We’re halfway through the summer months and the digital marketing landscape has been adapted for our post-covid world. To read about all of updates from July, check out this month’s digital marketing round-up.
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Introducing: Instagram Shop
Instagram Shop is an in-app shopping destination where people can discover products and brands they love from across Instagram. Public testing of Instagram Shop has started in the US and will expand globally in the coming weeks.
Instagram Shop features personalized recommendations to people based on the accounts they already follow and businesses using Instagram Shopping. Businesses can be featured on Instagram Shop by consistently tagging products in their content.
Instagram to launch a TikTok competitor in the US next month
Facebook is reportedly planning to bring Instagram Reels, a direct competitor to TikTok, to the US in August.
Reels, which currently exclusive to a handful of countries, will be coming to the US and 50+ other countries.
Instagram Reels shares a number of the same features with TikTok, such as:
- Users can create and share 15-second videos.
- Users can add their own audio to videos, or choose a song from a catalog of licensed music.
- Users can grab original audio from other videos and add it to their own.
- Popular clips will be housed in a “Featured Reels” section.
Instagram’s pinned comments feature is rolling out to everyone now
Instagram started the official rollout of its pinned comment feature, which the company first began testing back in May. The feature lets any user pin three comments on a post to the top of a thread, and it’s designed to allow the author of a post to better control the tone of the comment thread through highlighting positivity and moderating more negative and abusive responses that show up below the pinned comments.
Broadcast live to Facebook with up to 50 people in Messenger Rooms
Turning your room into a Facebook Live broadcast makes it easy to go live with up to 50 people. Whether you’re hosting a book club with friends, interviewing a panel of experts, teaching a fitness class, or broadcasting with your friends for fun, going live from a room lets you interact with audiences of any size.
Facebook: most-liked posts are not the most viewed
Facebook posts that receive the most engagement are usually seen by a small percentage of people, says Facebook’s Head of News Feed John Hegeman.
According to Hegeman, lists of top performing content do not represent what most people see on Facebook.
“While some link posts get a lot of interactions, likes or comments, this content is a tiny % of what most people see on FB. News from these Pages don’t represent the most viewed news stories on FB, either.”
Messenger expands screen sharing to iOS and Android
Screen sharing allows people to instantly share their screen with friends and family one-on-one or in a group video call with up to eight people and up to 16 people in Rooms while using Messenger on their mobile devices.
Digiday reveals 56% of advertisers paused Facebook spend in July
A small survey conducted by Digiday reveals that 56% of media buyers surveyed confirm their clients paused their July Facebook spending in accordance with the Stop Hate for Profit movement.
Introducing the $200M TikTok Creator Fund
“To further support our creators, we’re launching the TikTok Creator Fund to encourage those who dream of using their voices and creativity to spark inspirational careers. The US fund will start with $200 million to help support ambitious creators who are seeking opportunities to foster a livelihood through their innovative content. The fund will be distributed over the coming year and is expected to grow over that time.”
[UPDATE – July 29]: We have seen an incredible response to the Creator Fund and are excited to share that we expect this Fund will grow to over $1 billion in the US in the next 3 years, and more than double that globally. We will be sharing more information about the application process soon!
Pinterest tops 400 million monthly active users
More than 400 million people around the world now come to Pinterest every month to find inspiration. And Pinterest’s fastest growing segment are now Gen Zers (under 25’s).
YouTube is finally letting creators know exactly how they’re making money on YouTube
YouTube is finally gathering all of a creator’s numbers in one place and giving that information to creators in the form of a new monetization metric called RPM. RPM shows a creator’s total revenue (both from ads and other monetization areas) after YouTube takes the cut. This doesn’t represent a change to how much creators are making. Rather, it helps creators better understand where they’re making their money and how the revenue share breaks down.
LinkedIn now helps others pronounce your name correctly
LinkedIn as added an audio recording feature to your Profile so you’ll have the ability to create a recording of your name pronunciation, which will then be clickable on your profile. Once you add a recording, other members visiting your profile can quickly listen to the recording to better understand your pronunciation preference and, subsequently, ensure they can correctly say your name. You can also listen to other members’ pronunciations by visiting their profiles when they have added a recording.
Buy on Google is now open and commission-free
Soon, sellers who participate in the Buy on Google checkout experience will no longer have to pay a commission fee. And, Google is giving retailers more choice by opening their platform to third-party providers—starting with PayPal and Shopify.
Google Maps goes social giving each user their own profile
Google Maps is giving users their own profiles that other users can follow which compiles all their submitted photos, videos, and reviews.
This is an extension of a pilot feature rolled out last year that allowed users to follow select Local Guides and get their latest updates. Following the success of the pilot launch, Google is expanding this functionality worldwide to all users.
Google Search allegedly boosts YouTube results ahead of competitors
Google prefers ranking content from YouTube over other video sources, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal.
When Facebook and other competitors host a video that also appears on YouTube, Google will allegedly push the YouTube result ahead of others in search results. The Wall Street Journal claims tests show YouTube ends up first in the Google Search video carousel more often than not. Further, YouTube results frequently take up most of the slots in Google’s video carousels.
Google creates a new way to drive traffic via image search
Google is adding more context to photos in image search results, which presents site owners with a new opportunity to earn traffic.
Information about people, places or things related to the image is pulled from Google’s Knowledge Graph and displayed underneath photos when they’re clicked on.
Introducing new features for responsive search ads
To help you create more relevant responsive search ads, you can now use location insertion to dynamically add where your product or service is offered. Once set up, your ad will automatically include city, state, or country names based on the locations of potential customers or their areas of interest.
In addition, countdown customizers are now available to help you promote sales and events in your responsive search ads. For example, let’s say you own a flower shop and have a limited-time promotion on roses. With this feature, your ad will now automatically show how much time is left on the deal–making sure potential customers won’t miss out on your special offer.
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Thanks for checking out July’s Digital Marketing Round-up.
We’ll see you next month!
Photo Source: Glen Carrie on Unsplash
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