Minute Masters Series

Daily Minute Master Series – April 29, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook’s Working on a New Creator Studio Dashboard for Instagram 

Facebook is testing out a new Instagram Creator Studio dashboard, which would be added into the existing Facebook Creator Studio app that The Social Network launched last year. Not everyone has access to this option as yet. It’s not clear exactly where it’s being made available, but some will see it appearing in their own Facebook Creator Studio app, if they also have an Instagram account connected. Within Instagram Creator Studio, users will be able to access a range of analytics metrics, including engagement stats, listings of when your audience is active, and demographic info. It’s worth noting that all of these insights are already available within your Instagram business profile tools, so it’s not functionally adding anything new. But it would make these more easily available via desktop, while also giving you access to a combined asset library to be used across both your Facebook and Instagram accounts.

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Marketing

Google bug may select unrelated canonical URLs, could impact indexing

Google tweeted Thursday that it may have selected unrelated canonical URLs for some pages and that breadcrumb trails on mobile might show the unrelated URLs. Breadcrumbs show a page’s position in the hierarchy of the site and appear under titles in the search results. Google did not say whether this latest issue is related to the indexing, Search Console report and News bugs that we’ve witnessed over the last few weeks. Google did not offer any actions for webmasters or SEOs to take. But, if you suspect that your pages are affected, you can view the Google-selected canonical URL by heading to your Search Console and entering your page’s address into the URL Inspection tool. If there’s a better canonical URL than the one that appears, follow the steps on Google’s duplicate URL help page to suggest a new one.

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Google My Business May Offer Premium Features for a Monthly Fee

Google is sending out surveys to gauge peoples’ interest in paying for access to premium Google My Business features. Google is sending out surveys to gauge peoples’ interest in paying for access to premium Google My Business features. New features listed in the survey include: Google customer support, “Book” button on your business profile, Verified reviews, and Promoted map pin among others. After selecting what you’re most and least interested in, Google’s survey takes your favorites and creates mock-ups of subscription packages. Google seems to be seriously considering offering premium GMB features in the form of subscription bundles. With this survey, Google is gathering information on what features users are willing to buy, and how much they’re willing to pay for them each month.

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Advertising

Bing Ads rebrands as Microsoft Advertising

First there was Microsoft adCenter. Then there was Bing Ads. Now there is Microsoft Advertising. The rebrand emphasizes a focus on personalization and AI. “In the next year, we’re introducing more advertising products with built-in AI, more connected to your data and your business,” Rik van der Kooi, corporate VP for Microsoft Advertising, said in a blog post Monday. It’s a bit of a back to the future move with a return to using the broader (and resurgent) Microsoft branding to signal offerings that extend beyond search inventory and search data. The last rebranding came out of an initiative to focus on specifically on search advertising. The Bing Ads branding replaced adCenter in 2012 at the same time as Microsoft and Yahoo dubbed their search alliance the Yahoo Bing Network. Sponsored Products were announced Monday. Sponsored Products allow manufacturers to promote their products in shopping campaigns with their retailer partners. “Manufacturers gain access to new reporting and optimization capabilities, and retailers get additional product marketing support with a fair cost split.” Sponsored Products is in beta in the U.S. only at this time.

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Daily Minute Master Series – April 26, 2019

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Social Media

Facebook Stories Have 500 Million Daily Users, 3 Million Advertisers

Facebook stories have now reached 500 million daily active users, up from the 300 million daily actives reported in September. In addition to this milestone, COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the stories format is growing amongst advertisers as well. Impressions from stories ads were the largest contributing factor to overall impression growth in Q1 2019. Advertisers are moving towards stories ads so quickly that it’s causing a decline in the average price per ad since they’re sold at a lower price than feed ads. Facebook’s effort to push the stories format seems to be paying off with users and advertisers. With all of the privacy concerns surrounding Facebook lately, it’s interesting to see more people using a temporary form of content.

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LinkedIn Engagement Continues to Rise, According to Latest Update from Microsoft

This week, Microsoft released its FY19 Q3 results, which showed that, LinkedIn has continued to see rising levels of on-platform engagement. Microsoft reports that LinkedIn’s revenue has increased by 27% for the quarter, while the platform continues to see ‘record levels of engagement’, with on-platform sessions growing by 24%. LinkedIn engagement is rising, with algorithm and functional improvements keeping more users on platform for longer, and prompting more to check back with the app more regularly. That’s important to note for digital marketers. With many businesses looking to offset the steady declines in Facebook reach, other platforms are getting more focus. LinkedIn looks to be capitalizing on this by rolling out improvements quickly and providing new options for company page updates.    

