Social Media

Instagram Adds Alternate Stories Color Notifier for Pride Month

To mark Pride Month 2019, Instagram is adding a new rainbow color ring for Stories which include a Pride-related hashtag. The new option, as noted, will be activated by relevant hashtags, turning your Stories activation border in a multi-colored circle, as opposed to the generic Instagram color tone one. The new Stories ring hasn’t officially been announced as yet, so it may be part of a larger feature release coming this week. It’s an interesting addition though, and one that could open the door to alternate color options for the Stories ring to make them stand out. It could, for example, be used to help users understand what different stories are about – a story about a breaking news event, which uses the relevant hashtag, could be given a different color, helping users find more relevant content in their Stories list.

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Marketing

Starting July 1, all new sites will be indexed using Google’s mobile-first indexing

Google has announced that all new websites “previously unknown to Google Search” will be indexed using mobile-first indexing starting on July 1. Older websites that are still not being indexed using mobile-first indexing will not be switched yet to mobile-first indexing on July 1st but be moved when those web sites are ready to be moved to mobile-first indexing. Unlike old web sites that get notifications when they are moved over, Google won’t send notifications to new web sites because that will be the default state. Mobile-first indexing is simply how Google crawls and indexes the web. Instead of looking at the desktop version of the page, Google looks at the mobile version of the page. In more simple terms, Google is crawling and indexing your web page based on how it renders on a mobile phone versus a desktop computer. Now over 50% of what Google indexes is indexed over mobile-first indexing. If you launch a new website that doesn’t work well in mobile, then you may have issues with indexing and ranking in Google. Make sure to test your site and build them in a mobile-first manner.

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People Are Spending More Time on Instagram, at the Expense of Facebook and Snapchat

Adults in the U.S. will spend the same number of average minutes per day on Facebook and Snapchat this year as they did in 2018, but they will devote more time to Instagram, according to the latest figures from eMarketer. The consultancy principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson said in a release, “Features like Stories, influencer content and video are all contributing to more engagement and a slow but steady uptick in time spent on Instagram”. Williamson said of Facebook, “Facebook’s continued loss of younger adult users, along with its focus on downranking clickbait posts and videos in favor of those that create ‘time well spent,’ resulted in less daily time spent on the platform in 2018 than we had previously expected. Less time spent on Facebook translates into fewer chances for marketers to reach the network’s users.” She added, “Gains in digital video viewing are putting pressure on social time and gaming is also creating new competition for user attention.

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23% of Small Businesses Say Visual Content is Most Effective

A recent study shows that nearly a quarter of small business owners believe visual content is highly effective. This data comes from a survey featured on Visual Objects, a sister website of Clutch and The Manifest, that shows how businesses publish website content in 2019. A recurring theme throughout the study is the emphasis on publishing new content regularly. Currently, almost three-quarters of small businesses (74%) publish website content monthly. When small business owners were asked what types of content they publish, these said: Company information – 67%, Visuals – 58% and Product descriptions – 51%.

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Social Media

Instagram Adds Support for Landscape Videos in IGTV

Instagram has announced that IGTV publishers will be able to upload horizontal format videos to IGTV, straying from its initial focus on more immersive, vertical viewing. IGTV was essentially built to tap into the rising consumption of vertical video, largely popularized by Snapchat. And while catering to audience demand makes sense, it does feel like a compromise. That could see more content uploaded to IGTV, as YouTube creators won’t have to reformat their posts, but it won’t necessarily help IGTV differentiate. More content on IGTV will likely lead to more viewers, so Instagram could well win out with this update.

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Twitter Permanently Bans Prominent Political Commentators Over Use of Fake Accounts

In its latest efforts to rid its platform of bots, fake profiles and general misuse, the micro-blog giant has banned prominent anti-Trump personalities Brian and Ed Krassenstein, over their alleged use of fake accounts and purchased interactions to boost their presence and reach. Twitter has previously banned prominent right-wing commentators under its hate speech policies, while it’s also implemented reach restrictions on ‘anti-social’ tweets. Ideally, by making an example of misuse in this way, Twitter will be able to make such processes too risky, as the damage to a users’ credibility can be difficult to recover from after they’re caught out. The more than can be done to remove the fakers, the better – which, hopefully, will eventually extend to those looking to market themselves as ‘influencers’ based on artificially inflated follower counts.

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Facebook Employees Are No Longer Receiving Commissions on Sales of Political and Issue Ads

Global elections public policy director Katie Harbath told Emily Glazer and Jeff Horwitz of The Wall Street Journal that the social network’s sales employees are no longer compensated based on goals related to the purchase of political and issue ads, both in the U.S. and globally. Harbath also pointed out that the tools that potential political and issue advertisers must use are predominantly self-service, with Facebook employees only providing help with the registration process those advertisers are required to undergo, as well as when ads are stalled in the review process and other customer-service tasks. “It doesn’t matter if you’re running for president or running for city council: You have access to the same tools and level of support” – said Harbath. The company has considered doing away with political ads altogether, but decided against doing so, with Harbath telling that Facebook views political and issue ads on its platform as a civic responsibility.

