Daily Minute Master Series – February 14, 2020.

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Social Media

YouTube Launches ‘Project Witness’, Using VR as a Tool to Raise Awareness Around Social Issues

“The VR film anchors the viewer in the experience of an incarcerated child. You’re able to see and hear the experience of being in solitary confinement from the viewpoint of a child in an adult prison. YouTube is a powerful platform for so much more than entertainment – from advocacy to education and awareness – that is open and accessible by everyone. VR is a unique format to pull the viewer into the story.”

For the full article click here 

WhatsApp Reaches 2 Billion Active Users

“We’re excited to share that, as of today, WhatsApp supports more than two billion users around the world. Mothers and fathers can reach their loved ones no matter where they are. Brothers and sisters can share moments that matter. Coworkers can collaborate, and businesses can grow by easily connecting with their customers. Private conversations that once were only possible face-to-face can now take place across great distances through instant chats and video calling. There are so many significant and special moments that take place over WhatsApp and we are humbled and honored to reach this milestone.”

For the full article click here

Marketing

Shopify Revenue Grew 47% in Q4 as Merchants Take Advantage of New Marketing Capabilities

E-commerce provider Shopify reported $505.2 million in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2019 on Wednesday, an increase of 47% compared to the fourth quarter of 2018. Annual revenues topped $1.57 billion in 2019, up 47% from 2018. The company attributes the growth to a number of factors, including additional of marketing capabilities available to merchants on the platform such as Shopify Email and native chat for merchant sites.

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How Marketers Can Utilize Insights-Driven Marketing

According to the Altimeter’s 2019 State of Digital Marketing report, many businesses are aiming to improve their data-driven marketing – 41% of companies report data analysis as the most-desired skill for new digital marketing hires.  It’s clear why so many businesses are looking to leverage insights-driven marketing. A survey by Forrester Consulting shows that nearly half of the respondents who use marketing intelligence experienced improved customer satisfaction, and almost as many saw enhanced customer loyalty and retention. However, insights-driven marketing isn’t possible without having useful data. Marketers need to first understand their existing data, the data they can get, and how to organize, analyze, and apply such insights to improve their marketing efforts.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 13, 2020.

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Social Media

Snapchat is Testing a Major Redesign to Simplify In-App Navigation

As reported by Casey Newton in The Interface, and as you can see in the above images, the new navigation bar would link to five sections. The first would be the Snap Map, which is currently accessible by swiping down on the main camera screen, though is not clearly noted as such anywhere in the app. The second is the chat section, where you can conduct message conversations with friends (second screenshot above.) The third is the main camera, which the app opens to. The fourth is essentially the current Snap Discover section, but renamed ‘Community’, which would feature all the content from connections, people you follow, personal recommendations, etc. (first screenshot above) The fifth would be the new ‘Discover’, which would showcase Snap’s original programming, which has seen a significant boost in viewership over the past year

For the full article click here 

FTC Announces New Review of Influencer Marketing Disclosures, and Potential Penalties

“Facebook’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube are major vehicles for influencer marketing campaigns, with China-based TikTok also growing rapidly. Social media platforms promote and profit from influencer marketing in many ways. […] According to one estimate, companies spent $8 billion on advertising through social media influencers in 2019. Due to its perceived effectiveness, spending on influencer marketing is projected to increase to $15 billion by 2022. But, there is a harmful, dark side of this approach. Fake accounts, fake likes, fake followers, and fake reviews are now polluting the digital economy, making it difficult for families and small businesses looking for truthful information.”

For the full article click here

Marketing

Customers Want More Text-Based Customer Support Options from Brands

When asked about customer support preferences, 72% of consumers age 18 to 64 said having the ability to text with a live agent in real-time would improve their overall customer service experience. The question was part of a survey conducted by the customer experience platform UJET polling 500 U.S. consumers on customer support experiences. The survey revealed people want more text-based customer service channels — and that most rank “human interactions” above technology-enabled experiences.