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Marketing

Still have active destination URLs in Bing Ads? It’s time to migrate to final URLs

If you have any older campaigns running on Bing Ads, now’s a good time to double check if you have any lingering standard text ads and destination URLs still active. You won’t be able to create new destination URLs as of August, and by the end of the year, destination URLs will be phased out entirely, the company announced Thursday. You’ll need to convert any standard text ads to expanded text ads (select Edit from the Ads tab in the web interface) and put your landing page URL in the Final URL field. If you aren’t running any legacy standard text ads anymore, you probably won’t have to take any action — but still better safe to check. Expanded text ads offer more characters than the old standard text ads, and can now include three headlines and two description lines. The benefit of Final URLs is that separating the tracking parameters from the URL makes it possible to update tracking across multiple URLs once and changes to tracking templates don’t require ads to go back for editorial review.

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DuckDuckGo is Google’s Only Competitor to Gain Organic Search Share in Q1 2019

DuckDuckGo’s organic search growth is outpacing other search engines, with particularly strong gains reported in mobile search. On mobile devices, DuckDuckGo’s organic search visits are up 78% year-over-year. Overall search visits are up 54%. By comparison, Google’s total organic search visits fell 2% year-over-year in Q1 2019. However, Google’s mobile search visits grew 6%. Bing and Yahoo saw either neutral or negative growth in Q1 2019. This data was revealed in Merkle’s Q1 2019 Digital Marketing Report, which also includes statistics about paid search, social, and Amazon ads.

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Daily Minute Master Series – April 25, 2019

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Social Media

LinkedIn’s Testing a New ‘Services’ Listing on Profiles to Help Freelancers

LinkedIn is testing a new option which would enable users to fill in a ‘Services’ section, which could be particularly helpful for freelancers who are looking showcase what they do, and connect with companies looking for the same. The new field asks users to ‘Add services you offer’, once added, the listing would give profiles visitors a better idea of exactly which services you can facilitate, while you would also, presumably, show up in relevant on-platform searches for freelancers in your field. The features would add yet another element to LinkedIn’s growing professional services offering. In recent months, LinkedIn has been putting more focus on maximizing its user data, and helping users find the right matches, both for recruiters and job seekers.

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10% of Twitter Users are Creating 80% of Tweets

A study on Twitter usage among US adults finds a disproportionate amount of users are responsible for the greatest share of tweets. Findings from the study are based on survey responses from 2,791 US adult Twitter users. The study finds that 80% of all tweets published by people in the US are from 10% of users. By comparison, the median user tweets just twice each month. The study indicates the 10% most active users are more likely to be women. Data shows that they follow, and are followed by, significantly more accounts than less active Twitter users. Pew’s research was conducted on Nov. 21, 2018, through Dec. 17, 2018, among 2,791 US adult Twitter users

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Marketing

Google updates Custom Search mobile layout

Google’s Custom Search is presenting users with a new mobile layout. The features getting a refreshed look include the search box and refinements, thumbnails and pagination. The changes mostly affect mobile searchers but some of the updates have been extended to desktop as well. Giving mobile users a fluid experience is crucial to converting — especially when they’re trying to locate something specific on your site. The updated Custom Search layout is a step towards providing that, which may also help improve behavioral success metrics. Sites that monetize using AdSense search ads (which must be configured to add a Custom Search Engine to your site) may also stand to earn more from mobile traffic.

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Shopify Debuts a New Hardware Kit for Merchants to Fine-Tune Their Retail Experience

Starting today, merchants that want to branch out into a bricks-and-clicks model can buy a suite of new Shopify hardware tools: a tap and chip reader, dock and retail stand. Prices for the individual tools start at $39, and the whole kit costs $229. Other than paying for the hardware, Shopify merchants won’t see any extra charges to their plans. It isn’t Shopify’s first foray into hardware for brick and mortar, but it’s an upgrade to some of the company’s previous products. Shopify’s new retail kit arrives about a month after Square announced its improved Square Online Store and the new Square for retail, two different offerings to help merchants facilitate an easier bricks-and-clicks model.