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Marketing

Google brings ‘end-to-end’ food ordering to Search, Maps, Google Assistant

Google’s unofficial new mantra is “helping users get things done” (GTD). To that end, Google is making its many channels, properties and ads much more “transactional.” Transaction fees are part of Google’s strategy to monetize the Assistant.  One manifestation of this GTD ethos is bringing food ordering into Google Assistant, Google search and Maps. For some time Google has linked to third-party ordering and delivery services in the Knowledge Panel online. This experience proceeds directly from the GMB profile on both Android devices and iPhones. Users click on the “Order Online” button and then choose delivery or pick up. If they choose delivery, they select a provider and then menu items. Payment happens with the default credit card the user has set up in Google Pay. From a user-experience perspective, the new food-ordering process is an incremental change from what was already available. And the move is part of a larger effort by Google to reduce consumer friction, remove steps between discovery and purchase and control more transactions directly, rather than handing them off to (slower) third parties.

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Social Media

Instagram Continues to Work on New Option to Share a Link to an Individual Story

Instagram continues to work on its option for sharing your Instagram Story via a unique link, with reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong spotting a new variation of the share option in the back-end of the app’s code. The addition, if it does get rolled out, could be a big help for brands who are looking to maximize their investment in Stories creation. Some businesses have been hesitant to go ‘all-in’ on Stories due to the ephemeral nature of the option, with the content that you’ve spent time and effort creating disappearing after only 24 hours. With the capacity to link back to a Story, the promotion potential is far greater, which could prompt more businesses to utilize the option. By providing a link, you could promote your Story in your email newsletter, your email signature, on other social platforms – it opens up a whole range of off-platform considerations for getting people back to your Insta presence.

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LinkedIn Follows Facebook’s Lead with New Ad Transparency Tab on Pages

With political interference on social media becoming an increasingly significant issue, the platforms themselves are working on new tools and options to help users better understand why they’re being targeted with certain ads, who they’re being targeted by and what other campaigns a company may be running. This week, LinkedIn has followed the lead of Facebook and announced the addition of a new ad transparency tab for LinkedIn company pages, which will provide oversight into all the ads a company has run on the platform over the preceding six month period. Now, you’ll be able to check a listing of all the ads any company is running, providing more perspective on how they’re looking to reach their target customers on the network. That type of competitor research can be hugely valuable in planning your own campaigns.

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YouTube to Stop Showing Full Subscriber Counts

Starting in August 2019, YouTube will begin showing abbreviated subscriber counts anywhere that a channel’s numbers are displayed. Exact subscriber counts will be shown for channels with less than 1,000 subscribers. For channels with more than 1,000 subscribers, YouTube will abbreviate public subscriber numbers on a sliding scale. The company didn’t mention why this change is being made, but, I’ll say the YouTube community has developed an alarming obsession with other channels’ subscriber counts. So much so that when two YouTubers are fueding, users will set up live feeds showing the other users’ subscribers counts going up or down. By not making full subscriber counts available to the public, YouTube is likely trying to put an end to this obsession before it becomes even more problematic.

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Marketing

Google not indexing recent content?

A potential bug with Google search this morning is not bringing up content from many news outlets posted within the past hour. You need to filter the Google search results to just show pages found within the past hour. Google otherwise will show you content, but just not within the past hour. It’s not just site command searches that aren’t working properly, either. Searches for “search engine land” and “nytimes” with the past hour filter on bring up entirely unrelated results. This appears to be a bug but we are not sure if this is an indexing bug, a bug with Google’s search filters and tools or something else. If you are publishing timely and fresh content around news topics, searchers using Google may not be able to find this content.

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Social Media

Facebook Announces Two New Algorithm Updates Aimed at Improving On-Platform Engagement

The Social Network has announced two News Feed algorithm updates this week, one focused on increasing the prevalence of posts from your closest friends, and the other aimed at reducing shallow, click-bait style content in feeds. Since the implementation of the News Feed algorithm, Facebook has been consistently criticized for hiding important updates, and failing to keep people in the loop on key events within their social circles. This change aims to help Facebook improve on this front. The second announced update relates to the quality of content in News Feeds, and demoting posts and links which users have said are not ‘worth their time’. The key point here is ‘less’ – Facebook can use this insight to determine not only what’s more relevant, but to reduce the reach of less engaging, less fulfilling link posts. According to Facebook, the update is not aimed at reducing the reach of Pages, but that will be the impact – Pages which regularly publish shallow clickbait will see their News Feed distribution reduced as a result.  

