Krista Neher
Dec 11 2017
December 2017 Digital Marketing News Updates
Don’t spend hours researching to stay up-to-date! We’ve compiled the December 2017 Digital Marketing News Updates to keep you current on Search, Advertising, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, SnapChat, and more! Want to be the first to hear about them PLUS have your questions answered by a Boot Camp Digital expert? Subscribe to our All Access Pass!
Facebook News Updates
- Facebook Q3 Earnings Highlights – Facebook Q3 earnings showed a 50% gain in ad revenues — remember that ad prices are based on supply and demand, so as more advertisers join Facebook the prices of ads may increase. Many marketers (anecdotally) have noted increases in rates for Facebook ads, so this may be impacting you as well. Additionally, most of the ad revenue is from mobile (88%). You can’t afford not to have a mobile-first strategy.
- Facebook Community Creator Tools – Facebook now has community creator tools to help creators (think influencers but this could also be brands) to create better content that really engages with their community. The new tool kit includes a new site with training as well as more powerful features for live streaming (intros, outros and branding) and more.
- Facebook Dynamic Creative Ads – Advertisers can now create dynamic Facebook ads from a number of variables. This is a game changer as advertisers can now create variants of their ads (photos, videos, text, call to action) etc that are displayed to different target audiences. This makes it faster and easier to create customized content that (theoretically) should convert better and increase your ROI.
LinkedIn News Updates
- New LinkedIn Ads Include InMail Leads and Dynamic Ads – LinkedIn now allows advertisers to use Lead Generation ads in InMail including customized questions. This can make it easier for advertisers to generate leads on LinkedIn. In addition, advertisers can really grab attention with Dynamic Ads that feature user content like name, profile photo, and more. This shows that LinkedIn is heavily investing in their advertising technology.
Twitter News Updates
- Twitter Rolls out 280 Character Limit – It was bound to happen eventually – Twitter has officially started rolling out the new character limit to most accounts. Accounts can now tweet up to 280 characters, although many users are still keeping their tweets short.
Instagram News Updates
- Instagram + WhatsApp Status > Snapchat – As Snapchat struggles to gain momentum with advertisers (and recently missed their earnings big time) Instagram Stories and WhatsApp status continue to grow. Advertisers looking to reach the young anti-Facebook audience of Snapchat can now also reach that audience on Instagram and WhatsApp, making Snapchat even less appealing. Instagram Stories and WhatsApp status are both over 300 million users, while Snapchat is still under 200 million.
Snapchat News Updates
- Snapchat Offers New Ad Units for Longer Video and AR Interactions – As Snapchat tries to lure advertisers they are launching two new ad units. One offers longer ad units, which can meet advertiser needs to engage with consumers beyond the typical two second views offered in Facebook. The new AR feature aims to drive active engagement of users which can also make ads more impactful. Historically, Facebook has been quick to copy Snapchat, so maybe we will see them follow suit.
Search News Updates
- SEMRush Ranking Factors – This isn’t “news” exactly, but if you haven’t looked at search ranking factors recently this report and infographic are a great read. Search ranking is based on user experience, links and content – make sure that you have a quality experience that consumers find valuable if you want to continue to rank.
Digital Advertising
- Huge Ad Fraud ($500K/Day) Uncovered – An article in the WJS showcased a huge ad-fraud discovery as fraudsters were spoofing respected sites and creating fraudulent inventory. While the discovery was large in scale, this underscores the need for advertisers and agencies to use (as appropriate) ad-fraud tools and also to be smart about targeting and placements.
- Google Supports the Trust Project – This project is aimed at letting people know if they are viewing news from a credible source to help with the fake news that plagued the recent US election. Google comes on board to help let viewers know if they are likely reading news that isn’t credible. Facebook launched a similar product earlier this year.
Innovation News Updates
- Google Aims to Make Home More Relevant – Google is looking to make their voice activated Home more relevant to consumers with apps that connect their Home device to their smartphone. In the battle for voice Amazon Alexa and Google Home are the two biggest competitors. Connecting the Home device to the phone could give Google a competitive edge that Amazon can’t compete with since they don’t have any presence in the mobile phone space.
- How Much of Your Audience do You Reach on Different Platforms – This interesting study shows how much of your audience you are likely to reach in different platforms, ranging from SMS which probably reaches all of your audience to Facebook which (organically) reaches less than 1% of your audience. The important takeaway here is that none of these platforms will reach 100% of your audience – so it makes sense to use multiple touch-points and consider different approaches to get your messages in front of your target audience.
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