Social Media

Pinterest Adds New Personalized Recommendations, New Related Product Listings on Pins

Pinterest continues its shift away from social media, and towards eCommerce, with the addition of two new product showcase tools which aim to prompt user purchases based on their on-platform behaviors. The first is a new ‘Picked for You’ Pin collection which will appear at the top of your home feed. The prompt will serve as a reminder of the products which have drawn your interest on the platform, which may then inspire more purchases. It’s similar to Amazon’s recommendations based on your past actions. Pinterest is also adding an updated shopping section below Pins from certain businesses, which will showcase expanded brand catalogs based on the items you’ve shown an interest in. The new, expanded listings will provide new opportunities for brands to showcase more of their products to interested Pinners. It’s clear that there’s a lot of potential for retailers in Pins, and these new tools will further add to that capacity.

For the full article click here 

Snapchat Launches Major New Ad Campaign Around the Theme of Connecting Friends

While Facebook has focused on global domination, and connecting as many people as possible through its family of apps, Snapchat has always maintained its focus on close relationships, which has long been its differentiating factor. And now, Snap is using that ethos as the key focus for its first global, paid media campaign, which will see Snap billboards and ads placed in across cinema, broadcast, print and digital platforms. Snap’s ‘Real Friends’ promotion will highlight the stories of Snap users who have been able to connect through the app, building their relationship through closer connection, as opposed to some of the negative aspects connected to public sharing. Snap’s defined focus on friendships, and connecting people around smaller, more meaningful moments, has helped it build an engaged, dedicated audience, which could see a significant increase with this new push.

For the full article click here 

Instagram Purges Meme Accounts, Shutting Down Pages With Millions of Followers

Instagram is cracking down on accounts that primarily post memes, deleting popular pages that have amassed millions of followers. Dozens of accounts with over 30 million followers combined were deleted without warning. The removal is permanent, meaning there’s no hope for the users to get their accounts restored. Earlier this month, Instagram updated its account removal policies. It can now remove accounts that have a certain number of violations within a window of time. In any case, this whole situation illustrates the danger of building a business solely on social media. Those who were once thriving on Instagram are now having a rough go of it.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google’s John Mueller: No Benefit to Marking All Outbound Links as Nofollow

Google’s John Mueller cleared up a misconception about whether there’s a ranking benefit to marking all outbound links as nofollow. In fact, using a nofollow attribute on all outgoing links may even cause problems over time because it’s an unnatural way of linking to web pages. Mueller recognizes that some sites do use the nofollow attribute on all outgoing links. They do this, he says, to stay on the safe side. The publications may not know which links to vouch for, so they nofollow everything. Mueller says that’s problematic because publishers should be able to stand behind what they’re writing about. 

For the full article click here

Social Media

Facebook is Letting More Advertisers Place Ads in Search Results

More advertisers can now place ads in Facebook’s search results, a placement that has been in testing since last year. Facebook’s search ads were first rolled out to a select number of businesses in the US in December. Now, it appears a greater number of advertisers are seeing ‘Facebook search’ show up as a placement option when setting up ad campaigns. ‘Facebook search’ is an additional placement option when creating newsfeed campaigns. Facebook search ads, like newsfeed ads, are clearly labeled with a “Sponsored” tag. They can appear either as a static image or in a carousel format. Unlike Google ads, there is no option to target specific keywords or phrases with Facebook search ads. So the best way to show up for various keywords is to make sure they appear somewhere on your business’s Facebook page.

For the full article click here 

As Instagram Hides Likes, Young Users are Switching to Business Accounts, Exposing Personal Data

New research suggests that a growing number of young users are now converting their personal profiles into business accounts in order to access more in-depth audience data on their post performance. That’s particularly concerning, given that in order to list yourself as a ‘business’ on the platform, you need to provide additional contact info, like a phone number or email address, which is then displayed in your publicly accessible bio. With Instagram lessening its public focus on Likes, maybe, through the advanced metrics available through business profile, young users are looking to maintain their Insta ‘cred’ by sharing these more in-depth figures.  

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google is Replacing Voice Search With Google Assistant on Android Devices

Google is reportedly in the process of replacing voice search on Android devices with Google Assistant. According to a report from 9to5Google, the old voice search icon has been replaced with an Assistant icon in the Google app and search bar widget. Google shifting the focus from regular voice search to Assistant is an indication of where Google wants to guide the future of its services. This change could potentially impact a small percentage of organic search traffic to publishers, given the Assistant’s penchant for providing direct answers. When users are given the answers they need from Google Assistant, they don’t have to search and click through to publishers’ sites. Although it’s important to keep in mind that Assistant can’t provide a direct answer for every query.