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Daily Minute Master Series – April 24, 2019

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Social Media

Instagram Officially Launches Quiz Stickers for Instagram Stories

The new Quiz Stickers provide another way to generate engagement with your Stories, and prompt feedback from your audience in a simple, interactive way. Instagram also has poll stickers, which it launched in 2017, and really, the quiz sticker option is pretty similar. But it adds more of a fun, competitive element, giving users an option to get the right answer and feel a sense of achievement, as opposed to just providing feedback. That could make it a good option for sharing insights into how your company operates, what processes or materials you use, tests on industry trends, and more.

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Byte, the Follow-Up to Vine, Begins Sending Out Beta Invites

Byte, a reboot of Vine from the same creator, has sent out the first 100 invites to its closed beta. The app is simply described as a “looping video app,” and is expected to function the way Vine used to. Vine has managed to maintain an avid fanbase since being shut town by Twitter over two years ago. The launch of Byte will certainly benefit from its built-in audience of former Vine users. However, since Vine was shut down, a new king has claimed the short-form video throne, Tik Tok. The momentum of TikTok cannot be understated, as it’s rapidly becoming the app of choice among Gen Z users. If Byte can attract older age groups then there’s a real opportunity to compete.

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Snap Inc. Reports Improved Usage and Revenue in Q1 ’19 Update

In its Q1 2019 update, Snap has reported a slight increase in active users, and an increase in revenue, which, at least in part, is attributable to its improved Android app. First off, on users – Snapchat is now being used by 190 million people every day, a slight increase on the previous quarter, though still down on it’s 191 million DAU peak. Snapchat officially launched its new, faster Android experience earlier this month, this is crucial because many people in markets outside North America use Android devices, and thus far, they haven’t been able to get the full Snap experience. The improvement in Android performance most crucially relates to India, a nation of 1.37 billion consumers, and currently Instagram’s second-biggest market. Android is the most used mobile operating system in India, holding around 90% of the Indian market. But more than just raw numbers, Snap continues to perform well in younger segments. Snap says that its core app now reaches “90% of all 13-24 year-olds and 75% of all 13-34 year-olds in the U.S.” Even with the increased competition from Instagram, Snap has been able to maintain its allure with younger audiences, a big tick in its favor. On other elements, Snap also says that it’s expanded is Discover content offerings to “more than 450 premium content channels worldwide”. Snap has also doubled the number of non-US partners it’s working with, and launched over 50 new shows and Publisher Stories in international markets.

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Marketing

Google starts showing more images in web search results

Multiple tools that track the Google search results have been showing an increase in the percentage of time that Google shows image results in the core web search results. The image search result box that is sometimes shown in the main search results is now showing up for 1/3rd of all queries according to some reports. Google has been hinting that SEOs should be focusing a bit more on image search over the past few months. Now with Google showing even more image search boxes in the main search results — Google Images may be another source of traffic to your web site that you don’t want to miss out on. Make sure to optimize your images for Google Image search!

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Daily Minute Master Series – April 23, 2019

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Marketing

Amazon and Google Release Free, Ad-Supported Music Streaming on Their Respective Smart Speakers

Amazon and Google announced free, ad-supported music streaming on their respective smart speakers on Thursday. That means Echo owners in the U.S. can “listen to an ad-supported selection of top playlists and stations for free with Amazon Music” even if they don’t have a Prime membership or a subscription to its paid offering, Amazon Music Unlimited. Similarly, Google’s equivalent, YouTube Music, has a free, ad-supported streaming service on Google Home and other speakers with Google Assistant. Both platforms also offer subscription services for ad-free music. Prime members have access to more than 2 million songs and “thousands of playlists and stations” while YouTube offers Music Premium for $9.99 a month and allows users to play music on demand, along with unlimited skips, replays and downloads for offline listening. News of Amazon’s plans for the service first came out last week, prompting some speculation as to if it will pave the way for more ads on voice-enabled devices.

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Advertising

Google takes baby steps to monetize Google Assistant, Google Home

Google is starting to insert paid-search ads into Assistant results on Android smartphones; it’s also starting to monetize Google Home “traffic” as well. In February, Google started testing ads in Assistant results on the phone. Then in early April, Google officially introduced ads in situations where there are web search results (vs. answers). Last week Google also decided to give Google Home smart speaker owners access to the free version of YouTube Music, which is ad-supported. The premium version without ads is $9.99 per month. The ad-supported version of YouTube Music is currently available on Google Home or other Google Assistant-powered smart speakers in North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia. Google is exposing a subset of local listings in response to queries for local service providers on Google Home and Google Assistant. There are currently no ads returned for these queries. However, merchants must be certified through the Google Guarantee program (previously only available with Local Services Ads) or via Google partners Porch or HomeAdvisor. As the recent inclusion of ads in Assistant results on Android phones indicates, Google does intend to generate ad revenue from the Assistant and Google Home. Marketers should expect Google to test and introduce more advertising options for Assistant-powered devices by next year at the latest.

