Daily Minute Master Series – August 9, 2019

Social Media

Twitter Begins Test of Optional Notifications for Replies to Any Tweet

Twitter’s testing out a new option that would enable users to receive notifications about replies to another account’s tweet. Users will be able to select any tweet, from any profile, and be notified as the discussion evolves.  The option to subscribe to tweet replies was first spotted in testing by reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong back in March. Twitter’s launching the test on both iOS and Android with a limited subset of users. The functionality of the option is fairly limited in scope, but it has been a commonly requested feature, and it could help more users stay in touch with trending conversations and topics. Brands could also look to use the option for competitor monitoring – if there’s a discussion thread between a competing business and a customer which you’re interested in, you’d be able to stay across it with less effort. 

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Twitter Announces Removal of Third-Party Data Sources from Ad Targeting Options

Twitter has confirmed that it will remove third-party data options from its ad targeting process, following Facebook’s lead in distancing itself from outside data sets, and the methods in which such may have been collected. Twitter currently partners with a range of data providers, which can help advertisers create more effective audiences by offering additional insight into certain trends and behaviors. But that also puts the creation and sourcing of those insights out of Twitter’s hands, which, as cases like the Cambridge Analytica case have shown, can be problematic. According to Twitter, most advertisers on the platform already use their own data to buy ads instead of purchasing the third-party insights available through its system, so the impact, in that sense, should be minimal. But it will put more onus on advertisers to ensure that their data is being sourced in a legitimate, legal way – while reducing the same for Twitter.

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Marketing

Reservations, AR navigation coming to Google Maps

Google Maps users will soon be able to view their flight and hotel reservations directly from the mobile app and use augmented reality to direct them as they travel on foot. These new features are part of Google’s expanded Maps offerings aimed at travelers. Viewable from the Your Places section of the Maps sidebar, the Reservations tab will display a user’s upcoming trips. Selecting a trip will display the associated reservations.  Maps was once mainly a navigation application. Google has been adding more features to make it a hub where users can leave reviews, message local businesses, order food, view the places they have visited and, now, view the destinations they will visit, receive recommendations based on past searches or location history and save locations to reference later. For local businesses, Maps’ expanded functionality makes their GMB listings — for better or worse — a crucial part of their online presence.

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Google Will Now Highlight Individual Podcast Links Within Search Results

Google has announced that it will now highlight links to individual podcast episodes within relevant search queries, adding more potential brand-building value to the rising practice. Relevant podcasts will be highlighted, as Google notes, based on what’s being talked about within each episode, which it’s system can ascertain from the title and description. But Google can also, at least to some degree, understand the audio content of each program also. That could have significant benefits for podcast discovery – how accurate and valuable its recognition processes are at this stage is not 100% clear, but as Google improves its systems, this will make more podcasts even more valuable in an SEO sense. Google also notes that it’ll be looking to help podcasters further build their audiences by adding an option for publishers to specify where people can listen to their podcasts within search results. That’ll provide the capacity for publishers and brands to highlight podcasts which may be exclusively available by purchase or subscription.

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