Social Media

TikTok Announces Bans on Ads for Weight-Loss Related Products in Order to Protect Users from Self-Perception Concerns

TikTok has announced some new steps that it’s taking to ensure that it’s protecting users from body-shaming and self-esteem issues, with new bans on weight loss ads, and new tools to help connect users to professional services to assist with related concerns.

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Instagram Launches New Reels Updates, Including Longer Clips and Improved Trimming

It’s only been out for a short while, but Instagram is already making tweaks to the design of its TikTok-cloning ‘Reels’ feature as it looks to maximize the appeal of the short-form video option. And while we don’t have any data on Reels usage as yet (though Instagram has said that Reels is taking off in India), the changes have been made in response to initial user feedback, and look to move Reels even more in-line with TikTok’s process.

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Pinterest Announces Expanded Launch of Pin Stories, New Pin Analytics Tools

After working on the format over the last year and a bit, Pinterest has now announced a full beta launch of Story Pins, which looks to tap into the social Stories trend with a platform-unique approach.

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Marketing

24 Best Google Keyword Planner Alternatives

From the old days of keyword stuffing to current-day keyword research and PPC campaigns, keywords still run the search world. Keywords are a fundamental element of search marketing – the key terms and phrases that are used to anchor content and search queries. Google doesn’t provide access to its Keyword Planner to anyone without an active Google Ads account, but there are plenty of other places to get keyword information from. Here are 24 tools to find new keywords, keyword difficulty, and search volume.

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Making the Most of Small-Screen Content for Big Engagement Impact

There are a number of common phrases that speak to the power of “small” things. “Good things come in small packages” or “small but mighty” are just a couple that come to mind. But small content – in length, but especially in size on a handheld screen – holds enormous significance for brand storytelling and consumer engagement. Marketers and their creative counterparts are committed to writing attention-grabbing copy, developing video content to stop a social-media user mid-scroll, and designing visuals that make websites an engaging place to spend time on screen. And the idea of content optimization is something marketers intrinsically “get.” Writing SEO-friendly copy, link building to optimize a campaign, creating different versions and sizes of content for “web vs. mobile” – these are all things a marketer thinks through during the stages of content creation and distribution.

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Inbound Marketing, Meet Inbound Video

At first, we told clients that video should be done by video experts. We, too, thought that you needed a bank of expensive equipment and a Hollywood crew to do video. Then, we told clients that only the kids on Instagram and Vine (wait, is Vine not a thing anymore?) cared about “viral” video. As time passed, the future got closer. More than anything, our agency was scared about video, so we just pushed it off. At HubSpot’s INBOUND conference in the fall of 2019, it became painfully obvious to us inbound marketers that video had to be incorporated into agency strategies if we wanted to continue to be successful at digital. Video has exploded into an essential communication tool across many platforms. Data shows the power of video’s reach and effectiveness.

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