This week in social media news, LinkedIn publishes new research on gender and racial diversity in marketing jobs, Facebook’s new report highlights the three key shifts driving the evolution of the shopper experience, Google won’t complete phasing out support for third-party cookies until 2023, Twitter launches a new 15-second view bidding model for premium videos and more.

LinkedIn Shares New Research On Gender And Racial Diversity In Marketing Jobs  

According to LinkedIn’s latest research, which combines data from its platform with research from ANA, McKinsey and others, 60 percent of marketing roles are occupied by women in North America. The bad news: racial diversity among those roles is lagging, with just 13 percent of all chief marketing officers having racially diverse backgrounds.

Why it matters: While the number of women CMOs grew from 2019 to 2020—from 47 percent to 52 percent—the percentage of racially diverse CMOs declined, reports LinkedIn. Black women, the research found, are severely underrepresented in leadership roles. Of 100 men that advance to a managerial role, 58 black women advance, compared to 80 white women and 72 women overall.

The details: LinkedIn’s research shows that compared to other industries in the US, women are represented well in marketing in almost every industry, with real estate, wellness and fitness being the strongest; representation of women in manufacturing and entertainment marketing roles ranked the lowest.  

A majority of females are represented at executive levels in marketing too, with 53 percent in a director role or higher, 59 percent in a manager role and 63 percent serving as individual contributors.

Though 52 percent of CMOs are women, just 13 percent of all CMOs have racially diverse backgrounds, according to ANA’s annual report on diversity. What’s worse, while 13.4 percent of Americans identify as black or African-American, research from Coqual found that just 3.2 percent of senior leadership roles at large US companies are held by black people.

LinkedIn also found that the top three fastest growing job titles for women in marketing are director of growth, account strategist and creative strategist.

Despite these encouraging statistics, women are 18 percent less likely than men to apply to a marketing job after viewing it.

Facebook’s New Report Highlights The Shifts Driving Evolution Of The Customer Experience

Facebook has published a new report that sheds light on the three key shifts driving the evolution of the customer experience. With insight from industry experts, the report examines the roles that mobile and social commerce, personalization and privacy, and creators are playing in the post-COVID landscape.

Why it matters: Across the world, 81 percent of consumers say they’ve changed a shopping habit since the start of the pandemic, and 92 percent say they’ll continue this new behavior in the long term. Businesses are innovating faster than ever to keep up with these changes.

The details: The surge in ecommerce during the pandemic gave consumers a newfound sense of ownership around their interactions with brands. To create their optimal experience, consumers are leveraging mobile shopping and messaging services, notes Facebook. 

Sixty-six percent of global online shoppers say their mobile device is quickly becoming their most important shopping tool and 62 percent of social media users say they’d like to communicate with a customer service representative through a messaging app.

The takeaway for brands is to create humanized, digital shopping experiences, whether it’s through conversational or discovery commerce.

Next, Facebook found that people want personalization and privacy to go hand in hand. Some 69 percent of global online shoppers feel more personally connected to brands that offer personalized content or deals. Similarly, 60 percent are interested in using a personalized shopping tab to discover tailored content, reports Facebook.

To give consumers the best of both worlds, Facebook suggests brands utilize privacy-enhancing technology and contextual advertising. In addition, marketers should simplify legal jargon or communicating policies around their data privacy practices in digestible content for consumers.

Lastly, Facebook sees a new kind of creator culture emerging where consumers form closer connections to their favorite influencers as consumers come to expect more interactive shopping experiences. Fifty-one percent of consumers surveyed say they get ideas on which products to shop for from celebrities and creators, and 45 percent say they want to buy products promoted by creators directly on social media.

For brands, this means showing diverse creator personalities with consumers who are seeking better representation.

Twitter Launches New 15-Second View Bid Unit

Because advertisers have only a few seconds to make a positive and impactful first impression, Twitter has launched a 15-second view bid unit powered by its new prediction model that prioritizes engaged, long-form views on your content.

