Summer has officially come to an end, however, there is no end in sight for the updates from our favourite digital giants. In this month’s digital round-up, we’ve covered new features and updates from LinkedIn, TikTok, and Instagram, as well as Google’s new helpful content algorithm update. Keep reading to stay up to date:
Contents
LinkedIn Visual Updates for Content Creators
LinkedIn has made recent developments to add more visual features for content creators. These updates include:
- Clickable links for images or videos: drive your audience to a specific URL with an image button
- Eye-catching templates: much like Facebook, LinkedIn has created visual templates to help engage your followers using shorter questions or phrases
- Swipeable Video & Image Carousels: build awareness by educating your audience with both image and video content in carousels coming this autumn
Here’s an example from LinkedIn’s Head of Community Management, Andrei Santalo:
Updates for Instagram Reels Including Community Stickers
The Head of Instagram shared a recent tweet to highlight the new features for reels. You can now engage your community with “Add Yours” stickers in reels for fun & entertaining content. This has been a feature in stories since late last year and enables the ability to attribute credit to trendsetters, by linking back to the original content. You are also now able to cross-post from Instagram to Facebook, which makes it easier to share across platforms. This will give greater insights by allowing you to track engagement across the different channels.
Social Media Trends for Teens in 2022
Pew Research Center has released its findings from recent surveys across different social media platforms, with evidence for teen trends including the most used social channels. Unsurprisingly, Facebook has seen a massive drop in teen users although 30% of those aged 13 to 17 still have an account. YouTube is the most active social platform for teens, with 95% of the demographic actively viewing content. TikTok has more recently entered the arena with a bang, with 67% of teens now engaged. Instagram & Snapchat have both seen an increase in usage. Twitter, Tumblr & Reddit continue to make a slow decline for teen users.
How will this research inform your targeting across channels to reach a teen audience? Are there any surprises that you weren’t so aware of? Let us know in the comment section.
LinkedIn Improves Search Results For Posts
LinkedIn is revamping its search architecture for posts, which will contribute to faster and more accurate results with the help of machine learning. LinkedIn is set to create a system that considers the following:
- Relevance of the post to a query
- Quality of the post
- Personalisation
- User intent
- Engagement
- Freshness/recency
LinkedIn also shared its future action plan for improving search results. It will focus on expanding document understanding capabilities to include handling multimedia content such as images, short-form videos, and audio.
YouTube Adds New Podcasts Section
According to a 2022 study by Edison Research, YouTube is the most popular platform for listening to podcasts, with Spotify a close second.
YouTube has now added a new Podcasts “Explore” page that makes it easier to discover new podcasts. The new Explore page for podcasts will help improve visibility and the menu navigation makes it easy for audiences to browse their preferred genre of content.
TikTok Introduces 3 Types Of Shopping Ads
TikTok continues its e-commerce push with three types of shopping ads with expanded placement options that go beyond the For You page.
The three ad types include:
- Video shopping ads – allows advertisers to create shippable videos for display on the For You page.
- Catalogue listing ads – allows advertisers to promote product images directly from a catalogue in shoppable placements.
- Live shopping ads – The ads help direct people from the For You page to a live shopping event.
The new advertising formats are accessible in TikTok Ads manager through buying objective ‘Product Sales’. Shopping ads are available for testing now, giving marketers to prep for the holiday season.
Google Introduces Digital Out-of-Home to Display and Video 360
Google has made it simpler for marketers to create multi-platform campaigns by introducing digital out-of-home advertising into its Display and Video 360 ad planning tool.
This addition enables brands to buy digital screens in public places, such as at bus stops, airports and stadiums. Digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising spaces can be bought or changed in almost real-time, which capitalises on the efficiency of digital channels while allowing brands to utilize screens of all shapes and sizes within one ecosystem.
This update will be especially useful for brands with an international footprint to reach global audiences with just one dashboard. Asos, one of the first brands to try out the new feature, generated 22m viewed impressions and significant improvements in brand awareness/consideration.
Helpful Content Algorithm Update Will Change How Google Prioritises Content
Google has begun rolling out updates to the helpful content algorithm, which will reward people-first content, and devalue content that doesn’t reach its user experience standards.
‘Search-engine first’ content will be demoted, and more useful content, which Google finds to be written by humans, will be rewarded.
Google said this is an “ongoing effort to reduce low-quality content and make it easier to find content that feels authentic and useful in Search.”
If you experience any ranking or visibility changes in Google Search over the next two weeks, you can likely attribute it to this update. SEO strategies may need to be updated to ensure website content fulfils its rank potential.
