Show Notes
1. Twitter Leans Into Video With 2 New Features - Twitter is leaning into emerging video consumption trends and with these two new updates – I guess to get people spending more time in the app.
- Immersive viewing and easy discovery - This new feature expands videos to full screen by simply clicking on the video in the Twitter app. When the video is in full-screen mode, users can scroll up to browse additional video content. This feature will be available on iOS and Android in select countries in English.
- Showing more videos in Explore - A new video carousel makes it easier to find more videos you're interested in next to Tweets and Trends that might interest you. You can access these videos by opening the Explore tab. This feature will be available on iOS and Android in select countries in English.
You can read the full announcement from Twitter
here.
2.
TikTok Community Guidelines Enforcement Report Highlights - Here are the highlights from the TikTok’s
published Q2’22 Community Guidelines Report that you should be aware of:
- TikTok took down over 113 million video clips between April and June (Q2) this year due to policy violations and other issues - an 11% increase on the previous quarter, though that remains pretty much in line with the ongoing trend.
- Proactive removal of videos improved from 83.6% in Q1 to 89.1% in Q2; removal of videos at zero views improved from 60.8% in Q1 to 74.7% in Q2; and video removals in under 24 hours improved from 71.9% to 83.9%.
- Over 33 million fake profiles removed in the period, a 62% increase on the previous quarter (Q1’22). Clearly fake account is an issue in all the social media platforms.
Listen to the podcast to find out more as to why I am including this data in this episode.
3. 5 Updates To Facebook Call Ads - Facebook added 5 new features to help businesses build better customer relationships, find more quality leads, and reach more potential customers to grow their business, they stated in a blog post.
- Get a call back - This feature is currently being tested and gives customers the option to request a callback from a business.
- Call Ads in Sales Objective - Businesses will now have the option to include call ads as a format under the Sales/Conversions objective in Ads Manager.
- 60s call in Lead Gen, Traffic, and Sales objectives - A60-second call optimization option in lead generation, traffic and to-be-released sales ad objectives to allow businesses to optimize their ads to reach people who are most likely to engage in a longer conversation.
- Pre-call business feature in Ads Manager - Businesses can provide additional context in ads to help educate potential customers to help them make informed decisions before they make a call.
- In-app calling - Facebook is testing a platform calling solution to enable businesses to connect with customers wherever they are browsing and allow them to continue that same experience within the app after the call is complete. Facebook says that no call information is captured.
To learn more, you can read the blog post from Facebook
here.
4. Voiceover Now Possible In YouTube Shorts - YouTube has added a new option that allows creators to add voiceover to their short-form clips in the app. Functionality wise, it’s not a revolutionary addition since this feature already exists in TikTok and Instagram reels. Follow these steps to add voiceover to your Shorts after recording content:
- Tap the checkmark button in the bottom right of the camera screen
- Tap the voiceover button
- Move the playhead (vertical white line on the video filmstrip) to the spot you want to start your voiceover
- Hit the red record button to start recording and tap it again to stop recording (you can also hold down the record button while recording and lift up to stop recording)
- Tap the undo button if you want to delete your last voiceover recording, or tap the redo button to add it back again
- Use the volume panel to adjust audio levels across music, your original video’s audio, and voiceover
5. 3 Updates To LinkedIn Pages - LinkedIn rolled out three pages updates that allow businesses to facilitate more meaningful communication with their audience.
- Post Templates For LinkedIn Pages - Businesses now have an easier way to create rich LinkedIn page content with customizable templates. Post templates are available directly in the LinkedIn app without downloading additional tools. Start creating a post and tap the “use template” button. Then you can customize the background, choose the font, add text, attach clickable links, and more.
- Pinned Comments - Businesses can now highlight their favorite comments on posts by pinning them to the top of the comment section. You can change the pinned comment at any time to keep the conversation flowing or shift it in a different direction.
- Page Commitments - Businesses can utilize a new LinkedIn page section dedicated to highlighting company values. LinkedIn will feature your commitments in the About section of your Page. You can include up to five commitments in your featured commitments section, such as:
- Diversity, equity, and inclusion
- Career growth and learning
- Work-life balance
- Social impact
- Environmental sustainability
If you want to read more about these features then click
here.
6. 4 New Features In LinkedIn Ads - LinkedIn has rolled out 4 new features for marketers advertising through the B2B platform.
- Offline Conversions - Offline Conversions allow you to connect the conversions you track in other tools directly to LinkedIn. Advertisers will be able to manually upload CSV files to the Campaign Manager. New supported CRM partners include Adverity, Hub Spot, LeadsBridge, LiveRamp, and Make. Offline data will automatically be incorporated into your aggregate reporting on conversions and will provide a more holistic understanding of your marketing impact on lower-funnel outcomes.
