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 – May 13, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Facebook Launches New Tools for Small Businesses
Facebook is rolling out new tools to help businesses run automated ad campaigns, book appointments, and edit videos. With Automated Ads, Facebook can develop a customized marketing plan after asking a few simple questions about your business and your goals. A new appointment booking feature will let businesses take and manage appointments through Facebook and Instagram. Whether or not your business is running Facebooks ads you can still access this new feature. A new video editing feature in Ads Manager offers new ways to edit existing video. According to Facebook’s internal data, the platform is home to over 90 million small businesses as of January 2019. Facebook remains committed to improving the experience for this valuable user base.
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Advertising
Google Ads App Can Now Create More Types of Ads On-the-Go
Google unveiled some updates to the Google Ads app which will let users create more ads and manage more campaigns. An update rolled out last week let users create and edit Responsive Search Ads directly from the Google Ads app. In addition, advertisers and small businesses will soon be able to utilize Google Ads’ local campaigns whether or not they have store visits management enabled. Google is also enhancing ads in Local campaigns to help businesses highlight product-specific information and offers. Lastly, new inventory in Google Maps will let businesses serve ads in more places. Businesses can promote their locations when users are planning or navigating along their route.
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Marketing
Google to add support for higher quality images in search, swipe up images & 3D images
Google announced in the State of Search session at Google I/O Thursday, that it will be launching higher quality image support, 3D images and the ability to swipe up images from AMP pages. Google said that a new program to submit higher resolution images to Google Image search is coming soon. Websites will be able to opt-in images to this program. Over the past several months, Google has been dropping hints that image search is something SEOs, webmasters, developers and content producers should pay attention to.
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New app rating formula headed to Google Play will favor newer reviews
Google is increasing the weight of more recent app reviews when calculating an app’s average Play store rating. The announcement came last Wednesday at the company’s annual I/O developer conference. The refreshed ratings will be rolling out to the public beginning in August. The idea of weighting more recent ratings is based on giving more credence to the most current version of an app. With this change, your Play store rating will not only give users a better understanding of the current state of your app, it will also better reflect all your hard work and improvements. The new ratings will go public in August, but developers can already prepare for it by previewing their rating (according to the revised formula) by going to their Google Play Console.
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Daily Minute Master Series – May 3, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Instagram is Working on a New ‘Join Chat’ Sticker for Stories
Reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong has uncovered a new ‘Join Chat’ sticker option which would enable Stories viewers to join a private chat group, direct from a Story. The ‘Join Chat’ sticker prompts the user to add a note on what the chat is about, with the lower note saying: ‘People who view your story can request to join this group chat’. This new option looks to put more emphasis on prompting private group discussion and sharing. For brands, if this is indeed launched, it could provide another way to build stronger community connection, and bring your biggest advocates closer by sharing exclusive content and/or seeking consultation. There’s no word as yet from Instagram as to whether this feature will be released.
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Facebook Announces Bans of Well-Known Extremist Commentators
Facebook has announced that a range of extremist commentators will be banned from the platform entirely under its ‘Dangerous Individuals or Organizations’ regulations, as outlined in its guidelines. According to a Facebook spokesperson, the company will not only ban the Pages of these individuals, but it will also remove any links to their sites shared by Facebook users. It’s a major move by Facebook, underlining the platform’s renewed focus on curbing the rising amount of hate speech on its platform, which is not only causing societal division, but is also leading to increased attacks and violence in real-life. Users will still be able to create their own posts praising these commentators and their perspectives (subject to the usual content guidelines), but sharing direct links to their content will be a no go.
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YouTube Is Making All of Its Original Content Free and Ad Supported
YouTube is bringing all of its original content beyond the paywall and into an ad-supported environment. The streaming video service announced plans to create an expanded slate of new and returning series from a range of mainstream celebrities and YouTube creators. According to YouTube, this year’s slate of scripted and unscripted content is focused around “music, learning and personalities.” YouTube chief brand officer Robert Kyncl said “So, one of the changes that we’ve gone through is to align our originals with the way YouTube works, which is everything is available free, and everything is available behind a paywall if there are certain features that you value in order to pay for a [YouTube Premium] subscription. With originals, we’ve gone from being focused on driving subscriptions to align with the core business.”