For the full article click here

Google Partners Program Puts New Requirements on Companies

Up until now, performance has been based on a company’s growth in overall revenue and number of advertisers, as well as revenue growth and retention of a company’s clients. As of June 2020, performance will simply be based on whether a company follow’s Google’s optimization score recommendations. Google Partner companies that meet the new set of requirements in June 2020 get access to a few new features such as a new Partner badge, new status a product capabilities categories, and new program benefits.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 12, 2020.

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Social Media

Snapchat Launches ‘Here For You’ Mental Health Resource for Users

Snapchat has announced the launch of a new set of tools to help users locate mental health resources when they may be in need. As explained by Snapchat: “We’re [launching] a new feature, called Here For You, that will provide proactive in-app support to Snapchatters who may be experiencing a mental health or emotional crisis, or who may be curious to learn more about these issues and how they can help friends dealing with them. Here For You, which will roll out in the coming months, will show safety resources from local experts when Snapchatters search for certain topics, including those related to anxiety, depression, stress, grief, suicidal thoughts, and bullying.”

For the full article click here 

What Gen Z is Watching Online – and What That Means for Marketers in 2020

Media headlines and marketing campaigns have given the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) attention for years, but more recently, there’s also been increased focus on the next youngest generation, Generation Z, which is made up of anyone born in 1997 and onwards. And while both of these demographic subsets are considered the “younger generations”, there are many key differences between Gen Z and Millennials, which is particularly evident in the content that they consume. For example, Millennials are known for cutting the cord – in other words, ditching cable for online streaming services – but Gen Z was never connected to the cord to begin with. Instead, Gen Z users are attracted to social platforms, including YouTube, and newcomer TikTok, which has lead to completely different viewing behaviors and content interests, evolving media consumption trends which are important to note.

For the full article click here

Marketing

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Optimizing your Instagram Account for SEO

Obviously, you work hard to make your website climb to the top of the search engine rankings. But not many entrepreneurs and marketers know that optimization techniques are useful beyond Google, Bing and other search engines. SEO is also applicable to social media platforms, where it can aid in promoting an account, gaining new followers, boosting engagement rate, and enhancing sales. Instagram is perfect for optimization because it works like a small search engine so SEO is valid there as well. Instagram ranks well-optimized pages higher and this attracts more active followers, drives engagement and improves page trust score. In turn, all this leads to an even higher ranking. Though SEO for Instagram pages may seem easy to do, many marketers and business owners make several common mistakes when optimizing a profile. Below, we’ll talk about these missteps in detail and learn how to avoid them in upcoming campaigns.

For the full article click here

Analyzing Search Results Reveals A Lot About Google’s View of Useful Content

Creating content is a process that has to get smarter all the time. Google is continually improving how it understands naturally expressed human language, as perfectly evidenced in its BERT update from last October. Google has said – and webmaster trends analyst John Mueller has echoed – that there is really nothing drastically new to optimize for after the update, aside from ensuring that SEOs are writing naturally in their content rather than focusing too much on keywords. The idea of creating content around topics rather than keywords is not particularly new, and so I am presenting an argument for making sure your content is addressing exactly what users want to see. In addition to all the content-research methods you know about already – performing keyword research, examining keyword intent, and using topic research tools – you should be mining the SERPs to see what Google has chosen to present, especially on the first page.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 11, 2020.

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Social Media

Instagram Is Testing a New Trimming Tool for Instagram Stories Clips

The addition is fairly straight-forward, but it could provide significant benefit to Stories creators. At present, many creators use third-party editing tools before uploading to Stories in order to get their timing and content right in each frame, but the capacity to edit in-stream would streamline the process, particularly when you’re on the go. For brands, it would also make it easier to create more focused, polished Stories. And while various reports have suggested that off-the-cuff, in-the-moment Stories perform best, being able to trim and enhance your Stories frames is not a significant deviation from that same type of immediacy and connection.