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New Google smart bidding signals coming: price competitiveness, seasonality for Shopping campaigns

Google’s automated smart bidding algorithms can take many signals into account at the time of each auction — device information, search query, location, etc. Soon, it will add more signals to that list for App and Shopping campaigns, according to a help page. Price competitiveness and seasonality will each soon be factors for Shopping campaigns. When this update rolls out, Google may optimize bids based on a product’s price compared to its auction competitors. Low prices, deals and discounts will influence automated bids. As more signals get incorporated into smart bidding, it should theoretically make the bids “smarter,” yet the issue of transparency becomes even more muddled as it becomes harder for advertisers to parse which factors are having the greatest influence on their ultimate bids and results.

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Spotify, Oracle Data Cloud Partner To Let Marketers Target Auto Buyers

The streaming music service Spotify and the technology giant Oracle are partnering to help automotive marketers more efficiently target potential car buyers. Spotify will integrate with Oracle Data Cloud to let marketers build custom audiences for car buyers for every stage of the buying cycle and across every car segment. Oracle Data Cloud’s solutions can be paired with Spotify’s first-party data to find and target potential buyers. Spotify is leaning into its natural relationship to cars, with users streaming music during their commutes and creating road-trip playlists. In fact, the company says analysis from Oracle Data Cloud duding Fata from Polk Measurement at IHS Markit found that Spotify users bought cars at a rate 26% higher than the national average in 2018.

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Daily Minute Master Series – April 22, 2019

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Social Media

Instagram Tests Hiding Like Counts to Reduce Focus on Vanity Metrics

Instagram is experimenting with the removal of like counts from posts, with only the creator able to see their total number of likes. It’s an interesting experiment – Instagram, in particular, has become known for the way in which users focus on portraying a perfect image of themselves, often distorting reality for the sake of likes and shares. Various studies have also linked Instagram usage to mental health concerns. According to a survey conducted in 2017, Instagram is “the worst social media network for mental health and wellbeing”, with the platform contributing to higher levels of anxiety and depression, among other issues. Given the evidence, it is worth the experiment – if Instagram can somehow reduce the emphasis on portraying only your best moments, that’s something to be encouraged.

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Snapchat’s New Creator Profiles are Now Appearing in the App

Some users have now reported seeing the new format of profile in the app, with influencers being given a different layout that appears when you tap on their profile name and/or image. Over the course of its existence, Snapchat has, for the most part, insisted that influencers should not get special treatment. Snap’s mission is to connect friends, and in that respect, it’s put a premium on “authenticity”, and treating everyone equally, regardless of their perceived status. But over time, Snap’s neglect of influencers has become problematic. For prominent users, social media has become their job, it is how they grow their personal brands, forge revenue partnerships and expand their footprint. The Creator Profiles are another way that Snap could look to improve on this front. At the Snap Partner Summit, the company showcased how Creator Profiles would be used to better promote digital artists who post new Lenses and visual tools. It may not seem like much, but this is a critical element for Snapchat’s future growth. Snapchat needs to improve on this front – and evidence would suggest that it is – but with other platforms offering better, more evolved influencer programs, Snap needs to work harder to maintain a better connection, and provide improved opportunities.

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Marketing

Google Posts can now highlight customer testimonials in some countries

Google has announced that Google Posts in select countries now supports the ability to highlight customer testimonials. Specifically reviews with 4 to 5 stars can showcase positive reviews left for your business. Google Posts are an excellent way to bring more visibility to your Google local listings in Google Maps and Google web search. It helps you showcase your business, highlight deals, new ideas, events and so much more. It is worthwhile for local businesses to check out Google Posts and now, with this new feature, you may be able to highlight your happy customers!

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AMP WordPress plugin now supports Stories

Google has just brought AMP Stories support to WordPress publishers via its latest AMP plugin update. Publishers looking to create AMP Stories will need to have the latest version of the Gutenberg plugin installed since the Stories editor relies on features not included in core versions of WordPress. Gutenberg is a page editor created by WordPress to make adding multimedia content simpler. It’s required to create AMP Stories because it makes use of Gutenberg’s rich media management architecture. Enabling AMP Stories to be created via a plugin allows content marketers and producers to take advantage of its visually rich, interactive format without the technical barriers of learning HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

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