- Audience Insights - Free audience insights are now in Campaign Manager. These can help advertisers pinpoint who their audiences are, what they’re interested in, and how they’re engaging with other content and topics. Audience insights are available for both Matched and saved audiences. It generates aggregated insights based on topics and content they’ve engaged in, but also job titles, years of experience, seniority, location, company name, industry, and more. Insights can also be used to discover new audiences.
- Document Ads - Document Ads allow you to promote long-format content directly into members’ feeds where they can read and download whitepapers, case studies, and reports without leaving the platform. You can also use a Lead Gen Form to collect leads if you decide to gate your documents.
- Media Library - The new LinkedIn Media Library allows you to create ads more easily by storing all of your images and videos in one central location. Advertisers can now create up to five ads at once by selecting the video or image from the media library, each then becoming its own ad. This feature seems to make ad creation easier, faster, and collaborative.
You can read the announcement from LinkedIn
here.
7. GA4 Can Now Measure Website Form Interactions - Google has added an enhanced measurement option for Form interactions. Now you can not only see when a form has been submitted, but you can also see when one has been started by a new user.
- form_start shows you the first time a user interacts with a form in a session
- form_submit shows you when a user submits a form
The new option is enabled automatically for all newly created web data streams. If you already have a web data stream, you can turn this on by navigating to Enhanced Measurement.
You can read the announcement from Google
here.
8. Google: Site/Page Speed Is Not A Factor In Ranking Or Search Results - When asked if Google removes sites/pages from search results (serp) on the basis of page speed, Google's John Mueller said that your site or page would not be removed from the Google Search results over page speed issues.
Now this does not mean you should not have a slow loading site. Optimize to the best of your ability but do not kill yourself to load your site in under 2 secs.
9. Google: Stop Updating URL’s For SEO - Google's John Mueller said in most cases, changing URLs will have a negative impact on SEO and that you probably should not change URLs just for SEO reasons.
John wrote on
Reddit "
If you're an SEO, and billing by the hour to implement this change, then it'll help your bottom line. Will it help the site? Very, very rarely (if they have terrible URLs that you can't even copy & paste, maybe). Will a change negatively affect the site for a while until it's reprocessed? Probably. Some risk + usually no gain = ... ?"
Then on
Twitter he wrote "
If you change URLs, you should do redirects per page. There's no maximum number of redirects per site. Also, likely you're shooting yourself in the foot for a while for no visible gain. Change URLs for real reasons, not for handwavy "good for SEO" reasons."
10.
Google : No Way To Measure Duplicate Content - Bill Hartzer asked Google’s John Muller if there is a measurement percentage that represents duplicate content? For example, should we be trying to make sure pages are at least 72.6 percent unique than other pages on our site? Does Google even measure it? John Mueller responded by saying, "
there is no number" and then asked, "
how do you measure it anyway?"
IMO, I disagree with John. If there was no way to measure duplicate content then there would not be a duplicate content penalty. John either does not know how it is coded in the back end or he doesn’t want to share so that people do not game the algorithm.
11.
Google: No Penalty For Keyword Stuffed URL’s - Google's John Mueller
said that you "
won't get penalized for keyword-stuffed URLs." He said stuffing the keywords in your URLs "
basically has no effect, positive or negative for search engines." John said this on Twitter and he also added it is "
a good practice to mention your keywords in the URL, but the effect is minimal." But said focusing on keywords in the URL is "often the wrong prioritization" of your SEO efforts.
12.
Updates From The Google Search On ‘22 Event - During the
Search On 2022 event, Google announced lot of features and tools geared to help improve the user experience. The overarching theme of the updates is visualization and personalization. Here are the updates that matters to you the business owner.
- Search with the word “shop” - In the US, when you search for the word “shop” followed by the item you’re looking for, you’ll access the visual feed of products, tools, and inventory for that product. The shoppable search experience is also being expanded beyond apparel to electronics, beauty, and more, to additional regions for both mobile and desktop.
- Shop the look - For the apparel category, users will now be able to “shop the look” which showcases individual products to help create an entire outfit. Google’s tool will show complimentary products to the main product a user is searching for, such as handbags or shoes to go along with a top or jacket.
- Multisearch expanding - Google multisearch lets you use your camera’s phone to search by an image, powered by Google Lens, and then add an additional text query on top of the image search. Google will then use both the image and the text query to show you visual search results. Google is expanding multisearch to 70 new languages in the coming months. Google launched multisearch last year for English and U.S.-based queries.
- Multisearch near me - Slated to be launching late fall’22, the near me aspect lets you zoom in on those image and text queries by looking for products or anything via your camera but also to find local results. So if you want to find a restaurant that has a specific dish, you can do so.
These updates clearly demonstrate the need as to why you need to have Google Merchant Center (or appropriate schema on your site) as well as Google Business Profile. If you do not have either of these then you are at a disadvantage.