Full Transcription

[Introduction] – 00:00

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to This Week In Marketing show. Also known as a TWIMshow. I’m your host Sajid Islam and today. I’ll be going over the notable news and updates in the digital marketing space from the week of September 13, 2021

[Update 1 – LinkedIn Rolls Out Articles, Live Events for Pages & Creator Accelerator Program] – 00:14

OK, first of all, we’re gonna start with a LinkedIn, LinkedIn and actually has Published a couple of announcements. Number one is like in LinkedIn has rolled out articles for pages as well as live events for pages, and 3rd is LinkedIn has create accelerated program. So first of all what articles for pages are, is basically socially longform content for your company pages, which is basically, you know, a blogs. Up until now we have been able to do long form articles for a personal profile. LinkedIn has kind of opened it up for pages. That’s one. Number 2. For live events up until now, individual users have been able to go and, you know, go live on LinkedIn and do events. Now LinkedIn is bringing that feature again over to company pages where we can actually host events, and it has quite a few features which I really like with with also integration with Zapier. And now when you do live events, you can actually. Also, a replay, that option and reach more people. What I really like about Zapier is now you could have people who are signing up and connected to Zapier and put all the data into an Excel spreadsheet, building email system and things like that. All in all, check it out. You’re gonna love it. I am going to check it out as well and I’m gonna see how I can use that Next up. Creators accelerated program. You know it’s nothing new, which is something, you know, we’ve seen. TikTok do it. We’ve seen a Snapchat do it and they’ve been quite successful. LinkedIn is bringing it over to their side of the platform where they’re trying to spend about $25 million if I’m correct. And bring some creators and promote them and keep them on the platform. It’s great ’cause not everyone is going to be on TikTok. I cannot be on TikTok. I cannot. I don’t think I would really be doing well, nor should I be in Snapchat. I would consider going into the LinkedIn creators program. It’s an 8 week program. It’s just that I don’t have the time right now. But if you are in that thing, you know you’re a critical link and check it out.

[Update 2 – Facebook’s Invoice Fast Track Program & a New In-App Application Process for Grant & Loan Opportunities] – 02:16

Next up, let’s jump into Facebook again got a few updates from 2 updates from Facebook. Number one is that Facebook has this invoice fast track program where you apply you kind of if you’re approved, what you’re gonna do is you’re gonna turn your invoice over to Facebook. Facebook is gonna pay you and then Facebook becomes your collector. A debt collector, right. You’re selling. And by the way, this is a fixed right now. I do not know about you guys, but I have. I don’t know. I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I do not know how much you can trust them. The Facebook is going into the business world just because I think they’ll realize that, you know, they really dealt with the, you know, they have their future growth. But check it out if you are a business Gets paid 60 days, 90 days you if you qualify, Facebook is gonna give you the cash upfront cash. I’m sure they’re gonna give you some person ’cause. They’re gonna make their money, right? They’re not doing it for free. And maybe access to finance right now helps you. The other thing that Facebook is doing is that in app program where you will be able to apply for loans and grants. Through their app or if page admin through a business manager, you know it all sounds great, but up until the point where Facebook does not really. Clarify why they have you know they go around baning your account without due process. I really don’t trust anything coming out of Facebook. In fact, this week news came out that, you know, Facebook has this two tiered system where if you’re a politician or celebrity, you have a different set of rules and about 5.8 million people are in that group where you get special treatment code and code. Whereas you and me the general users, we get kicked in asses for doing anything that Facebook doesn’t like. So if last platform like that you know if a platform does that, how do you trust it? Right. You have no. So that’s why I’m not a big fan of Facebook. But if you like it, we’re gonna put the link to the programs in our show notes. Check it out. Let’s move on.

