Full Transcription

[Introduction] – 00:00

Hey everyone, welcome back to episode 87 of the TWIMshow. This is 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 December 13 2021.

 

[Update 1 – Revisiting Microsoft’s 2021 Consumer Retail Trends Predictions] – 00:13

First of, we are going to start off with Microsoft. So Microsoft had an interesting update this week where they went back and they said, hey, in early
2021, we made some predictions and let’s look back now that it’s been a few months. Let’s look back and see how accurate the predictions has been. If you’ve been following us, you know, from time to time we talk about such and
such is predicting that this is the trend. This is going to catch on and things like that. But we never really get a chance to come back and really see how accurate these predictions were. So voila Microsoft is doing this for us as a favor. Okay, so Microsoft made predictions in five categories. Out of those five, only one came true. So what does that mean? That not everything that these platforms predict or based on the data and everything is not always accurate.
Always take that with us in a grain of salt. It’s what this is all about. Right? So if, for example, someone is predicting or if a platform, let’s just say, for example, Facebook is predicting that online such and such or Metaverse is going to pick up Metaverse is the future. And actually, you know what? This is not an example. Facebook is touting that Metaverse is the future. By 2030, the 1 billion with the B people are going to be using the Metaverse, right? That’s what Mark Zuckerberg quoted shared last week. So if that’s the truth now, you
know, Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know any better. He’s just making predictions. As a CEO as a leader, he has to do that to say how much he stand behind it. But he could be equally wrong. So don’t feel like you’re missing out again.
I’m not saying always stand by the side of the road and don’t do anything. Take it to the grain of salt.

[Update 2 – Instagram Publishes The Trending Topics For 2022] – 02:10

And let’s move on to the next one. The next one is also Instagram publishes the trending topics for 2022. Now, I bet this donkey to death in terms of prediction, things like that. So take it with a grain of salt. We will go ahead and put the link to this prediction report just in case if you’re interested to see what my Instagram thing is going to happen in that arena. But again, I wouldn’t lose my sleep over this report if I’m way off of that report. Right? If you’re making money, if you’re on track and your customers are happy, that’s all it matters with that.

[Update 3 – Instagram Adds New Option to Embed User Profiles on Third-Party Websites] – 02:48

Let’s move on to the other update from Instagram is that Instagram has now added an option to embed user profiles on third party websites. Basically,  Instagram is giving you another way to promote your Instagram presence outside the app, with a new option to embed a mini version of your Instagram profile on your third party sites. As in say, if you have a website, let’s not talk about you. Let’s talk about myself. So we have a website, right? And we have an Instagram channel. So for now, people can only see the logo saying on the bottom of our page that says Instagram and they can click on it, and they kind of jump into our Instagram page. Now, if we want that, instead of doing that, we could actually embed our profile into our website. And that way people will know what’s going on again. As Instagram chief CEO, whatever we call them, Adam Mosseri said, you’ve been able to embed an Instagram Photo or Instagram video in a website for many years now. This extends on that idea and allows you to embed a miniature version of your Instagram profile on our website. Maybe you want to showcase your Instagram content on our website somewhere, link to someone, someone else. Well, overall, I’m unsure if this is really helpful feature or not, but you should definitely check it out and see if it’s meaningful to you or not, because if someone is on your website, I’m not sure if you really want them to jump from your website into your Instagram profile. But hey, maybe you are doing a lot more stuff on your Instagram profile and you want to showcase those things, or you have partnerships with other big brands, big influencers that you want to really showcase on your website and without having to recreate content. Maybe that’s another way to do it. Those are some of the ideas that are coming up in my head, but I want to hear if you are thinking of or if you have an idea of how you might be using this thing to showcase your brand, have more visitors from your website going to Instagram. Instagram people obviously will know you have a website because it’s on the link on the bio.

[Update 4 – Instagram Is Rolling Out Reels Repliess] – 04:52

Okay with that, let’s move on to the next update, which is Instagram is rolling out Reels reply. Well, guess what. This is something Instagram is totally copying from TikTok right now. What exactly is going to happen is if a user comments on a reel you have posted, tapping the reply button will let you add a sticker of the comment into a new reel, which you can then move around or drag and change color. That’s all right. So if you’ve been doing this thing on TikTok, you already know how to use it. But if you have not well, maybe something you can check it out. Again, Instagram needs a lot more inspiration, I guess. And out of the box thinking so that they can actually come up with something cool rather than keep copying TikTok’s feature. That’s just me. But again, if it’s working for other platform, why not copy it? After all, Instagram Reels came from TikTok short videos.

