Influencer Marketing has taken the consumer market by storm. However, a report by Meltwater finds that 35% of companies admit that their biggest challenge is identifying influencers.
Influencer is a broad term for anyone who creates audience-centric content that appeals to the average consumer and forms a relationship of genuine trust and relatability. Influencers create high-quality original content that organically attracts targeted visitors, generating new leads for your company. A study conducted in Canada estimated that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are 48% more likely to buy from a brand retailer who collaborated with influencers.
So how do we identify the right influencers to get key messaging for our brand out into the open?
We apply the concept of Search, Vet, Select.
INFLUENCER SEARCH
In order to facilitate your search for valuable content creators, using a combination of search methods is usually crucial to building a quality list. There are many software tools available for use online that often have great filtering abilities, access to a wide range of social channels, as well as complex crawling capabilities to keep their statistics up to date.
However, these technologies can be expensive, and there is no one single tool that can solve all of your influencer identification and outreach needs. For this reason, software tools are best supplemented by a classic Google search and other forms of good old fashioned manual searching. This does take a commitment of time but there are a number of online resources that provide extensive lists of quality influencers, ready-to-go and free of charge.
Finally, a manual search on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube can often help you discover niche-oriented influencers. Conduct these searches using relevant hashtags and keywords to uncover micro-influencers with highly engaged audiences.
PRO TIP: Instagram’s ‘similar accounts’ tab will lead you to comparable influencer pages.
Don’t forget, depending on your influencer needs, it is recommended that you switch-up your search methods to suit your requirements. For example, beauty bloggers are typically much more prevalent on YouTube and Instagram, but you won’t necessarily go looking for a corporate HR community there. Your choice of tool(s) should always reflect your goal(s).
INFLUENCER VETTING
Once you’ve started to locate relevant influencers, the crucial vetting process begins. Finding influencers with high levels of engagement with their audience, regular and up-to-date posting, and reliability as potential business associates are paramount.
Engagement may include things like total likes, high levels of post comments and quality influencer replies to their audience. Is your influencer engaging their audience? Are they creating genuine, organic conversation? These things encourage an authentic and quality group of followers who are more likely to convert into buyers following product recommendations or reviews.
Case Study – Instagram Star with 2 Million Followers Can’t Sell 36 T-Shirts
From a business perspective, it’s important to vet the influencer as a person to ensure that they are reliable, loyal to your brand, and professional in the workplace. You will be creating a working relationship with these individuals, and therefore it is essential that you only consider influencers with high levels of professionalism.
Lastly, it’s important to ensure the influencer’s channel is not completely drowning in sponsored content. Though this isn’t necessarily a negative attribute, this lack of vetting can lead you into a relationship with an influencer who is becoming less and less believable. A quality audience can often see right through sponsored, non-genuine content, and this can hurt the relationship your brand will hold with your future followers.
INFLUENCER SELECTION
After conducting your search process and vetting all influencers of interest, you can make your selection based on a final set of criteria that will ensure a positive relationship moving forward.
It’s important that you feel a positive connection to the influencer from the start. This helps ensure that any content they create for your brand is already in line with your goals. Verify any previous campaigns and their level of success; this is an influencers resume. Finally, leveraging people who have a pre-existing brand affinity for your product is invaluable. The influencer already knows and admires you and this will help to ensure quality content creation.
You are now ready to start the outreach process and utilize your dynamic collection of influencers to its fullest extent.
PRO TIP: Ensure that you have reliable data verifying and tracking metrics in place to measure the success of each campaign.
How to Identify Influencers in 3 Easy Steps
/by Corey PadveenInfluencer Marketing has taken the consumer market by storm. However, a report by Meltwater finds that 35% of companies admit that their biggest challenge is identifying influencers.
Influencer is a broad term for anyone who creates audience-centric content that appeals to the average consumer and forms a relationship of genuine trust and relatability. Influencers create high-quality original content that organically attracts targeted visitors, generating new leads for your company. A study conducted in Canada estimated that Millennials and Gen Z consumers are 48% more likely to buy from a brand retailer who collaborated with influencers.
So how do we identify the right influencers to get key messaging for our brand out into the open?
We apply the concept of Search, Vet, Select.