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Marketing
Google Ads Reporting is Currently Delayed Until Further Notice
Reporting data for Google Ads and AdSense is currently delayed as a result of a bug discovered on April 30. Google confirmed the bug is delaying data reporting for April 30, May 1, and May 2. The company says it will publish an update when there is more information to share.
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Daily Minute Master Series – May 2nd, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Quora Launches New Business Podcast, Google Tag Manager Integration
Quora is slowly but surely carving a niche for specific advertisers who are looking to reach consumers right when they’re seeking answers. Quora has announced a new integration with Google Tag Manager to help streamline its data tracking tools. In order to make it easier for advertisers to gather relevant data points for their on-platform ad targeting, Quora has now become an approved tag vendor with Google, facilitating new opportunities for tracking. In order to provide even more assistance for advertisers, and highlight the opportunities of Quora ads, the platform is also launching a new ‘Grow with Quora’ podcast to showcase advertiser success stories. While Quora may not get as much coverage as other social platforms, the fact that users come to Quora seeking answers to specific questions could actually make it a better option for ad outreach, as it enables marketers to show their ads to people at just the right time in their discovery journey.
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Marketing
Google To Let Users Delete Mobile Auto-Tracking Data
Google on Wednesday introduced an auto-delete function that will allow users to delete data about their search and location. The new tool automatically deletes a person’s Location History, as well as web and app Activity after a specific time period. Users can choose to delete the data after either three or 18 months. The function will then continue to delete the data over time. The feature, announced Wednesday, will roll out in the coming weeks.
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Google bringing call intelligence and automation to SMBs, for $39 per month
Google is bringing enterprise-like automated customer service and call intelligence capabilities to small businesses (SMBs) for a flat fee of $39 per month. Google’s Area 120 experimental products group announced the introduction of a new virtual agent and telephony product called CallJoy. CallJoy promises to help small businesses offer better customer service, free up employees from having to answer the phone and convert more business by ensuring that all calls are answered. Powered by the same technologies behind Google Assistant and Duplex, CallJoy will filter calls, block spam and manage customer calls. In some ways, this is “Duplex, for business owners.” . All calls are recorded and transcribed. CallJoy envisions that SMB owners will search, tag and interact with transcripts to gain insights about customer patterns, needs or concerns. If CallJoy works as advertised it could be a very valuable service to understaffed small businesses. It could also result in more conversions and revenue for SMBs.
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Advertising
Microsoft Advertising is no longer just chasing parity with Google Ads – it’s building unique ads features
The ads engineering team at Microsoft has long been focused on bringing parity to Google Ads. While that still remains a focus, there has recently been an accelerated push to develop and release product differentiators – features that Google Ads doesn’t offer. There are currently 10 product features available or in pilot that are only offered in Microsoft Advertising.
For example:
Other initiatives that aren’t unique, but are on the product roadmap for this year and next include several audience targeting options such as customer match, custom combinations, similar audiences, in-market audiences and product audiences.
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Daily Minute Master Series – May 1st, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Mark Zuckerberg Announces a New eCommerce and Payment Platform
Facebook’s founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a keynote presentation at the F8 Conference where he revealed that Facebook-owned WhatsApp is moving toward hosting web shops where customers can browse a store’s products and make purchases. What Mark Zuckerberg announced is a dramatic expansion to the WhatsApp Business app, with a feature called, Product Catalogs. It’s likely that the WhatsApp Business Product Catalogs will feature fully functioning stores where customers can not only browse products but purchase them, too. Mark Zuckerberg also announced a new payment service that will allow people to send money to each other. Mark Zuckerberg is expanding Facebook’s business model away from just advertising and expanding it to actual commerce.
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Facebook is Introducing New Business Tools for Messenger
Facebook is making Messenger even more useful for businesses with tools designed to generate leads and book appointments. Facebook’s first major business-related innovation for Messenger was its chatbot program. A new business tool on the way builds on the success of Messenger with a selection of lead generation templates. Lead-generation templates for Messenger ensure bots ask people standardized questions so they can receive a standardized response. The lead generation templates will also come with completion reminders and seamless hand-off to a live agent. In addition, Facebook is opening up its beta program which allows customers to book appointments through Messenger. Lastly, Facebook announced at the conference that a bare-bones version of Messenger will be available on desktop later this year.