[Update 5 – Pinterest Adds Option to Reply to a Comment with an Idea Pin] – 05:53

Okay, talking about reels and copying. Guess what. Pinterest has added an option to reply to a comment with the idea Pin. That’s exactly what Instagram is doing. So Pinterest was like, I guess this week also said, you know what? Hey, if it’s working for TikTok, we might as well do it. That’s all right. Nothing new, nothing bad. I wish again Pinterest as a platform. I used it this week and I wasn’t too happy with it. I will tell you that even though, again, full disclosure, I do have vested interest in Pinterest because I do hold their stock. But I will tell you again, this is not a stock buying show. This is about marketing, but I would just want to kind of disclose my relationship with Pinterest so that there is no conflict of interest and things  that how I feel about them. But I actually am very bullish about Pinterest, but at the same time, I’m kind of sad to see their interface is so hard to navigate around. Like when I go to TikTok and I’ve been to TikTok a few times, maybe a few times this year was the best way to say it’s so intuitive, it’s so easy to do. And I just got drawn into sucked into it into that TikTok world. Pinterest, I totally zoned out and after ten minutes I was like, you know I had enough. It’s all I can tell you. So hopefully Pinterest will focus on kind of making the user interface more addictive and more user friendly, more user friendly, such as myself. I’m not sure how other Pinners are finding it, but coming back to this thing, this is nothing new. If you just want to reply to comment or reels video clip, you can just do that. Pin comments. Sorry.
If you want to do a Pin comments, you can send an idea Pin and then go with it.

[Update 6 – Longer Videos on TikTok Are Doing Superb] – 07:51

 Okay with that. Let’s move on to TikTok. So we’ve been talking about how these other platforms Instagram and Pinterest are copying off of TikTok. So now TikTok has come back and published a report that says, you know what? Hey, we launched a longer form video content on TikTok and it’s been crushing it. What Tiktok actually said that video is longer than 1 minute receive over 5 billion views globally and they’ve been blown away by the community’s creatively as it’s shared longer form contents of all kinds, from podcasts to Vlogs to cooking tutorials, fashion commentary, and more. Now you could ask, hey, Sajid, why are you covering this? Well, I’m covering this for two reasons. Number one is very soon it’s going to be copied by other platform. Kind of write it down. Today is December. This is towards the end of December 2021. Someone is going to copy it very soon. Hopefully Instagram is going to be the first people to copy it. Number two is that if you are like me, where you struggle to create a video a 1 minute video, then this is Godsend, right? Oh, my God, I no longer have to be constricted by this 1 minute mark with 59 seconds mark. And I don’t know how I can cram all this information in 30 to 59 seconds. Well, the answer is TikTok long form content.

[Update 7 – Twitter Adds Auto Captions for All Video Uploads in Tweets] – 09:16

Okay, moving on. Twitter adds auto-caption for all video uploads in Twist, or on Tweets, I apologize for the mispronunciation. Twitter has announced that all videos uploaded within Twitter will have an auto caption enabled, providing more ways for users to consume video content in the app. And, it’s as explained by Twitter, all videos attached to Tweets from today will have auto-captions enabled. Captions will be activated for Instream videos that are muted on both iOS and Android, while desktop users will be able to switch them on and off as they choose. Currently, Twitter’s auto caption is available in 37 languages. While translation is not available as yet, the captions will appear in the language of the device used to upload the clip. The one downside of this auto caption is that they are not editable at this stage, but both translation and editing tools are still in development, according to Twitter. But it really helps you to still use this feature because I think it just helps your team to not be able to spend time on creating auto capture captions. I know my team does that, so we will probably slowly taper that off and focus on auto captions. And you know what? It’s 90% there. So let’s just deal with it or live with it. Sorry.

[Update 8 – YouTube Videos That Are Contributing to Your Audience Growth] – 10:40

Next up, YouTube has had an experimental feature where it was basically and what I mean by experimental feature. But they had this feature under beta or testing phase where it wasn’t available to everyone. But now it’s publicly available to everyone. Where now you can see the videos that are contributing to your audience growth or channel growth, because oftentimes we’re like, we’re publishing all these videos. Where are my new followers coming from? How is my channel growing based on which video YouTube is now going to show it to you? I wish Facebook had this idea. Okay, well, Facebook, you don’t have the idea. Great. Why not copy this one? Stop copying TikTok all the time. Copy something great from YouTube. Show me the content that’s creating more followers. Show me the content that’s creating more buzz. I mean, I know you show me the reach data and engagement data, but show me the content that has, like, say, because you have the Facebook, you have the data, show it to me.

