The times are a-changing
In the distant future, when people take vacations to Mars and construction on I-35 is finally complete, 2018 will probably be remembered as the year that the world got serious about data privacy. Most notably, Facebook instituted sweeping changes across its platforms in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the European Union passed the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a wide-ranging set of laws that fundamentally change the way most businesses handle their clients’ information. These restrictions and regulations present a challenge to marketers, many of whom rely on free-flowing social data to target and activate their audiences.
Current landscape
In April, Facebook abruptly cut off third-party API access to Instagram data, restricting marketers from seeing names, bios, public comments, follower information, post content, and even profile pictures. These changes have made it extremely difficult to independently identify and activate new audiences on the site. Instagram is currently the leading platform for influencer marketing, but under the new rules, marketers can’t analyze an influencer’s audience until he or she “opts in” and hands over their login information. In cases where a brand already has a relationship with an influencer, this is a workable solution, but when it comes to identifying new influencers, marketers are out of luck.
Facebook’s new restrictions on its subsidiary (which were issued virtually without notice) have rocked the world of influencer marketing and left many firms specializing in Instagram influencers without a revenue source or a viable path forward. Last month alone, two industry leaders were acquired and two more were forced to merge. A search for “Instagram” in any smartphone app store yields hundreds of results promising great analytics for cheap, and many actually delivered on that promise. As of today, nearly all are defunct, and marketers should be cautious about anyone who claims that they can produce actionable insights from Instagram data.
Facebook’s push for data security may be a response to recent public pressure, but this year’s other major regulatory measure, the GDPR, languished in committee for nearly half a decade before it was adopted by the European Parliament and finally passed into force on May 25. The first thing any marketer will notice about the EU’s new privacy law is its impressive scope: any business that collects or handles personal information, like a name or an email address, from someone inside the EU has to follow all 261 pages of the GDPR, no matter where the business itself is located.
Some of the law’s more important provisions include a person’s right to see all of the personal data that a company has stored about them (upon request), as well as a requirement for companies to delete personal data once it has served its original purpose. The document also lays out penalties (including massive fines) for non-compliance, which is a good incentive to make the time-consuming and potentially costly switchover.
Adapting to 2018
The rules of the game have changed. Marketers need to recalibrate their approach if they want to succeed, and while “success” may be a subjective idea that varies from person to person, it’s rarely defined as paying a $23 million fine, so anyone who collects or handles data for a living should consider making GDPR compliance a priority. This is a great guide on the GDPR as it applies to marketers, and here is the full text of the law.
In response to the new regulations on Instagram data, marketers should shift their focus towards platforms with more open data policies, like Twitter and YouTube, to reach their target audience, identify potential brand ambassadors, and shape their image.
Experts consistently cite YouTube as the most effective platform for online video advertising. It’s also an influencer marketing powerhouse. The long-form nature of YouTube’s video content creates a strong personal connection between creators and their audiences – so strong, in fact, that four out of ten millennials believe that their favorite YouTuber understands them better than their friends.
Twitter, with its 336 million monthly active users, remains the preferred platform for public figures ranging from Joel Embiid to Pope Francis to directly engage with their audiences. Most Twitter users don’t find ads on the site intrusive, and Twitter’s open data policy allows marketers to target and activate their audiences with laser precision.
Of course, paying more attention to YouTube and Twitter doesn’t mean forgetting about Instagram entirely. Despite policy changes and a seemingly endless stream of bad press for its parent company, Instagram is here to stay, and marketers will have to learn to work within the confines of the platform’s new rulebook. As of today, Instagram effectively prevents marketers from using many of the data science techniques they’ve developed to identify audiences and influencers, so brands using the platform need to shift their focus towards building direct relationships with influencers and consumers.
Looking ahead
In the short term, the prevalence of single-platform influencers will likely decline as content creators realize they must establish themselves across multiple channels in order to maximize partnership offers and audience growth. On the regulation side, lawsuits will force judicial authorities to clarify the GDPR’s vaguer points as European courts begin to prosecute non-compliance, and while Facebook has yet to confirm its new data restrictions are permanent, they are unlikely to change anytime soon.
The long term is less clear. Marketers will always need to create content that their audience wants to engage with, but trends, regulations, and technologies change constantly, and those who allow themselves to get too comfortable with today’s practices and modes of thought risk fading into irrelevance in the future.
After all, you never know when the universe will throw another 2018 your way.
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