Welcome to Part II of Edition No. 38 of my weekly newsletter, providing practical analysis in the world of digital content strategy.
ICYMI Thursday: When Should You Start (On a New Social Media Platform)?
Contents
I. Let’s Get This Out of the Way
II. Facebook ‘Top News’ Will Once Again be Populated by an Algorithm
III. GA4 Transition Deadline Delayed…for 360 (Paid) Users
IV. A Small Update, Then a Bigger One, from GA4
V. Claim Your YouTube Handle (Before Someone Else Does)
VI. TikTok is Snooping On its European Users
VII. More People Can Now Make Less Money on Instagram
I. Let’s Get This Out of the Way
Alternate headline: ‘Musk’ We Go On?
As you are well aware, Elon Musk closed the deal last week to buy Twitter. Now, a look at just some of the updates since he’s taken the reins:
He wants to charge users $8 a month for Twitter Blue, which would include account verification (the last part being a terrible idea)
What Musk doesn’t realize in making this silly comparison is that it’s not about the money, it’s about making Twitter an aristocracy. Pay $8 to use Twitter? I would actually consider it.
Pay to get verified? It makes no sense. (Admittedly, I’m already verified. Not because I’m special, but because of my work as a journalist.)
Verified accounts are a way to combat misinformation and impersonation. Allowing people to pay for it will destroy that trust.
He executed a mass layoff (by email)…
…and now former employees are suing him
“Twitter is working on a feature that would let people post videos and charge users to view them, with the company taking a cut of the proceeds…”
Musk has made it clear that one of his main objectives is to grow revenue from non-advertising sources. And it’s a good thing:
🛠 Why does this matter? It’s difficult to predict where Twitter will be in a year. (Or even at the end of the year.)
Even so, I’m bullish on its future.
I know Musk is upsetting a lot of people, and I don’t want to touch the personal-analysis side of things with a 10-foot-pole. Here are some business-related things to consider, though:
He’s built Tesla into an extremely successful and valuable company. (No, cars aren’t tweets, but still.) As many enemies as he makes implementing his changes, I doubt he’s shooting from the hip. After all he went through to acquire Twitter, he has every incentive to succeed and turn a profit
Despite Twitter’s issues, it still has more than 200 million daily active users
There’s no platform that does what Twitter does and also has such a stronghold on its user base. While others are suggesting alternatives, I don’t see any viable real-time, town-hall-like tools threatening to knock it off its pedestal
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II. Facebook ‘Top News’ Will Once Again be Populated by an Algorithm
Meta, which owns Facebook, confirmed that the human-curated “Top Stories” section in the news tab will instead be handled by the algorithm starting early next year. In an email statement, a meta spokesperson told Gizmodo “Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t make sense to over invest in areas that don’t align with user preferences.”
🛠 Why does this matter? Meta has made it clear that it couldn't care less about publishers, and isn’t going to go out of its way to do them any favors.
This seems to be a resource-saving effort, giving the small percentage (according to Facebook) of users who read news on the platform what they seek without putting any curated human effort into the project.
The door to misinformation and manipulation may be open as wide as ever.
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III. GA4 Transition Deadline Delayed…for 360 (Paid) Users
We recognize that setting up Google Analytics 4 to fit your needs takes time and resources, in particular for large enterprises with complex Analytics 360 setups. To allow enterprise customers more time to have a smoother transition to Google Analytics 4, we’re moving the Universal Analytics 360 properties’ sunset date from October 1, 2023 to July 1, 2024.
Users of the free version still “only” have until July 1, 2023.
🛠 Why does this matter? Google must be feeling the pressure of losing the thousands of users who pay – starting at $150,000 per year for UA – for its analytics platform.
If it were about the bugs (and there are bugs) and steep learning curve (especially for non-power users), they would have pushed back the non-paid sunset date, too.
Think about it: The 360 sunset date was already three months later than the non-enterprise date. So if they think it will be ready in time for free users this coming July, why wouldn’t it be for paid users the following October?
Of course, 360 setups typically are much more complicated. But not in a way that requires a whole extra year (compared to the free version) to make the transition.
In fact, I think this will just encourage procrastination. I suppose it’s an attempt to get paid users to give GA4 another chance – and perhaps take the time to coach them through it – while they continue to have access to their UA data for more than 1 1/2 more years. The hope being that, at the end of that time, they sign on for the GA4 era.
As a freelance consultant, Google Analytics 4 has easily been my biggest revenue generator in the last 12 months. I share that to point out that 1) there is interest in transitioning to and learning the new version of GA and 2) to highlight that I have a lot of experience with GA4.
There are a lot of other power users out there who surely know more about the platform, but I think I’m familiar enough with it to say that it’s a powerful tool, and if you’re willing to take the time to learn the ropes, I think it provides more than enough analytics for at least 95 percent of content sites out there.
My advice is to get started now if you haven’t already. After all, learning GA4 from scratch will be a lot easier for existing GA-Universal users than learning a whole new program altogether.
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