow worsened it. Or, as my friend Nick told me: “it’s doodoo, baby.” Not gonna lie, when I went to set it up for this site, I threw up a little as I was trying to get used to everything. It’s not weird to fantasize about previous software versions, right?
• Let’s talk about on-page SEO. For those that are new to SEO, or those that want a refresher: On-page SEO is one of the components of any good SEO strategy. The basic concept is making your page or blog post search friendly by making sure the correct keywords (and words related to your main keyword) are in your titles, images, headings, and body copy. Here’s a handy interactive guide on how to set up a page for SEO success. Worth a bookmark, even if you're an SEO vet!
• While we’re on the topic, here’s a bonus: 8 things you can do to rank on page one of Google.

😀Just for fun

• This TikTok about coffee shops made me laugh way too hard this week. And, if you have eight minutes to spare: how Times Square went from the sleaziest block in America to a giant tourist trap.

That’s all for this week, I thank you again for reading these words.

- Jordan AKA Forge

🤝 How to support Forgematic

• Share this newsletter either by forwarding to someone. Or share the website to your network.
• Buy me a coffee — it fuels the early morning writing :)
• Speaking of coffee, I finally managed to subscribe to Cometeer, which is probably the most interesting way I’ve consumed coffee so far. Each morning I just melt a frozen puck of coffee. I go from zero to iced coffee in less than a minute. I’ve been pretty shocked at how good it is. Cometeer also gave me some invite links for y’all, and if you use this one you can get 50% off your first coffee box.
• Become a founding member of Forgematic — it really helps the continued creation of the newsletter, and you’ll be getting some cool extras in the future (not just my book).