[Update 3 – Shopify Makes it Easy to Market to Specific Countries] – 04:20

Coming Coming on to staying on to eCom and let’s talk about Shopify, Shopify is really cranking up the heat on, you know, the eCom platform side. You know, I know everyones going into eCom, Facebook is in ecom, Instagram is any comp interest is in, it came in fact this week there are so many updates that I had to actually. Top of some of the updates from Pinterest, Instagram, things like that. But where Shopify is really makes the cut is like you know, now you can have one Shopify, you know, store one March or from one Shopify market. Merchants you can sell to different countries without having to deal with all the other overhead. Up until now you have to go to third party solutions. And Shopify saying you know what, no more come. We have one central database or central dashboard. From there you can manage everything and we’ll take care of the risk. Conversions, taxes, shipping, things like that. I like the program, right? Maybe that explains what Shopify is so great doing so well. The stock price is doing so well. But I don’t own Shopify. Stop maybe through some of the ETF’s I own, just disclosure Next up.

[Update 4 – Changing WordPress Themes Can Impact Your Google Rankings] – 05:26

This is from the Google SEO POV Don’t wear some people are like such as ourselves. We have our own website hosted on WordPress, and oftentimes you know we may think, hey, we wanna change our es. Well, Google, John Mueller aka the guy from Google who is up front and always talking about SCO stuff has said hey, sometimes when you change your themes. Your search rankings can drop or get affected, so that’s what he was saying. We’re gonna put a link to his video in our show notes where he’s saying, you know what you can do to kind of rectify that. But he’s saying sometimes, you know, because you’re changing themes, you know, the content displaying, heading, heading text and gonna change and things like that. And you might get affected. I will just wanted you to know that that is a possibility. So if you’re SEO guys or if your UI guy comes and say, hey, we want to totally revamp our website, keep that in the back of your head.

[Update 5 – Google: Ignore Mobile Usability Issue Notices If Your Site Passes Live Test] – 06:21

Next up in the SEO point of view. Thing where you know, sometimes we we we do get site owners get emails from Google Search Console saying you know hey your site has mobile issues right, mobile usability issues go fix them. Right. And Google’s John Mueller again is saying look sometimes we send that and that information is outdated. What you should really do is you should go to the. Google’s live mobile friendly test page, which is a link we’re gonna put into our, you know, show notes. But if you don’t wanna go to a show notes, you can just Google that and it’s gonna take you to a website run by Google. You can put in a URL if that test passes, then you’re good to go. You can ignore their report or. Email that’s coming out of Google search console. If that doesn’t pass, you’re gonna get a list of recommendations and what you need to do, and you go on from there. So hope this helps ’cause this is very valuable specially in this day and age when Google is really emphasizing on mobile.

[Update 6 – Google Ads Combining Smart and Standard Display Campaigns] – 07:21

On the Google Front however, non SEO front outside Google is combining smart and standard display ad campaigns into one display ad campaign. So basically what’s happening is that when you go to create and add you’re gonna just see one display ad campaigns and there you will have the option. Do you want an automated ads or do you want a manual display ads or you can customize things. All in all, I like this update because you know, it just gets easier. You don’t have to choose and you know if you are a newbie, you just say, hey, I want that automated ads, which again by the way, I am not a big fan of unless you’re spending a lot of money, you have a lot of data and you know what’s gonna do because this is all machine learning. If you’re spending the $25 a day or $50 a day, that’s not a lot of money. What’s gonna happen is and it just takes a lot of data, so you’re gonna spend the first 30 days, which is like $1500 to let the algorithm learn and figure things out, even if that is at all gonna happen, it might take longer if you’re spending like 500 to say 1000 to $5000 a day, that’s a lot of volume of data and your machine. Learning algorithm can really learn ’cause. Remember, machine learning is all about data, not just data, but quality of data and what you do and how you do. But overall I like this that it gives us advertisers the control to do things that the way we want to do, OK.

[Update 7 – Google Will Enforce Unique Product Identifiers on Free Merchant Listings] – 08:39