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Instagram Rolls Out Updated Explore Format, Including Stories Content

Instagram is rolling out some changes to its Explore tab, designed to showcase more related trends, and guide users towards its IGTV and on-platform shopping options. Instagram has tweaked the format of the Explore search options to put more focus on the listed content, with the topic tabs along the top of the Explore screen reduced in size. Instagram’s also updated the specific listings for its IGTV and Shop posts. Now, when you tap on the IGTV section, you’ll see a personalized feed of recommended videos from “creators you follow or may want to follow”. With Instagram moving more towards eCommerce, and building out its shopping and on-platform buying options, adding more product discovery tools to Explore makes a lot of sense, and will no doubt be welcomed by users looking to use the platform for such purpose. In addition to this, Instagram’s also adding publicly posted Stories to Explore to further highlight Stories content.

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Marketing

Nextdoor emerges as a location marketing destination

The self-described “world’s largest social network for the neighborhood” is also a location marketing platform for businesses. Nextdoor connects people who live in close geographic proximity to each other. Only users with verified addresses may join, and when they do, Nextdoor assigns them to a neighborhood with defined boundaries. From there, users share a wide range of content, such posting lost-and-found notices, discussing the impact of municipal legislation, organizing public safety meet-ups – and, in recent years, buying and selling services and products. Now Nextdoor is actively catering to businesses in a few important ways. Businesses can claim pages and create organic listings just like they can on Google My Business. The pages give Nextdoor users the chance to rate and review them. Companies can also offer promotions, a recently launched feature. Scaling a presence on Nextdoor likely requires a national or global business to empower local franchises to manage their pages, create offers and respond to reviews given Nextdoor’s restrictions on how many pages a single business can manage.

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Google says image search referrals will not get new source URL (but forgets to tell us)

About 10-months ago, Google told publishers, site owners and tool providers to prepare for a change in how Google Image search will be sending their referral URLs. Instead of Google Image search traffic coming from www.google.com, they wanted to change it to help webmaster understand their image search traffic. So they said in the upcoming months the referral URL will change to images.google.com so your analytics tools can track it better. Google recently posted an update at some saying they are not going ahead with this change and that users can get this data in Google Search Console instead. This means the only way to see your Google Image Search traffic properly is within Google Search Console. That also means there will be at least a two-day delay because Search Console performance reports are always delayed by that length of time.

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Social Media

Facebook’s Developing New Link and Mention Stickers for Facebook Stories

According to reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong, within Facebook’s back end code, there are in-development options for both link and mention stickers for Facebook Stories, unreleased, and unannounced as yet, but very likely to be coming soon. The main option of interest is the ability to add referral links. At present, the capacity to post links to Facebook Stories is available to some users, but access is very limited. If Facebook were to provide another way for brands to post links to their Stories, that would certainly spark more interest in the option. In addition, the mention sticker would enable you to tag other Facebook users in your Facebook Story – the same as you can on Instagram. The option will give you more ways to raise awareness of your Stories content – while for brands, it’ll provide another way to boost engagement with your audience.

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Facebook Outlines Coming Changes to Data Tracking Capacity

The Clear History tool, announced in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, will give Facebook users more control over their personal data, and how it’s used for ad targeting, with the capacity to view which apps and websites are using Facebook tracking, and clear that information from your profile, if you so wish. There will be changes to audience tracking. The most pressing point for marketers in the announcement is this: “This feature may impact targeting – When someone disconnects their off-Facebook activity, we won’t use the data they clear for targeting. This means that targeting options powered by Facebook’s business tools, like the Facebook pixel, can’t be used to reach someone with ads.” That, potentially, could be a significant blow for marketers, with the capacity to build accurate audiences for ad targeting diminished if a significant amount of users opt to remove data tracking. Data tracking will be impacted to some degree, but it’s unlikely to become a useless option, Custom Audiences are still probably going to be a key targeting tool for Facebook ads.

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Marketing

Google brings personalized Shopping, local inventory and better checkout to U.S.

To lure consumers from Amazon Google is upping the ante on personalization. It’s also emphasizing omnichannel shopping. Consumers will see shopping recommendations based on their shopping histories, search histories and lists. No two Shopping home screens will look alike. Users will also be able to buy online or locally, with buy online, pick up in store if that’s supported by the retailer. Another strategic move by Google is to handle the transaction and enable users to pay using cards in their Google accounts. This removes significant checkout friction and normalizes the Google Shopping experience.  After today, all merchants will need to adopt Shopping Actions. That will be the key going forward to retail advertising on Google and its various properties. It’s also noteworthy that Shopping Actions is commission-based and not a CPC model. Revenue share varies by category, as it does with Amazon.

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Advertising

Google’s Smart Shopping Campaigns Can Be Optimized for In-Store Visits

Google will soon allow retailers to optimize Smart Shopping Campaigns for store visits and display their local inventory information. Smart Shopping campaigns were introduced last year as a new advertising product that uses machine learning to optimize for performance as well as ad placement. Today, Smart Shopping campaigns let retailers optimize for online conversions. Soon, they will also help retailers drive store visits. Google is working on a way for retailers to drive store visits with local inventory ads. Google is making it possible to offer ‘buy-online, pick-up in-store’ service through Shopping ads. To utilize this capability, retailers will need product landing pages on their site showing when in-store pick-up is available and a local inventory feed in Merchant Center.

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