Krista Neher

Sep 07 2018

Members of our Digital Marketing Insiders get first look at the September 2018 Digital Marketing Updates plus answers to their questions. Want to join? Learn more here! 

Facebook News Updates

• Improvements to Local Business Listings – Facebook has launched improvements to local business listings that make the Pages look better on mobile, increase the visibility of reviews, reignite events, grow visibility of job listings and enhance local search. These enhancements show that Facebook wants to be a relevant source for local business information.
• Facebook Page Redesign – Facebook Redesigned their Pages with the aim of becoming a destination for businesses – vs focusing on the newsfeed. As businesses continue to see newsfeed reach decline (and Facebook faces drop-offs) the new design focuses on showcasing business information as a destination.
• Connecting Mentors and Mentees in Groups – For limited groups (Parenting, Professional Development) Facebook has a new feature that allows a formalized way to match mentors and mentees who can then build their relationship outside of the group. This is a powerful enhancement and shows the commitment that Facebook has to groups.
• Facebook Ads Pixel to Groups – The Facebook Pixel allows marketers to track people from Facebook on their site – and it is now (limited) available for groups. This means that marketers can track the impact from groups that they manage. As Newsfeed growth has slowed groups provide an additional way for Facebook to connect with marketers.
• Facebook Buys VidPresso – Vidpresso makes videos interactive – with polling, commenting and more. This purchase shows Facebook is committed to becoming the leader in video and could also be a powerful tool for marketers.
• New Tools Allow you to turn Images into Videos – Facebook has 4 ways for businesses to turn their images into videos. We all know that videos out perform images – this makes it easy for you to convert an image into a video.
• Facebook Scores Users on Trustworthiness – Apparently Facebook is rating users on their trustworthiness as a way to find those spreading malicious news and content on the platform.
• Video Chat AR Games – Facebook is betting big on AR – and has now launched video chat AR games in Messenger. This allows users to play fun Augmented Reality games with their friends.
• Facebook will Require More Security for Large US Pages – As Facebook seeks to crack down on authenticity of Pages and also worries about the upcoming US election they have implemented more security and authentication for large pages.
• Facebook Launches Playable Ads – If you market Facebook Games you can now create an ad that allows someone to play the game directly in the ad. This could be a great way to drive more players to games.

Twitter News Updates

• Twitter Updates Improve Experience – Twitter launched a bunch of new updates including some UX enhancements, cracking down more on trolls and improving privacy. Will any of this actually increase the relevance of Twitter though?
• Twitter Loses Ability to AutoPost to Facebook – So sad? Not really! Posting Tweets to Facebook is usually annoying – and now Facebook has blocked Twitter from autoposting. If you relied on this, check out an app like BufferApp to post similar content across social networks.

What’s App News Updates

• People Spend TONS of Time in What’s App – A new study shows that people spent 85 Billion hours in What’s App (vs. 31 billion in Facebook) making it a huge attention grabber. With new features for businesses this is a channel worth watching or investing in.

LinkedIn News Updates

• Showcase Your Experience with Experience Design – LinkedIn has a new feature to showcase career progression and multiple roles within a single organization. The new Career Experience Design makes it easier to show career and role growth.
• LinkedIn Re-Integrates Groups into the App – LinkedIn previously removed groups from the mobile app in an effort to drive users to download a second, stand alone application. The standalone app has been removed and LinkedIn will incorporate groups back in to the main app. This shows LinkedIn is thinking about groups and we may see more updates here.

Snapchat News Updates

• First Ever Drop in Users – Snapchat had the first ever drop in users which raises concerns that people prefer Instagram and Facebook. Snapchat has had steady growth in the past – especially with younger (under 35) demographics.
• Increased Revenue from Advertisers – In their results release, Snapchat showed an increase in advertising revenue – which they attribute to their self-service ad platform. The platform is similar to Facebook making it easy for businesses to place and monitor ads.

YouTube News Updates

• YouTube Pays Power-users to Use Features – YouTube wants to drive awareness and use of it’s features – and what better way than showing them in action? YouTube has a program where they pay their biggest stars to use features to shine the light on all of the functionality that YouTube can offer.
• YouTube Increases Non-Skipable Ads – YouTube will now allow more channels to incorporate unskippable ads into their videos. The main strength of YouTube as an ad platform is the length of video ads – most Facebook ads are only watched for a few seconds but YouTube can drive longer views with unskippables. This change will increase the inventory of unskippable ads.

Search News Updates

• Expandable Snippets – Google now has expandable snippets where users can view more information directly in the search results. This could reduce clicks to websites if people can find what they need directly in search results, but also businesses can take advantage of this by making their information well organized for Google.
• Links Report now in Search Console – The Links report from old Search Console is now available in the new console – stay tuned as it is anticipated that more features will port over.
• Search Console has Mobile Usability Report – You can now view mobile usability and also conduct more admin features in the new search console.

Digital Advertising News Updates

• New Google “Ad Strength” Metric Measures Relevance – Google has a new metric called “Ad Strength” as a metric for responsive ads. The metric shows if your ads are responding as you would intend and are relevant. This is a great metric to understand if you need to tweak your ad setup.

Industry News and Research

• Podcasting is Small but Growing – Podcasting has been around for ages but has struggled to gain mass adoption – so many marketers haven’t heavily invested in the platform. In 2017 Podcasting grew 23% (to 16 million households). Which makes it still really small, but growing….
• New Facebook Study Shows Posts are Up and Engagements are Down – A new study evaluating tens of thousands of Pages shows that engagements are down across the board, but many top Pages are posting regularly – some up to 5 times a day.
• Great Read: 50 Content Marketing Tactics to Grow Exposure – I loved this article this month so wanted to share – tons of useful tips and ideas 😉

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