[Update 9 – Google: You Don’t Need To Be An Authority To Rank] – 11:39

Okay, next up, we have Google. Google came out. Well, not Google didn’t come out. Google’s search advocate John Mueller came out and they said, you don’t need to be an authority rank. It’s a great news for everyone. If you’re a small business such as ourselves and you feel like, oh, crap. We just started our business and no one is going to be able to we are not going to be able to be on first page or we are not going to be able to rank higher because we are so small. We don’t have any link back links and we don’t have authority. We haven’t published hundreds of blogs. Well, Google John Miller just says, you know what? Those are crap. You could start as small as one page and then grow from there. But look at content. But we are not going to just look at how many backlinks you have and we’ll decide, oh, you are an authority,  authoritative figure or authoritative domain. Why I’m also covering this in our show is because a lot of us create landing pages and we all are one page of websites and we wonder whether it’s going to get ranked or not. So this is good news. But again, I’m saying folks have some meaningful content, right? You cannot just have a one page website with barebone content and thinking you’re going to rank. This is an SEO play. It’s an organic traffic play. You have to invest time, you have to invest energy. But if you do the right way, you will rank next up.

[Update 10 – Google Will Deindex Pages If Site Is Down For Several Days] – 12:54

Google also said Google will deindex pages if the site is down for several days. So basically, if your site is down for whatever revamping something like that, if the search bots cannot access your websites, they’re going to immediately delist your website. So that’s a good thing and a bad thing right now. You know, ways that you should definitely keep your website up and running all the time. So that the crawler, the search engine crawler engine crawler does also always find your website.That’s one. And number two is they do not tell you exactly how many days, but case in point, make sure it’s not down for more than 24 hours. If so, if you get deindex getting reindexed and having that position, I do not know what’s going to happen. That’s a Gray area. I haven’t tried it out. Google’s John Mueller hasn’t shared it. So I am kind of in the dark like you are.

[Update 11 – Google Analytics 4 Now Links To Google Search Console] – 13:54

Next up is Google Analytics 4 is now linked with Google Search console. This was something Google was supporting. This is something Google was supporting with the original Google Analytics since 2011. And if you’re following the show or if you’re unaware, all I want to say is that Google has recently released GA-4, Google Analytics version four, and currently still, it’s a version that Google is pushing everyone to move into because they are going to retire GA-3, which is the current version of Google Analytics that we all are using and most of us are using on our website to track traffic data. Things like that GA-4 is different. It’s totally revamped. Google hasn’t set out. Google hasn’t set out or basically put out a date when the GA-3 is going to die. I don’t think it’s going to die anytime soon or they’re not going to kill this anytime soon. Just because there are millions of website, if not billions, who are still using GA-3, but at the same time, this is a step towards the direction where now you can integrate GA-4 with GSC, which is Google Search console and associating your GA-4 with GSC properties expands your ability to analyze search traffic enables you to directly compare search data with site analytics, which can help you get a better view of the user’s journey and identify correlations. That’s what we all use it for. How many times I showed up on what searches and how many people came over and play around with the data again, it’s a data play with that.

[Update 12 – Twitter Publishes 2022 Tweet Planning Guide] – 15:27

Let’s move on to the last update of this week, which is Twitter has published a 2022 Planning Guide to assist in your Tweet strategy, which includes a range of templates, tips, prompts to get you thinking about how to maximize your Tweet approach over the next year. I skimmed through this right before I started recording this podcast and I will tell you it’s a very helpful guide. Definitely, definitely. Check it out. I definitely recommend you to check it out. Whether you’re doing Twitter or not. Trust me, you will be glad you did. That’s all I can tell you before I sign off for this week because I looked at it and I got some great ideas on content planning on doing things.

[Closing] – 16:12

Ok. With that folks, that’s it for This Week In Marketing. Now you know everything to be in the know. If you’d like to read more, make sure you visit our show page where you would find the links to the articles. 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. Revisiting Microsoft’s 2021 Consumer Retail Trends Predictions (00:13) – In early 2021, Microsoft Published Consumer Retail Trends Report and made five predictions for the year. Now according to a Microsoft report, all but one turned out as expected.

2. Instagram Publishes The Trending Topics For 2022 (02:10) – Instagram wrote in the introduction to the report, “Next-gen audiences are consistently creating the future and defining trends on Instagram. Instagram is where teens, creators, tastemakers, and niche creators are key to the creation of new trends. Almost 50% of young people view individuals like themselves or influences with smaller, loyal audiences as key for creating trends.”

This is a forward-looking report so take it with a grain of salt. 

3. Instagram Adds New Option to Embed User Profiles on Third-Party Websites (02:48) – Instagram is adding another way to promote your Instagram presence outside the app, with a new option to embed a mini version of your Instagram profile on third-party sites. You’ll be able to link to an Instagram profile direct within a website, providing another way to connect through to a user, as opposed to specific content in the app. As explained by Instagram chief Adam Mosseri:

“You’ve been able to embed an Instagram photo or Instagram video into a website for many years now. This extends on that idea and allows you to embed a miniature version of your Instagram profile on a website. Maybe you want to showcase your Instagram content on a website somewhere or link to someone else’s.”