For the full article click here 

Pinterest Reaches 335 Million Active Users, Surpass $1 Billion in Revenue in 2019

Back in 2015, leaked documents outlined Pinterest’s ambitious growth plans. The company, which at that time was generating around $25 million in revenue per year, projected an increase in monthly active users to 329 million by 2018, and a jump in revenue to a massive $2.8b.  And while those projections were indeed ambitious – and it’s now a year beyond that initial mark – the platform is not so far off. I mean, revenue-wise, it still has a way to go, but at the end of 2019, Pinterest sat at 335 million MAU, while it exceeded a $1b in revenue for the first time.

For the full article click here

Marketing

What Gen Z is Watching Online – and What That Means for Marketers in 2020

Media headlines and marketing campaigns have given the Millennial generation (born between 1981 and 1996) attention for years, but more recently, there’s also been increased focus on the next youngest generation, Generation Z, which is made up of anyone born in 1997 and onwards. And while both of these demographic subsets are considered the “younger generations”, there are many key differences between Gen Z and Millennials, which is particularly evident in the content that they consume. For example, Millennials are known for cutting the cord – in other words, ditching cable for online streaming services – but Gen Z was never connected to the cord to begin with. Instead, Gen Z users are attracted to social platforms, including YouTube, and newcomer TikTok, which has lead to completely different viewing behaviors and content interests, evolving media consumption trends which are important to note. So what is Gen Z watching – and what does that mean for your marketing efforts?

For the full article click here

Microsoft Advertising Introduces New Features for Shopping Campaigns

To help advertisers make more informed bidding decisions, Microsoft Advertising has integrated performance data into product group subdivisions. With this data, advertisers can see how certain categories are currently performing, which can assist with deciding how to set up product groups. “All of these improvements will save you time and make it easier to view performance of your Product Groups and make bulk changes to bids and Product Group divisions.”  These changes will be rolling out to all Shopping Campaign advertisers over the next few weeks.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 10, 2020.

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Social Media

New Instagram Feature Helps Users Clean Up Their Following List

In a statement to TechCrunch, an Instagram spokesperson says: “Instagram is really about bringing you closer to the people and things you care about – but we know that over time, your interests and relationships can evolve and change. We want to make it easier to manage the accounts you follow on Instagram so that they best represent your current connections and interests.” In other words, Instagram users can filter out the noise from their feed by reviewing these new Following Categories.

For the full article click here 

Twitter Says Ad Tech Product Updates Will Improve Direct Response Advertising

Twitter reported ad revenues grew by 12% year-over-year to $885 million for the fourth quarter of 2019. U.S. ad revenue increased by 21% year-over-year on Thursday. Total revenue, which includes $123 million from data licensing and other sources, increased by 11% year-over-year to $1.01 billion, passing the billion-dollar mark in a quarter for the first time. Monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) grew 21% year-over-year to 152 million, up 3% from the previous quarter. US mDAUs also grew to 31 million, up 15% year-over-year and 3% from the third quarter of 2019.

For the full article click here

Marketing

Google Shopping Ads in Gmail & This Week’s Digital Marketing News

On this week’s episode of Marketing O’Clock, we’re talking about a new placement for Google shopping ads, new guidelines for video ads from Chrome, a review hub for restaurants on TripAdvisor, and how to create traffic jam with one little red wagon. Join Jess Budde, Greg Finn, and Christine “Shep” Zirnheld as they cover these digital marketing news stories:

For the full article click here

Google Offers Advice on Ranking Better

In a Webmaster Hangout, Google’s John Mueller confirmed that sites need to be promoted in order to rank. This goes beyond Google’s common advice about building awesome content. A publisher observed that after two years of work their website has started to rank without having build a single link. The question is basically about link building and if building links is necessary, given his experience in ranking without doing any link building.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 7, 2020.

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Social Media

IGTV Monetization Is Coming, Which Could Make It a Much More Significant Consideration

“You can earn money by running short ads on your IGTV videos. When you monetize on IGTV, you agree to follow the Partner Program Monetization Policies.” The capacity to generate real, direct income from IGTV could be a big lure for top creators, who can already generate revenue from YouTube and Facebook. The lack of monetization tools for IGTV has been seen as a significant factor in it not becoming a bigger hit, but if it were able to provide a new income stream for influencers, that could bring them and their large audiences across to Instagram’s video platform.

