September 2020 Digital Marketing News Updates - Facebook Monetizes Groups, Instagram Reels Guide, and TikTok Monthly Usage

Krista Neher

Sep 08 2020

Facebook News Updates

Facebook Shopping is In App and More E-commerce Features – Facebook is getting much more serious about shopping in the app. They added a number of new ecom features and have increased the prominence of shopping in the app.
Group Paid Partnerships Monetizes Groups – Facebook is increasing emphasis on groups and now allows group owners to run paid partnership within groups. This allows brands to advertise within groups through the ad platform.
Create Paid Events on Facebook – As more businesses look to monetize online experiences Facebook allows business Pages and Creators to create paid experiences directly in the platform.
Facebook Tests Cleaner Page Layout and De-emphasized Likes – This is only in test mode but gives an idea as to where Facebook is headed with Pages.

LinkedIn Sells Slideshare to Scribd – This may mean more focus on the slidesharing service going forward and possibly premium content.

Instagram Adds Suggested Posts to Increase Time in App – When you get the to end of your feed, Instagram will now show suggested posts (from people you don’t follow) to keep you engaged for longer.
Instagram Reels Guide for Marketers – Instagram launched Reels last month as an alternative to TikTok. This guide gives you everything you need to know to use it for your marketing.
Users can Choose to Merge Messenger and Instagram Direct – This is optional for users, but they can choose to access both messages through Messenger.

Users can Choose Who can Reply to their Tweets – Options are everyone, only followers or only people mentioned. This can be good for accounts that want to limit replies.

YouTube Stops Emailing Subscribers – YouTube wills top emailing your subscribers when you launch new videos. This could reduce views of your new videos if you rely on subscribers to watch your new content.
YouTube has Lead Forms in Ads – Now you can collect leads directly in your YouTube ads. This can be powerful for any business focusing on leads as users don’t have to leave the site.

Google Changes Image Search Results – First, they now show licensable badges for images that you can buy. Second they have removed some labeled for reuse image types and have only kept Creative Commons. This means that if you’d like your images to show up in Image Search you’ll need to make sure they have the right licenses.
New Search Console Gives Content Insights – This combines search console data + Google Analytics data to provide insights specifically about content performance.
Google Chrome with Highlight Fast Pages on Mobile – Labels will show for sites that load fast to avoid load-time frustrations. This is another reason to get to work on your site speed.
Only 15% of Sites Meet Google Site Speed Benchmarks – A few months ago Google announced Core Web Vitals as a way to evaluate site speed. In a study, only 15% of sites have met the guidelines.

Google Launches Career Certificates – These professional certificates are intended to disrupt the college industry. In 6 months participants can get certified in in-demand areas like Data Analyst, UX Design and Project Management.
TikTok Reveals Monthly Users – For the first time, TikTok revealed the # of monthly active users in the US (drumroll please) – 100 million! This is about 25% of the US population and 800% growth since Jan 2020.