staying on Google but a little bit of different type of Google update which is a Google, will now enforce unique product identifiers on free merchant listings. We’ve covered this back a couple of months back where Google said, you know, anyone can update anyone can publish their inventory on Google Shopping list and you know they did couple of partnerships which Shopify Woo Commerce and I forgot what the other I think they also did it with Wix. But anyway now they’re saying you need to have a unique product. Identifier. If you don’t have a unique product identifier, chances are your shopping listing is not going to be showing up. What this unique identity product identifiers are. It’s basically it’s a it’s a global trade item number, manufacturer, part numbers, and brand names in the product feed that you submit through Google Merchant Center. I have an idea why Google is doing this. Basically, Google wants to kind of you know. Keep track of who is pushing what products to that their machine learning can figure out you know who like you know users she likes this kind of product, right? If everyone is giving their own individual names, then Google has a very hard time of what is work ’cause. After all, that’s one of the reasons why, you know, the US has 50 States and every state has this two letter. State ID right VA is VA version is, V8 is District of Columbia DC and Maryland is MD. Why is that? Well, that’s because people know it’s easier to classify and do things and I think that’s what when Google opened it up, they realize all these products are coming in and they have figured out you know, how the hell do we figure out why you know? Who’s selling what product and who’s liking what product? Right. Who’s bouncing off ’cause Google machine learning has to learn and do like this. So first, you know, they got the data and now, which is everyone publishing their, you know, shopping inventory into Google Now they’re tightening up the North, which is a good thing. Actually, if you ask me. Anyways.

[Update 8 – YouTube Partners Can Appeal via Video] – 10:25

Moving on from Google to YouTube. It is, you know, Google. YouTube now has this apples process. If your channel video was suspended, rejected from a YouTube partner program, even if your video was, you know, for some reason it was banned, you can. Follow the traditional route and filing a request form that says hey, please review manually review my video and write all sorts of stuff. But if you’re like me and you want to do like you know you wanna rather talk about it rather than typing about it ’cause you have expression ’cause, you know, sometimes writing in English could take a long time, and you have to make sure that the person reading it can understand ’cause you know they have reviewers and you know, verifiers around the world, you could just do a video. All in all, I like this idea. On YouTube, just because it makes them easier to talk. But by the way, the video cannot be more than 5 minutes long. I’m gonna put the apples process link in our show, no space. So for some reason you want to find it, go ahead and find it in. You can find it there and you can go there and do read the rest.
[Update 9 – YouTube Community Posts is Now Available to Channels with 500+ Subscribers] – 11:29
Next up on the YouTube front as well as it’s a great news that You Tube has this community post feature, which is of course up until today or up until this week, was only open to channels that has over 1000 people subscribers. And you know now they’re lowering the threshold to like, no, you have to have 500 people on subscribed to your channel and then you will you will get this community post showing up on your channel. I like it. But again, our channel doesn’t have 500 people yet, so you know I think we need to work on that. But do you say right,

[Update 10 – YouTube Shared How Its Recommendation System Works] – 12:00

OK, with that Next up and this is I believe that last update of this weekend, the most important update of this week is that YOUTUBES has published how their recommendation system works and how the keyword things works. What I will talk about in is this a lot of technical stuff, you know, very good published how their recommendation system works and how the keyword things works, but I will talk about is this a lot of technical stuff. You know very goes very deep, talks well, I shouldn’t say very technical stuff. It just talks about the whole overview, the algorithm, how the world works, right. you should definitely check out a show notes where we I’m gonna put the link in, but very quickly what they look for is clicks. The you know is when people see that clip when see the video, are they clicking on it? How many people are clicking it, how much they’re watching? How go figure? Didn’t we all know that watch time? How much are people staying on your channel on that video on your channel because that kind of signals to YouTube that hey, maybe this is a good video. Idea. If you can hire someone to watch your full video, that’s great. OK, sharing likes, dislikes again. That’s indication to YouTube. Again, this is machine learning, right? If you have, if you have like 200 friends who can watch your video share, like, dislike and things like that, well, I don’t think you should ask your friends. It’s like a video, but maybe share like that would be good. YouTube likes that. And survey responses right. A YouTube conducts regular viewer service to find out if your users are having good experiencing the app. If you are watching a 20 minute clip, YouTube may ask you if you enjoy the clip and give you the star rating to guide to better guide this recommendation. So things like that very simple, but you know it goes deeper into things like you know how they. They look at borderline, borderline materials, things that are on the grey in the Gray area. They’re not really a direct, you know, it’s like if you’re talking with misinformation, you don’t directly band right. Your video is bad, your video and go anywhere. But you know, if you were talking about COVID and other things, that’s just a gray area. And that’s when they’re gonna talk. Have a human evaluate your video or human will assess the quality of information. Each of the video and it goes over four points in the four points are does the content deliver on his promise or achieve his goal? What kind of expertise is needed to achieve the video goal? What’s the reputation of the speaker in the video on the channel? It is on what is the main topic of the video news, sports, history sites etc. And lastly is the content primarily meant to be satire? Well, I said four, there is actually five of them. So I think I need to learn to count. But overall folks, it’s a great information. Definitely check it out because this will really help you gain. A bigger rich on YouTube, I think I am going to use this to create our better YouTube videos for our channel.