For the full article click here 

Twitter Adds More Users in Q4, but Warns of Rising Costs as it Continues to Invest in Improvements

“Total ad engagements increased 29%, resulting primarily from increased impressions driven by audience growth and improved clickthrough rates” More engaged users equals more ad exposure, which equals more revenue potential. The signs are good, but there are still a few concerns of indeterminate impact, which are cause for some consternation for investors moving forward. Overall, Twitter looks to be on the right track, with its focus on improved relevance and discovery now driving direct impacts in usage. The business side also looks to be righting itself over time, but the next update will likely be more indicative as to whether Twitter’s efforts are truly paying off.

For the full article click here

Marketing

The Importance of Building Brand Awareness Through Amazon Advertising

In the early goings of Amazon’s advertising platform, most advertisers looked to it as another source of ad inventory that should be focused on direct response. This is in large part due to Sponsored Products typically being the first format brands wade into, and that format produced a whopping 13% conversion rate for the median advertiser under Tinuiti (my employer) management in Q4 2019. As such, it’s safe to say that Amazon ads are certainly a strong avenue for driving orders and sales. However, it’s no longer the case that Amazon advertisers are focused entirely on direct response goals, and marketers should be looking at the brand-building potential across both display and search ads in order to get the most out of the platform.

For the full article click here

Now, Get Your Google Shopping Ads on Gmail, Discover, Youtube

Google is opening up more inventory to standard Shopping campaigns. Product Shopping and Showcase Shopping ads will be eligible to show on Gmail — as well as YouTube and Discover feed — starting the week of March 4 when those campaigns are opted into the Display Network, Google announced Thursday. Google had already extended Showcase Shopping ads to Discover and YouTube last year. Until now, Smart Shopping campaigns were the only way to get Shopping ads on Gmail.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 6, 2020.

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Social Media

Snapchat Q4 19: Revenue Increases 44% YoY, but Rising Costs Remain a Concern

Back in 2018, reports suggested that Snapchat could end up running out of money, as its growth rates slowed, and its infrastructure costs continued to rise. That’s because under Snap’s deals with Google and Amazon Web Services, Snap needs to pre-contract its cloud-computing costs based on growth estimates. And because fewer new users were signing up, Snap would eventually end up paying for storage it didn’t need. Luckily, Snap was able to re-negotiate its cloud-computing costs last year – but even so, with slowing growth rates, costs continue to mount. Add to that a $100 million legal settlement with shareholders, and Snap’s outgoings have again become a concern, which is reflected in the company’s latest performance update. But it’s not all bad news for Snap – first off, on users – Snap added 8 million more daily actives in Q4, taking it to 218 million DAU to end the year.

For the full article click here 

The 7 Biggest Social Media Sites in 2020

All social media networks are not created equally. While Instagram might be a powerhouse for one brand, it’ll do nothing for another – and while one business might have tons of engagement on Facebook, another business will gain more traction on LinkedIn. With that in mind, how do you choose where to invest your time (and potentially ad spend)? The best move is to have at least a presence on each of the major platforms, and from there, strategically choose which ones to double down on.

For the full article click here

Marketing

Chrome’s Coming Changes to Video Ad Blocking Could Impact YouTube

Google Chrome’s ad blocking efforts will soon extend to “intrusive” video ads in short-form videos. The browser will adopt the latest standards for video ads from the Coalition for Better Ads, announced Wednesday. The changes will apply to certain pre-roll, mid-roll and non-linear display ads — and may affect advertising formats on Google’s own YouTube.