INFLUENCER SEARCH
In order to facilitate your search for valuable content creators, using a combination of search methods is usually crucial to building a quality list. There are many software tools available for use online that often have great filtering abilities, access to a wide range of social channels, as well as complex crawling capabilities to keep their statistics up to date.
However, these technologies can be expensive, and there is no one single tool that can solve all of your influencer identification and outreach needs. For this reason, software tools are best supplemented by a classic Google search and other forms of good old fashioned manual searching. This does take a commitment of time but there are a number of online resources that provide extensive lists of quality influencers, ready-to-go and free of charge.
Finally, a manual search on platforms such as Instagram and YouTube can often help you discover niche-oriented influencers. Conduct these searches using relevant hashtags and keywords to uncover micro-influencers with highly engaged audiences.
PRO TIP: Instagram’s ‘similar accounts’ tab will lead you to comparable influencer pages.
Don’t forget, depending on your influencer needs, it is recommended that you switch-up your search methods to suit your requirements. For example, beauty bloggers are typically much more prevalent on YouTube and Instagram, but you won’t necessarily go looking for a corporate HR community there. Your choice of tool(s) should always reflect your goal(s).
INFLUENCER VETTING
Once you’ve started to locate relevant influencers, the crucial vetting process begins. Finding influencers with high levels of engagement with their audience, regular and up-to-date posting, and reliability as potential business associates are paramount.
Engagement may include things like total likes, high levels of post comments and quality influencer replies to their audience. Is your influencer engaging their audience? Are they creating genuine, organic conversation? These things encourage an authentic and quality group of followers who are more likely to convert into buyers following product recommendations or reviews.
Case Study – Instagram Star with 2 Million Followers Can’t Sell 36 T-Shirts
From a business perspective, it’s important to vet the influencer as a person to ensure that they are reliable, loyal to your brand, and professional in the workplace. You will be creating a working relationship with these individuals, and therefore it is essential that you only consider influencers with high levels of professionalism.
Lastly, it’s important to ensure the influencer’s channel is not completely drowning in sponsored content. Though this isn’t necessarily a negative attribute, this lack of vetting can lead you into a relationship with an influencer who is becoming less and less believable. A quality audience can often see right through sponsored, non-genuine content, and this can hurt the relationship your brand will hold with your future followers.
INFLUENCER SELECTION
After conducting your search process and vetting all influencers of interest, you can make your selection based on a final set of criteria that will ensure a positive relationship moving forward.
It’s important that you feel a positive connection to the influencer from the start. This helps ensure that any content they create for your brand is already in line with your goals. Verify any previous campaigns and their level of success; this is an influencers resume. Finally, leveraging people who have a pre-existing brand affinity for your product is invaluable. The influencer already knows and admires you and this will help to ensure quality content creation.
You are now ready to start the outreach process and utilize your dynamic collection of influencers to its fullest extent.
PRO TIP: Ensure that you have reliable data verifying and tracking metrics in place to measure the success of each campaign.
Daily Minute Master Series – July 9, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Instagram Adds New Anti-Bullying Measures, Including Comment Warnings and User Restrictions
Instagram is adding a new automated warning which will prompt users when their comment may be considered offensive, giving them a chance to review before the post creator sees it. The new tool will be triggered by the use of certain words within comments, and will alert the user with a notification that asks if they’re sure that’s what they want to post. In addition to this, Instagram’s also testing a new ‘Restricted’ mode, which will give users a way to lessen the impact of certain users without alerting them to any such limitation. Restricted mode will mean that only you and the person you’re restricting can see their comments. That means, for one, that the user will still be exposed to such. Reducing their reach to others is still significant, but the damage can still be done by getting through to the user his or herself. It is important for Instagram to try new things, and their internal testing has likely highlighted potential benefit. It seems problematic, but it may provide increased capacity for protection, and lessen such impacts.
For the full article click here
Marketing
Amazon Adds Alexa ‘Skill Connections’
Amazon has added to its digital assistant Alexa the ability to enable a skill to use another skill to perform a specific task. The feature, called Skill Connections, is being added to the Alexa Skills Kit in all locations where Alexa is available. Skill Connections are now available for printing, booking a restaurant table or arranging transportation, according to Amazon. Every function previously had to be built within an individual skill.