For the full article click here 

Google notifying webmasters to remove noindex from robots.txt files

As part of Google fully removing support for the noindex directive in robots.txt files, Google is now sending notifications to those that have such directives. This morning, many within the SEO community started getting notifications from Google Search Console with the subject line “Remove “noindex” statements from the robots.txt of…” If you get this notice, make sure to ensure whatever you mentioned in this noindex directive is supported a different way. The most important thing is to make sure that you are not using the noindex directive in the robots.txt file. If you are, you will want to make the suggested changes above before September 1. Also, look to see if you are using the nofollow or crawl-delay commands and, if so, look to use the true supported method for those directives going forward.

For the full article click here 

Social Media

Instagram is Testing a New Listing of Stories Mentions to Notify Users

Given the rise of Instagram Stories, it’s no surprise to see that Instagram is now looking to add new notification tools and options to help boost user engagement, and to ensure that people are aware of relevant mentions. The latest tool on this front comes in the form of a new ‘Stories About You’ listing, which is reportedly being tested in the app. The new section would list all the Stories in which a user has been @mentioned or tagged by the Story creator, separating these notifications from your general notifications stream. The option could be particularly beneficial for high-profile users who see a lot of mentions, helping them to better understand their notifications list, and respond to relevant alerts. It might also be beneficial for brands, alerting them to mentions in Stories, and helping to categorize their streams in order to guage related activity.

For the full article click here 

Beware of Facebook Libra Scams, Which Are Spreading Across The Social Network

As reported by The Washington Post, a range of scam posts and Pages have started popping up across the web, looking to dupe potential investors who are seeking to get in early on the currency: “Roughly a dozen fake accounts, Pages and groups scattered across Facebook and its photo-sharing app Instagram present themselves as official hubs for the digital currency, in some cases offering to sell Libra at a discount if viewers visit potentially fraudulent, third-party websites.” Crypto scams are relatively common – so much so that Facebook itself implemented a ban on crypto ads earlier in the year due to the proliferation of questionable operators. Facebook has since watered down its action, and given the profile of Libra, it’s not surprising to see scammers looking to tap into the hype, and catch potential investors unaware, relieving them of their cash. As noted, everyone should be very wary of any Libra related ads, on any network, as the currency is not at release stage, has no official release date, and as such, is not at the point where anyone can be offering you any Libra to get a head start on the action.   

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google search results not fully rendering for many searchers

There are widespread complaints in the Google forums about the search results not fully rendering when a search is done. This seems to be happening for some searchers on mobile. Google has confirmed the company is working on a fix. If searchers cannot see the search results, even if that is a small percentage of Google searchers, that can lead to a drop in traffic to your web site, which may lead to fewer leads and sales and less revenue for your company. Of course, Google wants its search results to render, so it is working fast to fix the issue.

For the full article click here

Google Adds “Request a Quote” Button to Business Listings in Search Results

Google is automatically adding a large “Request a Quote” button to eligible business listings in search results. The button also appears in mobile search results when the business name is searched for. Specifically, businesses that have opted into the Google My Business messaging feature will have the “request a quote” button added to their listing. Searchers can now request quotes from businesses without ever visiting the business’s website. It can all be done within Google’s services. Clearly, that’s not great for traffic. But the purpose of a business website, for the most part, is to generate leads.

For the full article click here

Social Media

Pinterest Adds New Self-Help Tool to Assist Users Dealing with Mental Stress and Fatigue

Pinterest is rolling out a new set of self-help tools which are designed to assist users who are dealing with mental health issues by offering quick exercises that they can follow along with, right from the app. Pinterest says that its users conduct “millions of searches” related to emotional health on the platform every year, which is what prompted this new initiative. Mental health has rightfully become a key focus for social media apps in recent times, with various reports showing that social media usage itself can be linked to psychological harm. As Pinterest notes, these simple tools are not designed to replace professional care, while searches related to self-harm will still be routed to relevant off-platform resources. But these quick, immediate response activities may help users in need at different times, providing another way to help ease the stress and provide guidance – as opposed to basic keyword search results.