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Instagram Just Made It Easier to Shop Your Favorite Looks From Influencers
Instagram continues its march to becoming a fully immersive shopping app. After rolling out the ability to check out from 23 brands on the app in March, the social media app is putting that tool in the hands of creators. Creators and brands part of the beta test can tag up to five items from one brand in either an image or video post, as well as in stories. As part of the initial beta test, Instagram’s working with 50 creators and five publishers. Creators do not receive any commission based on clicks or sales of these items. Brands that are part of the checkout beta tag products, which consumers can tap on, get to a product page, and then tap on another button that reads “Checkout on Instagram.” This new feature has the potential to upend a significant part of the influencer marketing community, namely the number of companies that help influencers generate a commission from products in their posts, like rewardStyle’s LiketoKnowIt app.
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Facebook’s F8 2019: Instagram’s Donation Sticker for Stories Is Going Live Today
The donation sticker was first mentioned at the Facebook Communities Summit in February, and it will be available in the U.S. starting Tuesday. Instagrammers will be able to use the new sticker to raise money for nonprofits including Black Girls Code, JED Foundation, No Kid Hungry, Boys and Girls Club of America, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Malala Fund, GLAAD and The Nature Conservancy. The donation sticker can be accessed by opening the camera in the Instagram application, capturing or uploading a photo, tapping the sticker icon and selecting it from the tray. Users can then choose a nonprofit to support and customize their sticker. Once the sticker is live, swiping up on the Story will display the total amount that was raised. Instagram said 100% of the money raised via donation stickers goes to the target nonprofits.
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Daily Minute Master Series – April 30, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial Media
Facebook Publishes New Guide for Instagram Creators
Facebook has published a new set of tips aimed at helping Instagram creators make the most of the platform. And while some of them are fairly common pointers, it is worth noting the more specific details included – especially as they’re coming from Instagram’s own team, and therefore based on internal data and insight. For instance, Instagram has added a range of tools to help generate more engagement and connection, using the question sticker or mention fans in Stories to spread the fan love is a solid tip for those looking to maximize their Stories performance. As explained by Facebook, now, as you record your video in the Instagram camera, a thumbnail tray will appear to indicate how many videos you’ve recorded so far. This is a good option for those looking to share longer video messages within Stories, and expand engagement potential.
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Marketing
Google Search Console reports back on track after multi-week delay
After a three-week delay, Google has finally updated the reports that were impacted by Google’s de-indexing bug. Google has yet to officially confirm that these reports are up-to-date, the @googlewmc channel does not yet have an update. The latest is from April 25th, in which Google said it is still working on a fix for this bug. It is not uncommon for Google Search Console to have reporting delays, more than the normal two or three-day delay. We have seen it fairly often but since it coincided with the indexing bug, it was more of a concern because SEOs, webmasters, site owners were unable to see how much they were impacted by this bug. Having fairly up-to-date data about how well your site is performing in Google is critical for an SEO.
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Advertising
Parallel tracking goes live for Google Ads display campaigns May 1
After launching for search ads last year, parallel tracking is coming to Google display campaigns this week. The move for video campaigns has been postponed. It will be mandatory for all advertisers that append tracking parameters to their display ad URLs in Google Ads on July 31. Google initially planned to launch parallel tracking for video campaigns at the same time as display, but said Friday that it is delaying the rollout for video. Parallel tracking is designed to enable landing pages to load faster after users click your ads if you’re using third-party click measurement. It does this by separating the processing of tracking parameters appended to an ad URL from the landing page. This way, the user is directed straight to the landing page while the tracking functionality loads separately.
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Shopify Introduces New Snapchat Ad Capabilities to Help Merchants Reach More Customers
Along with Dynamic Ads on Facebook, the e-commerce platform is debuting a Snapchat Ads app that lets companies create Snapchat Story Ads. Additionally, merchants can sync product catalogs to the Snapchat ads manager so prices and other items update automatically and auto-install the Snap Pixel. Shopify customers can access these new formats in Shopify’s marketing section. With the new Snapchat integration, the company now joins Facebook and Google, which also offer merchants easy ad-creation capabilities. Snapchat’s Story Ads are ads that live in the app’s Discover section and give merchants the ability to track sales as well.
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Daily Minute Master Series – April 29, 2019
/by Corey PadveenSocial 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
/by Corey PadveenSocial 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
/by Corey PadveenSocial 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.
For the full article click here
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
/by Corey PadveenSocial 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.
For the full article click here
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.
For the full article click here
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!
For the full article click here
Daily Minute Master Series – April 23, 2019
/by Corey PadveenMarketing
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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