For the full article click here
Google announces changes to environment, position targeting settings in DV360
In an effort to provide advertisers with more accurate and granular ad targeting options in Display & Video 360, Google will be launching a revamped experience for environment and position targeting settings on August 26, 2019. The changes will include updated targeting settings when creating or editing items individually or in bulk, updated dimensions in Reporting and a new version of Structured Data Files (SDF) to support the targeting overhaul. While the same targeting options will continue to exist, they will appear with the new targeting controls come August. Google said that the existing options were built to meet the needs of advertisers running display ads on desktop and mobile web. With the changes, advertisers will be able to “target their ads explicitly based on environment (app or web) and position (on screen or in content).” Once the changes are implemented, advertisers will be able to serve ads with a greater level of confidence across these newer contexts.
For the full article click here
Chrome lets users pay with credit cards saved in their Google accounts
Signed-in Chrome users can now use payment methods that are saved to their Google accounts during the checkout process, Google announced this week via the Chromium Blog. This feature is available on all devices that run the Chrome browser and wherever Google Pay is accepted. Google has been working to reduce friction for users to complete e-commerce transactions for several years, particularly on mobile. Its Shopping Actions already enables users to pay for products directly from Shopping ads using Google’s own checkout cart and the payment information saved in their Google accounts. This feature in Chrome could help increase the number of users who save their payment information with Google — and eventually increase the likelihood they’ll convert on Shopping Actions-enabled ads.
For the full article click here
Daily Minute Master Series – July 8, 2019
/by Corey PadveenMarketing
Google’s Algorithm Adjusts Itself When a Real World Crisis is Occurring
A Google engineer tells The Guardian changes have been made to the search algorithm in response to real-life crises. While the said event is taking place, Google will increase the weight of ‘authority’ signals in an effort to surface the most accurate information about the crisis. When Pandu Nayak, a senior search engineer at Google, says Google increases the weight of authority signals he’s referring to authority as defined in the search quality evaluator guidelines. Google aims to reduce the spread of misinformation, as opposed to outright removing it from search results. Going forward, when searching for information about a crisis that’s unfolding, Google will serve results from the most authoritative sources as determined by its quality raters.
For the full article click here
Google is Bringing Search Console Data to Third-Party Content Platforms
Google’s Martin Splitt revealed the company is working on ways of bringing Search Console data to third-party platforms. Some of Google’s future plans involve bringing more search engine data to where people already are. Splitt was careful not to get too specific, but he strongly hinted at plans to bring Search Console data to the web’s largest content management systems. Google wants to reduce the need for site owners to go directly into Search Console to retrieve data. The solution is still in the early stages of being worked on, but Splitt confidently states it will roll out eventually.
For the full article click here
Amazon’s Alexa.com Now Offers Free Competitive Insights
Alexa.com, an Amazon-owned competitive analysis company, released several new tools that give small and midsize businesses free competitive tools typically available only to large companies with dedicated analytics teams. This supports search data gathered from Google and Bing. Relevant data about the site, its audience and keyword gaps, as well as the same data about competing sites, are part of the package. These services were not previously available through the 20-year-old platform. Now brands are getting all this keyword and search engine optimization data for free. The company also offers a paid service for SEO and paid search. The insights are collected through a panel of millions of internet users who contribute browsing and clickstream data anonymously, so no one can use the data to determine the contributors to the panel.
For the full article click here
Advertising
Microsoft Advertising says it’s keeping average position reporting
Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) has added the position-based impression share metrics that Google introduced last fall. Now called prominence metrics, rather than share of voice, in Microsoft Advertising, the set of six new stats are available at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels. Google announced in February that it will be retiring average position later this year. The news came a few months after it introduced the position metrics Microsoft Advertising added this week. Google’s reasoning for removing average position is that it’s no longer a great indicator for where your ads actually appear since position one may actually be at the bottom of the page on some search results. Microsoft is bucking this decision, but we’ll see how long it sticks around if advertisers get comfortable not having it in Google Ads.