For the full article click here 

Facebook Identifies Significant Privacy Flaw in Messenger Kids App

Messenger Kids, the child-friendly variation of the company’s messaging flagship tool has suffered its first major blow – as reported by The Verge, over the past week or so, Facebook has been informing parents of children who have been using Messenger Kids of a flaw within its permissions process, which could have exposed their children to content from unapproved users. That violates the core promise of Messenger Kids, which is designed to provide parents with full control over who their children interact with – and the reassurance that comes with that. Regardless of the scale in question, the problem is that it again highlights a significant flaw in Facebook’s process, and the company’s capacity to manage information and user privacy. This is especially relevant in this case, not only because young, vulnerable users are impacted, but also because this is the core functionality of the app – this is the one key thing that this specialized version of Messenger is supposed to be designed to avoid.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google Maps App Updated With Ability to Edit Business Information

Google has updated the Maps app on iOS, allowing business owners to edit their listing information without leaving the app. This will make it easier for verified owners and managers to edit their business profile. Business owners may find this feature especially helpful when looking up their own listing in Google Maps. Maybe you changed your hours or stopped offering a particular service, and the change isn’t reflected in the business listing. Now you can update the information immediately in the Maps app, rather than leaving the app and using a mobile browser or the Google My Business app.

For the full article click here

Advertising

Microsoft Advertising rolling out experiments A/B testing tool globally

Experiments is rolling out globally for testing ad copy, landing pages and bidding strategies and modifiers.  Similar to drafts & experiments in Google Ads, experiments in Microsoft Advertising allows you to set up a duplicate of your campaign and run a test on a segment of its traffic. “This way, you can run a true A/B test within a campaign to determine whether a particular update will work well for you and your business,” wrote Subha Hari, senior program manager and Piyush Naik, principal program manager, for Microsoft Advertising in the announcement. 

For the full article click here 

Social Media

Twitter’s Trying Out New Icons to Add More Clarity to Reply Streams

Last September, Twitter revealed that it was working on a set of radical changes to how tweet replies were presented, adding in new signals which highlighted replies from the original tweeter, identified responses from connections, and so on. And now, Twitter’s rolling out another version, using icons instead of words to delineate conversational contributors. The new icons are less intrusive, but still provide the same additional context. You just need to know what each icon means. Twitter’s trying to be more transparent, more inclusive in its testing, which has merit, but it also highlights just how long it can take, and makes Twitter seem like it’s afraid to take decisive action. But it is moving. Slow, but this latest test shows that it is getting there. It’s not perfect yet, but maybe, with the addition of color-coding for each icon or something similar, it could be right, it could fit in and help better clarify tweet replies.

For the full article click here 

Marketing

Google closes Chrome Incognito Mode loophole to improve privacy

Google is beefing up Chrome’s Incognito Mode. The company confirmed in a blog post on Thursday that it is closing an API-related loophole that made it possible to detect when people were privately browsing in Chrome. Google explains that some publishers with paywalls had been using the loophole to “deter metered paywall circumvention.” In other words, publishers were able to detect the availability of the FileSystem API, which would return an error message in Incognito Mode. They could then potentially infer that the user was trying to circumvent paywall metering and compel the user to log-in, return to public browsing mode or otherwise prevent that person from accessing the desired content. There’s no clear data on how many users take advantage of private browsing to avoid metered paywalls, but Google acknowledged publishers would be impacted by the change. These changes may compel more publishers to reduce or abandon metering and embrace a “hard paywall.” In other words, no free content. That could frustrate searchers who would encounter more links that have registration or subscription screens, creating a poor user experience.

For the full article click here 

Advertising

Parallel tracking for Google display ads: Mandatory as of July 31

Starting July 31, 2019, advertisers that are using third-party tracking parameters will need to have made the switch to parallel tracking. Parallel tracking helps speed up landing page load times by separating tracking parameters from the landing page URL. With parallel tracking, the landing page and the tracking functionality loads separately. No more waiting for click trackers and any related redirects to load before the user can get to the landing page. Parallel tracking will soon be the standard method for handling third-party click measurement. It will be coming to video ads later this year, Google said Wednesday.

For the full article click here

Paid Search Gets Majority Of Digital Budget Amid Privacy, Tracking, Ad-Blocking Concerns

It’s hardly surprising that data privacy, tracking, and ad blocking top the list of concerns for digital advertisers. A study released Thursday from Marin Software analyzes responses from more than 450 B2B and B2C digital marketing professionals in the U.S. and the UK to understand their top priorities, challenges and opportunities for 2019.  The data confirms that paid search remains the dominant digital ad channel — taking 39% of the total budget, at least among Marin’s clients, where paid social trails with 18% and display with 16%. Marketers cite three main challenges when it comes to their search campaigns. They are challenged to hit specific volumes, achieve investment and return on ad-spend targets, and integrate product feeds. Marketers cite three main challenges when it comes to their search campaigns. They are challenged to hit specific volumes, achieve investment and return on ad-spend targets, and integrate product feeds.

For the full article click here