Monthly Digital Marketing Round-Up

Jan 2018: Digital Marketing Round-Up

JannelleChemko
ByJannelleChemko

January felt like it both flew by and dragged on at the same time…but can you believe we’re already at the first round-up of 2018?

There were some significant updates announced by the major players in January, including updates to Facebook’s news feed, big changes to YouTube’s Partner Program, and some interesting news about how page speed will soon affect your mobile rankings.

Keep reading to find out all the updates in this month’s digital marketing round-up.

Instagram Stories can now include GIFs

Instagram is making its stories feature even more animated with a new GIF option. GIF stickers can now be added to any story via an integration with GIPHY.

Users can select from hundreds of thousands of GIFs from GIPHY’s database to add as stickers. After tapping on the “GIF” button when adding a sticker, Instagram will show what’s currently trending on GIPHY. In addition, users can find something more specific by using the search bar.

Using page speed in mobile search ranking

People want to be able to find answers to their questions as fast as possible — studies show that people really care about the speed of a page. Although speed has been used in ranking for some time, that signal was focused on desktop searches. So Google has announced that starting in July 2018, page speed will be a ranking factor for mobile searches.

The “Speed Update,” as they’re calling it, will only affect pages that deliver the slowest experience to users and will only affect a small percentage of queries. It applies the same standard to all pages, regardless of the technology used to build the page. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal, so a slow page may still rank highly if it has great, relevant content.

Facebook bans all ads for Cryptocurrency

Facebook has created a new policy which effectively bans ads for cryptocurrency, as well as other financial products.

The reason for this policy change, Facebook says, is to honor one of its core advertising principles that ads should be safe. Ads for cryptocurrency are frequently tied to misleading and deceptive practices, the company believes.

Additional changes to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) to better protect Creators

In 2018, a major focus for everyone at YouTube is protecting the creator ecosystem and ensuring creator’s revenue is more stable.

As of February 20th, 2018, they’ll implement new thresholds across existing channels on the platform. On that date, channels with fewer than 1,000 subs or 4,000 watch hours will no longer be able to earn money on YouTube. When they reach 1,000 subs and 4,000 watch hours they will be automatically re-evaluated under strict criteria to ensure they comply with YouTube’s policies. New channels will need to apply, and their application will be evaluated when they hit these milestones.

Why Google AdWords’ keyword volume numbers are wildly unreliable

Many of us rely on the search volume numbers Google AdWords provides, but those numbers ought to be consumed with a hearty helping of skepticism. Broad and unusable volume ranges, misalignment with other Google tools, and conflating similar yet intrinsically distinct keywords — these are just a few of the serious issues that make relying on AdWords search volume data alone so dangerous. In this edition of Whiteboard Friday, Moz will discuss those issues in depth and offer a few alternatives for more accurate volume data.

Facebook’s News Feed will once again focus on Friends and Family

Facebook has announced that it will be overhauling its News Feed that will once again shift the type of content users see first, and most often.

According to the official statement, Facebook will “be making updates to [its News Feed] ranking so people have more opportunities to interact with the people they care about” — as in, their friends and family, instead of Pages.

Google My Business videos now live

Google has officially launched videos in the Google My Business Photos Dashboard. Merchants can now view videos added by customers and upload videos about their the business for customers to view.  They currently support videos up to 30 seconds in length.

How it works:

  • Videos will appear in the overview tab of the Google My Business Dashboard
  • Customer uploaded videos can be found in the ‘customer’ tab
  • Merchant uploaded videos can be found in the ‘by owner’ tab
  • All videos can be viewed together in the ‘videos’ tab
  • After upload it could take up to 24 hours for the videos to appear. Once live, they will display where local photos do.

In addition to uploading videos, merchants will have the ability to flag inappropriate videos through their dashboard. Native mobile support and notifications for new customer videos are coming soon.

New Google Search Console reports have more filtering options

Google’s new Search Console experience has some advanced filtering options that weren’t previously available when the public beta launched.

One of the most notable changes to the new Search Console is that reports now contain 16 months of data. Along with access to all this new data there are now new ways to filter it. Those who have access to the new Google Search Console can find the filters within the Search Performance report.

Thanks for checking out January’s Digital Marketing Round-up. We’ll see you next month!

About the Author

JannelleChemko

JannelleChemko

Numbers Ninja & Digital Dynamo
Jannelle Chemko has been working in Operations and Accounting since 2007. After earning a Bachelor’s Degree in English, she is now in the midst of her CGA designation.

As strange as it sounds, Jannelle is a numbers and a letters guru: in addition to extensive full-cycle accounting experience in the technology and retail industries, Jannelle is also passionate about writing. In between crunching numbers and building excel reports, she researches, creates content, and keeps up to date with digital trends.

When she’s not working to meet school and month-end deadlines, you can find Jannelle outside walking her dog, and enjoying the beautiful Vancouver air.
Follow Me On: Facebook

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