For the full article click here
Daily Minute Master Series – July 5, 2019
/by Corey PadveenMarketing
Consumers indicate experience, not price, as top conversion factor
A recent report from global performance marketing agency Merkle indicates that delivering excellent digital customer experiences is critical to connecting with consumers to drive revenue. According to the research, 66% of consumers rate experiences over price when it comes to making a purchase decision. Over half of those surveyed (52%) reported having left a website while shopping because of a poor site experience. Delivering optimal customer experiences should be a top priority for marketers, but we also need to determine the right solutions for our martech stack to enable these experiences. We often think of martech in terms of the back-end solutions it provides – how the solution addresses challenges for us as marketers, but not necessarily driven by our customers’ needs. Keeping our customer as the focal point in conversations around how we choose and implement martech goes hand-in-hand with our ability to deliver experiences that will realize conversions and repeat-buyers.
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IBM’s Watson Marketing spinoff launches with agile strategy
Back in April, IBM’s Watson Marketing announced plans to spin off to form a standalone marketing company under the new ownership of New York-based private equity firm Centerbridge Partners. The company aims to deliver marketing automation, marketing analytics and content management solutions. While positioning itself separately from its former parent, the new company also aims to adopt an agile approach to help drive its competition with other marketing cloud vendors – notably Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce. In separating from IBM, the new Watson organization is able to move away from some of the antiquated processes of the legacy organizations, allowing it to adopt an agile growth strategy. As noted by CEO Mark Simpson, it is not a small company, but launching with an agile-first mindset could play a key role in how the company evolves and maintains its competitive edge against other martech goliaths.
For the full article click here
Google’s John Mueller on Good Links and How to Get Them
In a Webmaster Hangout, Google’s John Mueller was asked to define what a good link is and how to get them. John Mueller also made reference to “other signals” that can power up your rankings. John Mueller probably understands that a good link doesn’t happen by itself. He said something interesting, he recommended promoting the website. There are many who feel that website promotion tied to link building is not necessary. But John Mueller acknowledged the obvious, that a ball isn’t going to roll until someone gives it a push. John Mueller affirmed the importance of links. His answer wasn’t an end to end link strategy, but it’s good that he affirmed that promotion is important and that it doesn’t need to be spammy. One more insight that bears pointing out. Mueller said that if the content is good, that once it’s found, links aren’t critical.
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Today’s customer decision journey is so complex but AI can help
One thing is for sure – the consumer decision journey is more complex than ever before. The average consumer now owns three to four devices and uses multiple online and offline channels throughout their shopping journeys. The game is changing as marketers turn to artificial intelligence, agencies and data to help them navigate new consumer behavior. Every marketer today needs to be addressing these challenges as the CDJ itself is disrupting the digital landscape. Omnichannel is here to stay as consumers jump between devices and online/offline activity. To make things even more complicated, at any point, consumers could be on the verge of conversion on one device while receiving early-funnel messaging on another. Today’s marketers must embrace omnichannel fundamentals, such as offering in-store pick-up online and optimizing mobile campaigns for a variety of KPIs such as downloads and views. While early marketing efforts and attribution models (first-click/last-click/linear/time decay) tended to oversimplify the CDJ, that is certainly no longer the case. The new CDJ has evolved to look less like a straight line and more like an intergalactic star with more data points than a single person could count. AI is no longer an option, but a requirement for experiencing success with today’s CDJ.
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Daily Minute Master Series – July 4, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Facebook brings back reach estimates for Custom Audiences
Facebook is reinstalling reach estimates for Custom Audiences, a tool that allows advertisers to estimate audience size for their Custom Audience campaigns. The company removed the tool in March, 2018 when researchers at Northwestern University discovered a vulnerability that made it possible to infer attributes of Facebook users via the tool. Facebook reports it worked on three key changes to improve security around its Custom Audiences reach estimate tool: privacy, detection and new restrictions. Reach estimates were a handy tool for advertisers, making it possible to determine approximate campaign sizes and manage budgets and bidding activity accordingly — without taking up a lot of time and effort on their part.
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Study Claims Instagram Engagement Has Been in Decline Since May
A study claims overall engagement across Instagram is down and has been sharply declining since early May 2019. The study defines engagement rate as the total number of interactions on a post divided by the size of the account’s following at the time of posting. As of mid-April, the maximum average engagement rate for the accounts included in the study was 1.54%. Engagement rate now hovers around 0.9%, which is down 1.1% from earlier this year. In addition, the average number of interactions is down 18% since the beginning of the year. According to the study, brands are suffering from this decline in engagement as well as individual influencers. The study doesn’t offer any insight into what is causing the decline, noting that there haven’t been any substantive API changes. If you market your business on Instagram, know that you aren’t alone if your engagement has been down over the past month. The study only measured engagement with feed posts. It did not take into account engagement with stories.