For the full article click here

Share of Voice: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How to Measure it

It may not seem like a major concern in some respects, but effective competitor research will reveal a heap of insight into strategy and process, and will help you improve your system in-step. But how do you measure your performance against your competitors? Once you are tracking the relevant data points, how do you get a quick overview of whether their efforts are succeeding, and yours are failing, and where you stack up with respect to broader trends? Calculating your comparative share of voice is one way of doing this. Share of voice covers overall online visibility, including organic search data, social media, and PPC performance. When combined, these metrics can make for a competent assessment of your own, and each of your competitors’, market share.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 5, 2020.

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Social Media

TikTok’s Testing a New Instagram-Like Profile Format, While Questions Remain About Moderation Policies

If nothing else, TikTok is certainly sparking a lot of debate, and angst, within social media marketing circles. The short-form video app, which saw a huge rise in 2019, is now looking to solidify its offerings, and maximize its ad potential – though it still seems to have a way to go before it establishes itself as a mainstay in the social media platform race. That’s somewhat reflected in the latest news about the app – first off, TikTok is reportedly looking to update its profile design, switching to a more Instagram-style format.

For the full article click here 

Byte – the Revamp of Vine – Was Downloaded 1.3 Million Times in Its First Week

As you can see here, Byte reached 1.3 million downloads in its first week, surpassing Vine’s performance in the same time period after launch. And while the comparison is not exactly fair – Byte has the advantage of building off of Vine’s popularity, and there are more social media and app users now than there were back in 2013 – it’s still a pretty good performance measure for the short-form video app. But the app hasn’t been totally free of issues. One of the main problems that many Byte users have noted early on is that the comment streams below each video have been flooded with people desperately seeking to boost their follower counts, with a view to monetizing their content.

For the full article click here

Marketing

YouTube Kicked In $15 Billion as Google Ad Revenues Topped $134 Billion in 2019

Google parent Alphabet finally broke out YouTube ad revenues, for the first time, in Q4 and 2019 full year earnings. Total Alphabet 2019 revenues reached nearly $162 billion. Google advertising revenues accounted for $134.8 billion, with YouTube contributing $15 billion for the year. While earnings beat analyst expectations, fourth quarter revenues were lower than expected: $46.07 billion vs. $46.94 billion expected. In addition to YouTube, Alphabet announced that its Cloud business has a $10 billion run rate. As individual businesses, these revenues would be significant.

For the full article click here

How the Facebook & Instagram Divergence Impacts Your Media Spend

Nowadays, a marketer will tell you the user demographics for Facebook and Instagram aren’t the same. Despite being managed within the same ad manager interface, the reality is that these two avenues are starting to have less in common. On the surface, it’s usually a tale of “Instagram skews younger.” That’s certainly true, but it’s interesting (and important!) to note that there are also vastly different goals for users on these platforms. These differences are key in how results play out in advertising on the platforms. In the past, Instagram was a placement box that was checked, and little further thought was given to it. The inventory was smaller, so fussing with it didn’t necessarily result in more value; it was just gravy if it worked.Now? We are seeing vastly different performances in the two channels, not only in age but also in ad formats.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 4, 2020.

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Social Media

25 Mistakes You Should Avoid Doing on Social Media

Social media has the power to grow your brand into a massive empire. But if you aren’t careful, it can do just the opposite. Take Snapchat, for example. In 2018, Snapchat ran an ad game called “Would You Rather?” One of the questions asked was if users would rather “Slap Rihanna” or “Punch Chris Brown.” The result? Worldwide outrage and an $800 million loss for Snapchat. Sure, the ad’s bad taste is pretty obvious. No one wants to play a game based on domestic violence. But did you know there are other less-noticeable social media blunders that lead to a bad reputation and failure to grow your brand? Here are some you should never do.

For the full article click here 

Facebook Cautions Against the Pitfalls of Too Much Personalization in New Report

“A common belief is that personalization means providing completely different offerings to each consumer, but this doesn’t always create the most desirable impact for a brand. We’re currently witnessing brands that have built hugely successful businesses over decades on the back of mass marketing suddenly pivot towards extreme personalization for small niches of consumers, only to see disappointing returns. Industry buzzwords such as “1:1 marketing” are contributing to the assumption that this is the way to go for all brands – which is far from the truth.”