[Closing] – 14:50

 

With that folks, that’s it for this week in marketing. Now you know everything to be in the know for this week. Once again this is your host Sajid Islam signing off until next week. Take care. Bye bye.

Thank you for tuning in this week, it was a pleasure to serve you all. Hit the subscribe button so that you remember to sign on next week. Same place, same time for another round of This Week In Marketing.

1. LinkedIn Rolls Out Articles, Live Events for Pages & Creator Accelerator Program (0:14) – LinkedIn users have long been able to publish longer content from their personal accounts. Company pages, on the other hand, have been restricted by an arbitrary character count. LinkedIn’s new Articles For Pages gives companies the ability to publish long-form content for the first time, rather than being restricted by a character count.

In addition, company pages are getting a new way to produce live content through an all-new product called LinkedIn Live Events, which combines live streaming with event planning. The simplified experience allows companies to:

  • Promote a Livestream in advance to a targeted audience
  • Notify registrants and select Page followers when the event goes live
  • Generate views on the event page from anyone on LinkedIn, whether they’ve hit “Attend” or not, during and after the show.
  • Share the replay of the live content for further reach and engagement.

LinkedIn is rolling out additional updates to Live Events to make the feature accessible and easy to use.

  • Fewer followers are required for access to LinkedIn Live
  • Automated and expedited review process for LinkedIn Live applicants
  • All Page admins can go live once a Page is approved
  • An expanded registration form for Events
  • A lead management integration with Zapier

It may not seem like the most obvious choice for creators, but LinkedIn is also looking to tap into the emerging creator economy, with the launch of its own ‘Creator Accelerator’ initiative to support in-app talent, and keep its top voices posting to the platform. The ultimate goal, of course, is to get these popular users to keep posting to LinkedIn more often, which will help drive on-platform engagement. You can find out more info, and apply for a spot in the LinkedIn Creator Accelerator Program here.

 

2. Facebook’s Invoice Fast Track Program & a New In-App Application Process for Grant & Loan Opportunities (2:16) – Facebook’s launching an expansion of its Invoice Fast Track program, which enables SMBs to apply for Facebook to buy up their outstanding invoices, providing immediate cash flow benefits.

As explained by Facebook:

“For a low, fixed fee, eligible businesses can get cash immediately for the goods and services they’ve invoiced their customers for but would otherwise have to wait months to get paid – time and capital they can now use to invest in the recovery and growth of their companies. We will fund up to $100 million in invoices on an ongoing basis and are operating the program in partnership with Supplier Success and Crowdz.”

Through the program, eligible businesses can submit their invoices to Facebook, which Facebook will then pay immediately. Facebook then notifies the relevant customers that they’ll pay the Facebook Invoice Fast Track program when the invoices reach term – so essentially, Facebook becomes a debt collector of sorts on the business’s behalf, while the business doesn’t have to wait around for the cash.

Businesses can find more information on the program at the dedicated Invoice Fast Track mini-site.

And on the opportunities side, Facebook is launching a new in-app application process for grant and loan opportunities, making it easier for SMBs to access resources and information.

The new resource showcase will highlight grant opportunities and business education programs, as well as SMB groups that can help provide guidance and support. Facebook’s partnering with a range of ‘mission-driven’ organizations for the initiative, which are focused on providing resources to owners from underserved communities, in order to ensure that such opportunities are reaching those most in need.

Business Page Admins will be able to access this new experience on Facebook by clicking on Business Resources and Small Business Funding.