Why it matters: Twitter says it’s been spending the last few months working on a new prediction model that enables this new buying model, with early testing showing that it drives Twitter’s highest video completion rates yet. 

The 15-second view bid, which has been tested with advertisers like Bud Light and Virgin Media, led to an average of an 89 percent higher completion rate, at a 25 percent cheaper cost per completed view.    

The details: Twitter says its new prediction model optimizes for serving video ads to active targeted users that have the highest likelihood of spending more time with your video content, based on their preferences and behavioral trends on Twitter. Twitter then serves your video to those users and charges on CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions).

Along with this new 15-second bid unit comes new reporting metrics in Twitter’s Ad Manager, including cost per 15-second video views and 15-second video view rates.

The new 15-second view bid unit, available to all advertisers globally, will be the new default bid unit for all campaigns under Video Views.

Facebook Rolls Out New ‘Optimize Text Per Person’ Ad Option

According to Social Media Today, Facebook has added a new ad option called ‘Optimize Text Per Person’ that, if enabled, automatically swaps text between an ad’s headline and primary text to optimize its performance.

Why it matters: Though Facebook doesn’t specify how it’ll determine what text each user is more likely to respond to, the new ad option will make it so that your ads are optimized without the need to make additional updates to the text in the headline, description or primary text.

The details: As per a screenshot tweeted by Leon Grigg, who first spotted the new ad option, the toggle displays the following message:

“When it is likely to improve performance, allow text to swap between fields, such as showing your headline as primary text.”

As per Social Media Today, ‘Optimize Text Per Person’ isn’t available to all users yet but Facebook appears to have expanded it this week.

Google Postpones Phasing Out Of Third-Party Cookies To 2023

Google has announced that Chrome is pushing back the phase-out of third-party cookies and the launch of its Privacy Sandbox initiative—which aims to create web technologies that enable brands to target consumers while protecting their privacy online—until 2023.

Why it matters: Early last year is when Google first announced that it would phase out third-party cookies. Google also aimed to launch its Privacy Sandbox initiative by early 2022. Now, it says it needs to “move at a responsible pace” to “avoid jeopardizing the business models of many web publishers which support freely available content.”

The delay will give marketers more time to gather first-party data, a necessity for reaching consumers seeking personalized digital experiences.

The details: Google’s goal is to hold a public discussion on the technologies and their prototypes in forums like GitHub and W3C groups, then rigorously test them in Chrome, perhaps through several origin trials. Once developed, the technologies will be ready to be used at scale.

After this public development process, Google says it plans to phase out support for third-party cookies in two stages. The first stage will start in late 2022, during which time publishers and advertisers will have time to migrate their services. Google expects this initial phase to last nine months.

Stage 2 will see Chrome phase out third-party cookies over a three-month period wrapping up in late 2023.

Snapchat Expands Its Music Library With New Universal Music Group Deal

The short-form video app war that is Snapchat vs. TikTok is heating up. Adding fuel to the fire, Snapchat and Universal Music Group have announced a new deal that will add UMG artists’ music into Snap’s library. The music will be featured in Sounds—Snap’s music feature—Lenses and more.

Why it matters: Snapchat is seeing considerable success with Sounds, which launched in October. The platform says videos created with music from Sounds on Snap have generated 521 million videos and 31 billion views. At launch, Snapchat’s music library featured tunes from Sony and Warner artists.

However, TikTok was the first to ink a deal with UMG back in February after UMG pulled its entire catalog from Triller. The deal, according to a press release, allows TikTok users to incorporate clips from UMG’s full catalog of music.

The details: In addition to partnering with UMG, Snap says it’s improving the discoverability of ‘Sounds’ for users. It recently launched Shortcuts, a feature that suggests relevant camera modes, Lenses and soundtracks based on what’s in your camera’s view.

Additionally, Snap will continue to add Playlists to help users quickly find the right song for their video. Playlists will involve genres, moods and moments relevant to the Snap community, as well as songs that are trending on Snap.