For the full article click here
Facebook Makes Job, Housing, Credit Ads Searchable, Eliminates Other Targeting Triggers
Facebook plans to make ads for jobs, loans and credit card ads searchable for all its U.S. users, based on an agreement made in March following a legal settlement. The searchable database that makes U.S. housing ads searchable by location and advertiser, along with the other databases, expands on an agreement to eliminate discrimination. The company’s also addressed discrimination in Facebook Ads by removing thousands of categories that target people related to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. This searchable database for housing, employment and credit-card ads will no longer target by age, gender or ZIP code. It will have a much smaller set of targeting categories overall — but all will become searchable on the platform. While it’s not yet clear the type of technology Facebook will use to target these ads, the new structure aims to ensure advertisers follow these rules, with plans for full enforcement by the end of the year.
For the full article click here
Marketing
Google extends Chrome ad blocking to global markets on July 9
On February 2018, Google implemented ad filtering for “annoying” and intrusive ads in Chrome in North America and Europe. This had been pre-announced in 2017 and was intended to compel publishers to adopt advertising standards established by the Coalition for Better Ads. The industry group was created in response to the rise of consumer ad-blocking. Now Chrome’s bad-ads filtering is going global, with a rollout to markets beyond North America and Europe on July 8. In brief, sites that feature any of the four desktop or eight mobile ad categories banned under the Better Ads Standards, could see those units, or potentially all ads on their sites, blocked. Annoying formats include pop-ups, auto-play video ads with sound, prestitial ads, flashing/animated ads, large sticky ads and full-screen scrollover ads, among others. The global rollout of Chrome “ad blocking” comes at a time when Google engineers are contemplating controversial changes to browser extension APIs, which could disable most third-party ad blockers and privacy extensions. Google appeared to reverse course, although the status of the changes remains uncertain.
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Daily Minute Master Series – July 3, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Instagram Launches ‘Join Chat’ Sticker to Promote Private Group Discussion
Instagram has this week officially launched its new ‘Join Chat’ sticker for Stories, which, when tapped, will connect Stories viewers into a private discussion. Given the overall rise in messaging use across various social apps, it makes sense for Instagram to look to facilitate the same, porting more engagement and interaction into Direct, as opposed to seeing users switch to other networks – like, say, Snapchat – to hold more intimate discussion. Facilitating connection with your closest friends is a clear way to make your app an essential interactive tool, a connective utility which users can rely on to stay informed of the key happenings and events in their world. For brands, it could provide another way to build stronger community connection, and bring your biggest advocates closer, by sharing exclusive content and/or seeking consultation.
For the full article click here
Facebook Updates News Feed Algorithm to Demote Misleading Health Claims
Given the focus on vanity in social media, and showcasing a highlight reel of your life via your public posts, it’s no surprise that miracle cures for weight loss, baldness and other physical conditions run rife in ads across the various networks. Such ads are misleading, false, and prey on vulnerable users. And now, Facebook’s taking action against them, with two new News Feed algorithm updates designed to reduce the reach of ads that promote miracle health claims. The update is a good one for Facebook – with more and more people relying on The Social Network for their news distribution and information needs, confusing, false claims like these can only make matters worse, and such claims are detectable by Facebook’s systems. While Facebook would prefer to be more hands-off with content of this type, it simply can’t, and as such, you can expect The Social Network to continue to roll out updates like this which will reduce the reach of concerning, questionable posts and ads.
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Marketing
Google taking Ads API back to beta over performance issues
Google has decided to send its Ads API back to beta. Feedback from developers about slow response times have caused Google to determine that the API is not ready for production usage. The Google Ads API is the successor to the AdWords API. It was released in March of this year. Until today Google had been actively trying to get developers to migrate to the Ads API. It’s unclear what percentage of AdWords API users had made the switch to date. Google’s Ads APIs are used by agencies, SEMs and brands that want to manage large campaigns or advertiser accounts at scale. Google is telling developers to go back to (or continuing to use) the AdWords API.