As per Facebook’s latest State of Small Business report, more than 60% of small businesses are facing some form of difficulty in paying business-related expenses, as the COVID crisis drags on, and while the end is now seemingly in view, it’ll still be too far off for many to remain in operation at the current impact rates.

 

3. Shopify Makes it Easy to Market to Specific Countries (4:20) – Up until now, if a business wanted to reach a global market, they’d have to sell on a marketplace or through another retailer. Shopify Markets is a new solution that will allow businesses to manage cross-border storefronts from a central hub. This eliminates the the need for a third party and allows businesses to sell directly to international consumers.

With Shopify Markets merchants can sell outside of their home country without having to worry about complexities like currency conversion, language localization, providing local payment methods, and duty and import taxes. All cross-border tools are available to Shopify merchants right out of the box.

With Shopify Markets, you can:

  • Easily enter new markets
  • Create tailored experiences for each market
  • Customize variable such as:
    • Local currencies and payment methods
    • Pricing and price rounding rules per market
    • Product availability per market
    • Local languages
    • Local domains with automatic SEO optimization
    • Automatically show the right currency / language based on buyer country
    • Duties and import taxes on behalf of the buyer to eliminate surprise costs at product delivery
    • Gain access to actionable insights and smart settings for each market
  • Manage everything from a single place

Shopify store owners can target single country markets, or create custom markets by grouping multiple countries together.

Shopify Markets is available in early access globally as of September 14, and will roll out to all merchants in the coming months.

 

4. Changing WordPress Themes Can Impact Your Google Rankings (5:26) – Google’s John Mueller said in one of his #AskGooglebot short video answers that changing your WordPress theme can directly impact your rankings in Google Search. It obviously depends on what is changing with the website when you change the theme, but in general, it can impact your Google rankings.

John first said that often when it comes to site themes, it is often more than just a splash of color on your web site. Often, the theme can impact how:

  • Content is displayed including, headings, text and images
  • Internal linking and the site navigation
  • Page load time and speed
  • Content options Structured data use

John then gave some tips on how to see if changing a theme impact your rankings at a high level, so watch the video here.

 

5. Google: Ignore Mobile Usability Issue Notices If Your Site Passes Live Test (6:21) – Google’s John Mueller said that if your page passes the live mobile usability test – that means you can ignore the Search Console notices of “new mobile usability issues detected for site.” So as long as you pass the live mobile friendly test, you are good to go.

Why might your site pass the live test and you would still get these notices? Well, those email notices can be days late from what you might see on the live site. So if you fixed the issue already, and the live test picked up on it, then you are good.

 

6. Google Ads Combining Smart and Standard Display Campaigns (7:21) – Beginning this month, Google Ads will combine standard Display campaigns and Smart Display campaigns into a single option. In addition, Google Ads will also be introducing optimized targeting to Display campaigns.

When advertisers create a new campaign, they’ll see the new Display campaign type. During the setup process, advertisers can choose what to automate or control manually, and they can change their automation choices at any time without having to create a new campaign.

As explained by Google:

“In the new Display campaign experience, you’ll have all of the reach and performance you’re used to, with the ability to choose the level of automation you prefer in bidding, creatives and audiences. A smooth setup process will allow you to choose between automation or control up front, and you’ll have the flexibility to change your automation choices at any time – without creating a new campaign.”

Essentially, the new process will merge Google’s Smart Display campaigns and regular Display creation into one flow, which will provide more ways to automate your ad targeting, or specific elements of your process that you want to use automation for.

In addition to this, Google’s also adding optimized targeting to Display campaigns, which provides additional automatic audience targeting options for Display advertisers.

 

7. Google Will Enforce Unique Product Identifiers on Free Merchant Listings (8:39) – Starting September 15, 2021, Google has begun enforcing the requirement of products having unique product identifiers in the merchant feeds for free listings.

Google said a unique product identifier, also known as UPIs, are considered products that include Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs), Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs), and brand names in the product feed you submit to Google Merchant Center.

Google said it may disapprove product feeds if they do not have UPIs. Google said “different products that use the same GTIN with the same variant attributes will be considered ambiguous and will be disapproved.” This includes “variant attributes” that include condition [condition] and multipack [multipack] for all products, as well as color [color] and [size] for apparel products, the company said. Also, Google said “if a group of products are identified as duplicates, only one will remain active and eligible to show in free listings.”

