Summer is always an exciting time, but if you work in digital marketing, it can be quite fun to see lots of announcements from industry leaders. We’ve covered the new updates and features from Google, Meta, TikTok and many more brands that we love. Keep reading to stay up to date:
Contents
Announcements From the Google I/O Conference
During the Google I/O conference, there were many announcements of new features across Google products, with some interesting additions in Search.
Google is redefining Google Search once more by combining various types of information with text, voice, visuals and more. The aim is to provide a more intuitive approach to help you find useful information about whatever you can see or hear around you.
Multisearch
First up is Multisearch, which was recently released. This allows you to combine images and text at the same time and ask questions about the thing that you see.
It’s simple to use, just open up the Google app on Android or iOS, and tap the Lens camera icon. You can then either search one of your screenshots or take a photo, then swipe up and tap the “+ Add to your search” button to add text.
This then enables you to ask a question about the image or refine the search by colour or brand or another visual aspect.
The latest feature to this that’s been announced is adding local information to the search with “near me” to help you find local restaurants and retailers.
Scene Exploration
Another new search feature called Scene Exploration was also announced which allows you to “pan your camera and instantly glean insights about multiple objects in a wider scene.”
Currently, visual searches with Google can capture information about an object in a single frame. However, in the future, this new feature will be added to Multisearch to allow you to pan your camera across a scene and instantly have information and insights overlaid.
Recurring Notifications On Facebook Messenger
Facebook has recently announced that they will start letting businesses send automated and recurring messages to people who have opted-in to receiving them.
We are super excited about this update because you can now be a lot more proactive on Facebook and use Messenger as a tool to remind people of your brand. The way this will work is once someone messages a business on Messenger, that business will have 24 hours to reply to the message, after which they can ask for you to opt-in to receive recurring messages from them. Before you opt-in, you’ll be able to see how frequent these messages will be sent.
As a business you’ll be allowed to send people sale notifications, newsletters, and business updates.
This will be a great tool for many businesses, big or small. It doesn’t require as much time and effort as a social media post or a newsletter, plus it’s very to the point so there is no way people that are interested can miss these updates.
We currently don’t know when we’ll be able to use this feature but this is definitely one to keep an eye on.
Separate Data Tabs For Different Types of Youtube Content
There are so many different types of content available on Youtube now (e.g Youtube shorts or Youtube live), that one of the most requested features from content creators was the ability to see data for different types of content separately.
Youtube has once again listened to its audience and delivered. You will soon be able to see a new ‘Content’ tab on Youtube Studio which, when clicked into, will show you different tabs for each content type. By clicking into these tabs you’ll be able to see the performance of your content sorted by content type and will be able to compare similar content against each other this way.
We’re all about getting access to more data and insights here, so we’re very much looking forward to getting our hands on more! Let us know what you think.
Imagine Any Photorealistic Scene with Google’s ‘Imagen’
Google has launched their new research project into a text-to-image generator that produces photorealistic scenes. ‘Imagen’ is an AI system that encodes input text to produce a visualisation of the descriptive language. It will not be released to the public for the time being as Google are still trying to develop safeguarding technology so that the software cannot be abused to generate harmful imagery. It is a similar concept to DALL•E which was launched at the start of 2021. If this can be made available in the future, it could have so much potential for offering marketers amazing concept realisation for digital campaigns.
Some of our favourite results from Imagen so far are *cuteness incoming*:
A cute corgi lives in a house made out of sushi.
A marble statue of a Koala DJ in front of a marble statue of a turntable. The Koala is wearing large marble headphones.
Teddy bears swimming at the Olympics 400m Butterfly event.
Twitter Launches New ‘Twitter Create’ Mini-Site to Highlight Monetisation Opportunities For Creators
Twitter has launched a new ‘Twitter Create’ mini-site, which will host a range of tips, insights and examples designed to help creators maximise their Twitter presence.
The new site, which you can check out here, includes specific sections for creators in different verticals to help guide them on creating new content, giving opportunities to learn from their peers and view resources tailored to specific industries.
TikTok Announces New WooCommerce Plugin
TikTok has announced a new integration with WooCommerce which will allow WooCommerce merchants to sync their store catalogue with their TikTok profile, boosting its more advanced product display offerings.
With the TikTok for WooCommerce integration, advertisers can fine-tune their product offerings, install the most advanced TikTok pixel for campaign performance tracking in a single click, and create an ad to target their audience effectively.
Google Rolls Out New Ad Tools Including Youtube Shorts Promotions
Google has announced a range of new ad updates at its recent Marketing Live event, including new opportunities to advertise within YouTube Shorts, new layouts for Responsive Display Ads, improved analytics, new ad testing options, and more.
To help marketers leverage Shorts, Google is integrating Shorts placement into its ‘Video Action and App campaigns’, which will allow brands to link product feeds into their Shorts promotions, making Shorts promos much more shoppable, by offering direct product links directly in-stream.
Google will soon be adding new video options into its Discover Feeds for users to scroll through their favourite personalised content for ideas and inspiration. Google is exploring ways to use short video assets for compelling and engaging ad experiences.
Google’s also updating its Performance Max Campaigns, with A/B testing, and support for store sales goals to optimise in-store sales including audience, auction insights, and optimisation score and recommendations.
Performance Max campaigns allow advertisers to effectively extend their Search ad efforts, by enabling Google’s system to showcase your promotions across platforms.