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Google expands App campaigns search inventory on iOS browsers
Google has announced that App ads will appear on more iOS mobile web browser searches. Accordingly, campaign reports will also include installs and in-app conversion events from iOS browsers. There’s nothing app advertisers have to do to gain access to this new ad inventory. Active App campaigns will automatically get the modeled conversions in the “Conversions” column of their Google Ads reporting. Advertisers that rely on third-party tools, however, should be aware that these conversions won’t be available on those platforms. And, for early adopters, Google said, “We encourage you to monitor your bids and budgets as there may be fluctuations in performance after these updates go live.” This expanded App campaigns search inventory could put a much larger audience within reach for app advertisers.
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Daily Minute Master Series – July 2nd, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Twitter Updates Search Results with Additional Contextual Info
You may have noted that there’s more information there, relating to trends, mutual follows – additional context to help guide you to the results that you’re actually looking for. This week, Twitter has officially announced this update, which is now being rolled out to all mobile platforms. The idea, as noted, is that by showing you more information about your search, it’ll better guide you towards the results you’re after, and help you better understand whether this profile is worth following, in order to get you to tap through for more info. It’s not a major shift, but the additional information markers are helpful, and could better inform your usage – while it’s also worth noting that the activity from your brand account may also now appear in relevant searches, which could influence whether users tap through to see more or not.
For the full article click here
Marketing
Google to stop supporting noindex directive in robots.txt
Effective September 1, Google will stop supporting unsupported and unpublished rules in the robots exclusive protocol, the company announced on the Google Webmaster blog. That means Google will no longer support robots.txt files with the noindex directive listed within the file. Yesterday, Google announced the company is working on making the robots exclusion protocol a standard and this is probably the first change coming. In fact, Google released their robots.txt parser as an open source project along with this announcement yesterday. Google has been looking to change this for years and with Google pushing to standardize the protocol, it can now move forward. The most important thing is to make sure that you are not using the noindex directive in the robots.txt file. Also, look to see if you are using the nofollow or crawl-delay commands and if so, look to use the true supported method for those directives going forward.
For the full article click here
Hootsuite integrates Yext Reviews into its dashboard
Yext and Hootsuite have teamed up to enable businesses with physical locations to monitor and respond to their Yext reviews within Hootsuite’s social media management dashboard. The Yext integration will pull in both online reviews and review data, including review metrics related to average ratings, response count, response time and keyword-based sentiment analysis. Effective brand management is more than simply paying attention to what is being said about your company on social channels. Online reviews play a major role in a brand’s reputation and conversion outcomes. The Yext Reviews integration into Hootsuite is designed to help marketers track and respond to what is being said about their brands beyond social and connect the dots between reviews in search channels and social media engagement, all in one place.
For the full article click here
Google: Updating a Page’s Publishing Date Won’t Make it Rank Better
Google’s John Mueller recently advised that updating the publishing date of a page won’t have an impact on rankings. Mueller said there’s no harm in displaying the last updated date. However, there’s no benefit to changing the last updated date of a page as far as SEO is concerned. Mueller gave the example of weather forecast pages, which are consistently updated throughout the day. Those pages do not suddenly rank better as a result of the last updated date always changing. From the perspective of users, it may make sense to inform people of when the page was last updated, but it will not play a role when it comes to search.
For the full article click here
Daily Minute Master Series – June 28, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
YouTube Rolls Out New Tools to Enable Customization of Video Recommendations
This week, the platform has announced some new changes which will put more power into the hands of users in regards to the videos which are recommended to them. First up, YouTube’s adding new topic tags within recommendations listings which will help users find more specific recommendations based on their chosen area of interest – as opposed to the system assuming the next likely topics itself. That could help stop users clicking into more concerning segues off certain topics, and keep them aligned to the topics they’re most interested in. YouTube’s also giving users more control over their personal recommendations by enabling them to remove selected channels from their recommendations. And lastly, YouTube is also adding a new information marker on videos it recommends for you based on what “other viewers with similar interests have liked and watched in the past”. It’s difficult to predict the potential impact of these additions – and whether, in fact, they’ll be able to stop users sliding down the aforementioned rabbit holes that lead them to more concerning content.