If you are taking advantage of the free Google Merchant Center and you are not using UPIs on your products in those feeds, you may soon start seeing those products being rejected and disapproved. Your next steps is to ensure you have UPIs on those products in those feeds. You can find a list of these approved unique product identifiers over here in the Google help docs.

 

8. YouTube Partners Can Appeal via Video (10:25) – If your channel was suspended or rejected from the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), you can create a video explaining more about your content and why you believe an appeal is necessary. Our teams will view your video and make an assessment – if found to comply with our policies, we’ll either approve your channel for YPP or turn monetization back on within 30 days. Upon review, your channel will be assessed in its current state. This means you should not delete videos before submitting your video appeal.

You can read more about the appeal process here.

 

9. YouTube Community Posts is Now Available to Channels with 500+ Subscribers (11:29) – YouTube has announced that content creators with just 500 subscribers can now access and make Community posts. Earlier, at least 1000 subscribers were required to get access to YouTube Community. But starting from October 12, 2021, any YouTube channel owner with just 500 subscribers will be eligible

 

10. YouTube Shared How Its Recommendation System Works (12:00) – YouTube has published a new overview of how its content recommendations system works, which is one of the central drivers of video reach and views on the platform, and may help YouTube marketers get a better understanding of what guides optimal response. If you are interested in increasing your presence and reach on YouTube then this is a must visit article for you.

Per YouTube:

“Our recommendation system is built on the simple principle of helping people find the videos they want to watch and that will give them value. You can find recommendations at work in two main places: your homepage and the “Up Next” panel. Your homepage is what you see when you first open YouTube – it displays a mixture of personalized recommendations, subscriptions, and the latest news and information. The Up Next panel appears when you’re watching a video and suggests additional content based on what you’re currently watching, alongside other videos that we think you may be interested in.”

Here are some of the key notes on exactly how YouTube’s recommendations process works.

  • Clicks – The videos you click on provide YouTube with a direct indicator of your interest in the content. But it’s not always the thing that defines your experience. For example, you might click through on a video looking for something, then not find it in that specific clip, so that click, in itself, is not a strong indicator of what you want. Which is why YouTube also measures ‘Watch time’ as an additional qualifier.
  • Watch-time – As it sounds, watch-time measures how long you actually watch each video you click on for, which helps YouTube recommend more specific content aligned with your interests: “So if a tennis fan watched 20 minutes of Wimbledon highlight clips, and only a few seconds of match analysis video, we can safely assume they found watching those highlights more valuable.”
  • Sharing, Likes, Dislikes – YouTube also measures your share and like activity, another direct response measurement in the app. “Our system uses this information to try to predict the likelihood that you will share or like further videos. If you dislike a video, that’s a signal that it probably wasn’t something you enjoyed watching.”
  • Survey Responses – Finally, and in addition to these explicit response indicators, YouTube also conducts regular viewer surveys to find out if users are having a good experience in the app. For example, if you watch a clip for 20 minutes, YouTube may ask you if you enjoyed the clip, and to give it a star rating to better guide its recommendation systems.

“So if you like tennis videos and our system notices that others who like the same tennis videos as you also enjoy jazz videos, you may be recommended jazz videos, even if you’ve never watched a single one before.”

YouTube does also note that it is working to limit exposure to what it identifies ‘low quality content’. YouTube also bans content that includes false health claims (like COVID conspiracy clips), while it’s also taking more steps to address political misinformation.

In seeking to limit the reach of borderline clips – those that don’t necessarily break the platform’s rules, but do present potentially harmful material – YouTube uses human evaluators to assess the quality of information in each channel or video. To determine ‘authoritativeness’, YouTube says that its evaluators answer a few key questions:

  • Does the content deliver on its promise or achieve its goal?
  • What kind of expertise is needed to achieve the video goal?
  • What’s the reputation of the speaker in the video and the channel it’s on?
  • What’s the main topic of the video (eg. News, Sports, History, Science, etc)?
  • Is the content primarily meant to be satire?

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