Daily Minute Master Series – June 24, 2019
Social Media
Instagram’s Working on a New ‘Stop-Motion’ Tool for Stories
According to reverse engineering maverick Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram is developing a new ‘Stop-Motion’ camera option for Instagram Stories, which would provide another way to create interesting video updates, without having to record any actual video at all. The new tool would assist your creation process by ghosting the frame you’re capturing with the previous, so you can ensure that your placement and movement is correct. This, ideally, is intended for a phone camera on a tripod or similar stable device, as the image would then remain exactly in-set, enabling you place the object how you want it in the next movement. As noted, by shooting in stop-motion, you can create video Stories without having to actually create any video. That not only opens up your creative options, but it will also make it easier for more businesses to add engaging movement to their posts. Instagram is yet to announce the feature, but it looks to be developing fast.
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YouTube’s Running a New Test Which Hides Comments on All Videos
The video platform is now testing a new option which would see all video comments hidden by default, with users needing to tap a button to view any comments on a video. All comments on all videos, in this iteration of the app, would be hidden behind a specific ‘Comments’ button. That would mean that if users chose to view them, they would need to make specific effort to do so, which could help reduce issues with spam, abuse, and the spread of concerning content. YouTube comments have always been concerning, the comments section has long been known as a questionable area of the app, which is why YouTube has essentially de-emphasized it by moving it further down from the actual content, and out of view without scrolling. It shows that the platform is looking at more options to protect users, and that it is experimenting with advanced options, which could have a significant impact on the platform’s overall functionality.
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Marketing
Millions of fake Google Maps listings hurt real business and consumers
Google Maps carries approximately 11 million illegitimate local listings, with hundreds of thousands more getting created each month, the Wall Street Journal reported. These fake listings push real businesses further down the local search results, impacting their ability to reach customers and make unsuspecting users easy targets for scammers. Google says it is aware of the problem and that it has plans to do more to combat spammers and scammers taking advantage of local listings. It’s not in the company’s interest to jeopardize user trust, yet as many marketers point out, it stands to profit as local businesses turn to paid ads to regain search visibility. Google’s failure to take down fake business listings and verify real ones is a frustration for many business owners and marketers. The company added that it’s developing new ways — both manual and automated — to fight scammers, but kept specifics under wraps.
For the full article click here
Advertising
Google testing carousel of text ads on mobile
It’s already hard to tell how your text ads will render these days — two headlines or three, how many extensions, etc. Now, Google is testing a carousel of text ads on mobile. Spotted by SEMrush, the ads carousel appears under a “People also considered” heading below the first ad. The ads in the carousel appear with two headlines a truncated description line and no ad extensions. This likely looks pretty scary to a lot of advertisers thinking this could tank performance for ads that aren’t in the absolute top position — particularly with the carousel ads getting served in this truncated format. Google will be watching the impact on click volume and click-through rates with this treatment. And it’s not clear if this is also being tested on non-brand terms. The removal of average position metric makes even more sense now. Shopping ads have appeared in a carousel format for some time now — as have various text ad extensions. All of the Shopping ads are in the carousel, though, and you’ve likely noticed they’ve gotten much, much bigger over the years.
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