For the full article click here
Instagram is Rolling Out New Ad Units in its Explore Tab
Instagram has announced that it’s adding a new ad unit to its Explore feed. Kind of. It’s not like you’re going to start seeing ads popping up all over your Explore feed directly. But indirectly, within specific, chosen listings, there’s a new place that Instagram can now show you ad content. Instagram says this is an opportunity for advertisers to “be part of what’s culturally relevant and trending, while reaching new audiences who are looking to discover something new”. Advertisers will be able to extend their on-platform ad campaigns to Explore by using automatic placements and opting into the new ‘Explore’ option.
Given that more than half of Instagram’s billion monthly active users visit Explore each month, there’s definitely opportunity there, and it may be another way to generate additional exposure, and reach people likely to be interested in your products.
For the full article click here
Twitter’s Implementing New Warning Labels on Controversial Tweets from High-Profile Users
After outlining its potential plans to add warning labels to controversial tweets from high profile users back in March, Twitter has this week announced that these new labels are now going live, which will provide more clarity as to why and when Twitter has chosen not to remove a tweet that violates its rules. The new warning will state that, despite the tweet violating Twitter’s rules, the company has chosen not to remove it, with a tap-through ‘View’ option to see the actual tweet. That will address the user concerns around the spread of anti-social, and concerning messages on the platform, while still enabling Twitter to share the original content, and host the subsequent discussion. It seems like a good compromise – the controversial tweets of high-profile users have become an uncomfortable battleground for Twitter in recent months.
For the full article click here
Marketing
Google aims to make it easier for SMBs to start using its products
Google announced a new website Thursday with resources aimed at helping small businesses get started with Google products. Google for Small Business, includes “personalized plans” with recommendations of Google products based on a company’s answers to several prompt questions such as whether the business is online, offline a hybrid and its selected goal to either stand out online, reach more customers or work more efficiently. The recommendations include a mix of free and paid solutions, such as setting up a Google My Business profile, trialing G Suite and creating a YouTube channel. Cracking the small business sector well and at scale has been a challenge for Google. The products can feel confusing to business owners and staff just getting started. Kim Spalding, global product director for Small Business Ads at Google, and former small business owner herself, was brought on a couple of years ago to help reframe the company’s approach to working with SMBs.
For the full article click here
Daily Minute Master Series – June 27, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Facebook Adds ‘Top Fans’ Targeting Option for Organic Page Posts
Facebook is rolling out a new option which enables Pages to publish updates targeted to their top Page fans specifically. The option enables Pages to create posts exclusively for Top Fans, in order to ‘thank them or share exclusive content’. Some users have had the option available to them for the last few months, so it may already be active on your Page. y working to reach your most passionate advocates, you could help to keep them more active on your Page, and expand your reach through increased activity and interaction. The requirements are somewhat restrictive – but helpfully, Facebook has also, seemingly, lowered the barrier for entry for Top Fans of late, which could make more members of your community feel more connected and linked to your Page.
For the full article click here
LinkedIn Adds New Custom CTA Buttons for Pages, Helping to Direct Visitor Actions
LinkedIn has been working hard to add in new features and tools to help businesses make best use of its platform, including the recent additions of associated Page hashtags, ad transparency tools, improved video metrics and more. LinkedIn is adding some new options to help businesses, in the form of custom call to action buttons for company pages, which will help brands drive more desired action from visitors. Those five new CTA options are: Contact us, Learn more, Register, Sign up and Visit website. This will provide another way for businesses to drive direct traffic and response from their company page visitors, while LinkedIn will also provide analytics data for your custom CTA button in the dashboard on the left-hand side of your Page Admin home, or at the top of your “Visitor Analytics” tab.
For the full article click here
Marketing
Google adding features for advertisers to promote deals, drive in-store purchases
Google is announcing new updates for retailers and emphasizing that consumers are “on the lookout for deals year-round.” If you know you’ve got a sale or promotion coming and anticipate a jump in conversion rates, you can now use seasonality adjustments to signal Google’s Smart Bidding system to prepare for the increase and adjust more quickly. Google has added more in-market segments in categories such as beauty, sports, education and real estate, including 30 new retail categories. In-market audiences for search are grouped based on purchase intent signaled by users’ search and browsing behavior. Local campaigns, launched last year, are one of Google’s automated campaign formats and expressly aimed at driving traffic to physical locations. Google is also rolling out asset reporting for Local campaigns so you can see how your creative elements — ad headlines, descriptions and images — are performing. Google is bringing promotions to local inventory ads (LIAs), the Shopping ads that feature products available in stores located near the searcher. Promotions can be used to highlight special offers and promotions. Creating solutions for physical retailers is an area Google is focusing on that also happens to provide a counterpoint to the e-commerce giant. Local campaigns, in particular, are aimed at brick-and-mortar merchants that don’t have the resources to dedicate staff or an agency to campaign management.
