We left another year of digital marketing updates behind! Can you believe it?
From brand new tools and features to updates to our favourite apps and digital platforms, we’ve already covered so much this year. Go ahead take a look at what happened during the last few weeks of 2021:
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Instagram’s ‘Take a Break’ Feature
If your New Year’s resolution is to spend less time on social media, this new feature is for you. Instagram can now remind you to take breaks if you set up reminders from your account.
The ‘Take a Break’ feature is currently only available for iPhone users, however, both iPhone and Android users can set a daily limit on Instagram. Here’s how to do both:
- Go to your Instagram profile on the Instagram app.
- Tap the three lines at the top right of your screen and choose ‘Your Activity’.
- In the Time tab, you’ll see options to either ‘Set a reminder to take breaks’ or ‘Set daily time limit’.
You will then get a pop up saying either you’ve reached your time limit, or that you should take a break from Instagram. It’s of course up to you if you want to ignore this pop up, but we all need reminders sometimes. Let us know if you’ll be using these features in the new year!
Youtube’s ‘Places Mentioned’ Feature
There is a new link format coming to Youtube video description boxes. This new feature is coming to the Youtube app on Android and iOS devices and will be available for videos in the ‘Food & Drinks’ category.
‘Places Mentioned’ feature will automatically link to the detected places like restaurants in the video description box and is said to give viewers an engaging and visual way to learn more about the places mentioned in the video, without the creator having to manually add it.
So far we don’t know how this feature will look or when it will be rolled out, however with what we know now, we can definitely say this will be an exciting update to see, especially if it gets rolled out to more categories. They will provide a huge benefit for the businesses mentioned in these videos.
The Resurrection of Email Marketing
Reports of the death of email marketing appear to have been greatly exaggerated. According to Kate Adams, SVP Marketing at Validity, email in 2021 was up 94% in volume when compared to 2020 and is anticipated to be up again in 2022.
Whilst some platforms have suffered due to the pandemic, email has remained strong and one of the key reasons for this is the capacity it has for personalisation. Email personalisation has moved far beyond just adding in the recipient’s first name or organisation.
A proper data-driven approach to personalisation allows an organisation to use automation to target their subscribers when they have taken a certain action such as viewing a product, making a purchase, or abandoning a shopping cart and if the trends are anything to go by, one of the oldest forms of digital marketing looks to be remaining one of the most valuable.
YouTube Studio app is updated with more desktop-like features
YouTube creators are getting more opportunities to manage their channels and monitor performance on the go with a suite of new features.
Creators now have new search filters for comments, including whether comments contain questions, whether they have responded to a comment, whether the commenter is a subscriber and more.
This will enable them to maximise their engagement with their fans without the need to log on to a desktop computer. It will now also be possible to appeal monetisation decisions using the app.
The analytics tool on the app has also been upgraded and given a similar range of features to the desktop version, giving insights into returning viewers, view count and more.
Google has said that they will work to ensure that any new metrics added to the desktop version will also be available on the mobile platform.
Twitter Adds Auto Captions for All Video Uploads in Tweets
Twitter has announced that all videos uploaded within tweets will now have automatic captions enabled, providing more ways for users to consume video content in the app. That’s a great step to help marketers produce content for global audiences.
Captions will be activated for in-stream videos on both iOS and Android, as well as for desktop users.
Twitter’s auto-captions are available in 37 languages for now, and while translation is not available as yet, the captions will appear in the language of the device used to upload the clip.
Instagram has officially launched Reels Visual Replies
Yes, these visual replies will be a comment reply to a reel which will pop up as a sticker.
It’s another interesting way to boost engagement and integrate Reels into the platform’s mechanism.
Instagram has been working hard to get hold of the trending short-form video trend, and quite unsurprisingly, this new feature is identical to the same feature that TikTok added in June 2021.
Google’s New Product Reviews Update
Google has launched the second product review update and it’s intended to help websites that offer in-depth reviews that help users make an informed buying decision.
Google has also listed two new best practices that you can use to improve your product reviews and overall website ranking.
1) Include more multimedia in your product reviews to support your expertise and showcase authentic content
2) Provide links to multiple sellers, which will give your readers options to purchase from the merchant of their choice.
This new update will promote review content better than the age-old templated information available online.
Google will be promoting these in-depth product reviews in their rankings. If your website is offering product review content, it is important that you check how your rankings have been impacted because of the update.
It is, therefore, useful to ensure you add more details into your product review content so that it stands out in the long run.
What’s your take on these recent updates from Digital? Do let us know in the comments section below.