For the full article click here

Marketing

Google Discusses Link Reconsideration Requests

In a Webmaster Hangout, someone asked John Mueller about examples of bad links that Google sent his client. The problem was that the sample links were nofollow. Google’s John Mueller explained why those sample links were nofollow then offered guidance on what should be done for a successful link reconsideration request. The question asked was long, so I’m not going to reproduce all of it. This is the main part of the question: “Google has sent us two sample links… as an example of unnatural links. I found that one of the links carries nofollow tag… I don’t see how you can… send nofollow tag in a sample URL.”

For the full article click here

Amazon’s Booming Ad Business Grew by 40% in 2019

Amazon had anticipated a good holiday season, and it got it. The company reported $87.4 billion in net sales for the fourth quarter of 2019, up 21% from the same period the prior year. On the advertising front, the company generated ad revenues of nearly $4.8 billion for the quarter, an increase of 41% year over year. That brings the company’s annual advertising revenues in 2019 to roughly $14.1 billion, up 39% from $10.1 billion in 2018. Amazon’s advertising business makes up the bulk of what it reports as “Other” net sales. “Advertising as a subset has been growing at about the same rate year-over-year in the fourth quarter than it did in the third quarter,” David Fildes, director of investor relations at Amazon, said on the earnings call last week.

For the full article click here

Daily Minute Master Series – February 3, 2020.

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Social Media

LinkedIn Reaches 675 Million Members, Continues to See ‘Record Levels of Engagement’

As per Microsoft: “LinkedIn continues to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce – every seven seconds someone is hired on LinkedIn. We saw record levels of member engagement again this quarter. Marketing Solutions remains our fastest growing business as marketers leverage enhanced tools and LinkedIn Pages to connect with our nearly 675 million members.”

For the full article click here 

Snapchat’s ‘Bitmoji TV’ Will Be Launched This Weekend

As first reported by TechCrunch, ‘Bitmoji TV’ will make the custom Bitmoji avatars of you and your Snap friends the stars of their own full-motion cartoon series. The episodic cartoons will be mapped out by Snap’s team, but your custom Bitmoji characters will appear in each, undertaking various types of adventures and quests. The option aims to tap into the rising interest in short, TV-like content, along with the popularity of Bitmoji, while also adding a extra dash of personalization to make it an even more engaging experience. At present, Bitmoji TV episodes are being made available via a dedicated Bitmoji TV section within the app, which you can access via this page (on mobile). You can also scan in the below Snapcode to reach the Bitmoji TV link.

For the full article click here

Marketing

8 Social Commerce Strategies to Win Consumers Hearts and Wallets in 2020

Although the vast majority of retail purchases are still made in-store, global online sales are on the rise, and are expected to account for over 22% of all retail sales by 2023. In fact, eCommerce has already begun to overtake physical store sales in some cases. According to a U.S. Commerce Department report, the total market share of online U.S. retail sales were higher than general merchandise sales for the first time in history last February. It’s easy to see why brands are increasingly prioritizing their investment in online sales. A recent survey of over 200 retail executives by eTail and Stackla found that 50% of retail brands are currently working to align social media advertising with their overall eCommerce strategy, and 75% say they will increase or maintain their investment in social media marketing within the next 12 months.

For the full article click here

Going Beyond Google: Why You Should Optimize for Other Search Engines

In the majority of countries in the world, there is a huge emphasis on Google-first SEO. That is, looking to Google for the latest changes in how to optimize websites and achieve better levels of organic search traffic. This, however, might not always be the best approach. There are many other search engines that can help our brands be surfaced to our target audience. Some of them don’t always spring to mind when we talk about SEO.The same optimization principles will apply, however. When working in SEO, we hone our skillset. We become great at understanding our audience. We know their content needs and how they search. These skills can easily translate to other platforms outside of the traditional web search engines. Google is not the only web search engine being used. Google might be the largest search engine in your region. It’s probably the most popular with your demographic. However, it won’t be the only search engine they are using.

For the full article click here

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