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Google Search Console adds mobile-first indexing features
Google announced Wednesday that it made a “few tweaks” to Google Search Console to help webmasters and SEOs understand how Google is indexing their sites. Specifically, you’ll be able to see if and when Google switched a site to mobile-first indexing or not. Under settings for a property, Google can now show you which Googlebot is indexing the site. In addition, if it is Googlebot smartphone, Google will give you the exact date it switched from desktop to smartphone crawling. This data helps SEOs, developers, publishers and webmaster clearly understand when a site was moved from desktop to mobile-first indexing. It helps us figure out any indexing or crawling issues and see if any rankings changed after the switch-over now that we can look at the exact date Google made the switch. Previously, the notifications didn’t specify the exact date a site was moved to mobile-first indexing.
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Daily Minute Master Series – June 26, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Facebook Expands Political Ad Transparency Tools to All Regions
Facebook has announced that it’s now bringing its political issues ad transparency tools to all regions, after initially rolling them out in fifty nations systematically, based on when each region had been running a local election. Facebook first introduced its ‘Issues Ads’ tags last May, and as noted, it’s been rolling them out to more regions over time. The system means that all advertisers looking to run ads in relation to political issues will need to go through an authorization process, and that all related ads will be kept in Facebook’s publicly available Ad Archive for seven years, which also includes information on who saw each ad and how much was spent on promoting it. Anything that can be implemented on this front is a bonus, and Facebook’s ad archive could prove to be a valuable tool in the fight against political misinformation.
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Marketing
LinkedIn Has Outlined its Recent Algorithm Updates, Which Focus on Broadening Engagement
LinkedIn has this week outlined some of the specific changes that it’s made to its feed distribution algorithm in order to maximize member response, and boost activity among users. LinkedIn has built in an element which rewards content creators (‘audience builders’) on the platform, as opposed to merely showing users the most engaging content to maximize response. The idea of this is to encourage more activity from across the board, and make LinkedIn, in general, a more engaging and active place of discussion. That, ideally, will keep members coming back more often – more users seeing more response equates to them posting more often, essentially re-distributing all that top-level engagement that was going to the top 1% and spreading it more evenly to foster broader participation.
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Yelp offering more paid profile upgrades for business owners
Yelp is introducing a range of new paid-promotional tools for business owners to give them more control over how they appear to users. They are also non-advertising, revenue-generating products for Yelp. The new products are intended primarily to help business owners but also bring more value and utility to consumers as well. The first of the Yelp offerings, Yelp Verified License, was actually introduced in March. Yelp manually checks whether companies are licensed in their respective categories and in good standing. Listings with a verified license carry a prominent blue badge, which appears on their profiles. The other two new profile features being introduced are “Business Highlights” and “Portfolio”. Business Highlights enable owners to pick from roughly 30 icons that describe or help promote their businesses. The idea here is to help the business differentiate and enable newer businesses without many reviews stand out and gain consideration. The third new product is Portfolio, which allows business owners to showcase projects they’ve done, such as home remodeling or landscape design. Google and Yelp are both enabling more customization for business owners. As more business owners opt for paid customization to stand out, it will put pressure on their competitors to do so as well.
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Advertising
Parallel tracking, more custom parameters coming to Microsoft Advertising for improved tracking
Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) is going to be making several updates in the coming months to improve page load for users and provide better tracking for advertisers. When parallel tracking is enabled, a user is taken directly to the landing page after clicking an ad, while the ad click measurement process happen separately in the background. Microsoft Advertising currently has it available as an option in some accounts, and the company says it expects to make it available to all advertisers soon. If you want to participate in the beta, reach out to your ad rep. Soon to be located in the “Campaign URL options” section of campaign settings, a Final URL suffix field will enable you to specify the parameters you want attached to your landing page URL for tracking. Now you can set up to eight pairs of custom parameters for URL tracking. The character limit has also been expanded to 250 characters. This will be available at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels, and support for additional levels is coming soon.
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