Instagram profile embeds are available to US users only at this stage. Will this be useful?

 

4. Instagram Is Rolling Out Reels Replies (04:52) – Instagram’s new Reels Visual Replies are just another feature copied from TikTok. Now, if a user comments on a reel you’ve posted, tapping the “reply” button will let you add a sticker of the comment into a new reel, which you can then move around or change its color. The feature is very similar to how TikTok lets you do video replies. 

5. Pinterest Adds Option to Reply to a Comment with an Idea Pin (05:53) – Following on from Instagram’s addition of the capacity to reply to a comment with a Reels video clip, Pinterest has announced that users can reply to Pin comments with an Idea Pin video, providing similar functionality. If you want to add a visual element to your Pin comment reply, you can tap on the three dots menu next to any comment, which will give you an option to ‘Reply with new Idea Pin’. That will then open up the full-screen Idea Pin composer, so you can add more context to your response.

6. Longer Videos on TikTok Are Doing Superb (07:51) – According to TikTok, videos longer than one minute receive over 5 billion views globally, and they have been blown away by the community’s creativity as it’s shared longer-form content of all kinds – from podcasts to vlogs, to cooking tutorials, fashion commentary, and more.

Question of the day: How long before other platforms copy this feature?

 

7. Twitter Adds Auto Captions for All Video Uploads in Tweets (09:16) – Twitter has announced that all videos uploaded within tweets will have auto-captions enabled, providing more ways for users to consume video content in the app.

As explained by Twitter, all videos attached to tweets from today will have auto-captions enabled. Captions will be activated for in-stream videos that are muted, on both iOS and Android, while desktop users will be able to switch them on and off as they choose.

Twitter’s auto-captions are available in 37 languages, and while translation is not available as yet, the captions will appear in the language of the device used to upload the clip.

Also, a key downside, Twitter’s auto-captions are not editable at this stage. Both translation and editing tools are still in development.

 

8. YouTube Videos That Are Contributing to Your Audience Growth (10:40) – This was an experimental feature but now YouTube officially launched this feature. Now you can see the videos that are contributing to your audience growth.

 

9. Google: You Don’t Need To Be An Authority To Rank (11:39) – Not all websites need to be seen as authorities in order to rank well in search results, says Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller. For example, a website can’t just publish 30 articles about a medical condition and be viewed as having the same authority as a doctor.  Most sites don’t need to concern themselves with being an authority. They can still put content out there and have it rank in search results.

Mueller gives the example of a small business selling a product or service. The business doesn’t need to be the foremost authority in its field in order for customers to find its products. Mueller goes on to say that a one-page website is a good starting point, but it can always grow from there. Consider how more pages can be added to the site in the future so it doesn’t get stuck in a place where new content keeps getting added to the single page.

 

10. Google Will Deindex Pages If Site Is Down For Several Days (12:54) – Google will begin to deindex your pages from search results if your website experiences more than a couple of days of downtime. This is stated by Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller during the Google Search Central SEO office-hours hangout.

If a website’s pages become inaccessible then it will only take a matter of days before they start to get de-indexed, Mueller says. Mueller goes on to suggest an alternative method for handling planned downtime, but it still doesn’t guarantee no harm will be done in the short term.

 

11. Google Analytics 4 Now Links To Google Search Console (13:54) – Google announced that now Google Analytics 4 supports data from Google Search Console. This was something Google has supported with the original Google Analytics since 2011 and now has brought over support for the new GA4.

Associating your GA4 and GSC properties expands your ability to analyze search traffic and enable you to directly compare search data with site analytics, which can help you get a better view of the user’s journey and identify correlations.

 

12. Twitter Publishes 2022 Tweet Planning Guide (15:27) – Twitter has published a new 2022 planning guide to assist in your tweet strategy, which includes a range of templates, tips and prompts to get you thinking about how to maximize your tweet approach over the next year. Here’s a look at some of the key highlights from Twitter’s handy new strategy manual, which is definitely worth a look for those seeking to make Twitter more of a focus, or enhance their results from the platform.

First off, Twitter prompts marketers to plan ahead, with templates to help them map out their month-by-month tweet strategy.

The guide then seeks to help marketers develop guiding principles for their tweet strategy, by outlining keywords, visual approaches, emojis, etc., that they can then use as a basis for their brand guidelines.

This is a valuable and often overlooked element, and prompting marketers to consider these elements, that could ensure a more uniform, strategic approach across the board, maximizing alignment with your tweets.

Twitter also includes a range of prompts like FAQ, Retweet, Pro-Tip, and etc, which can help in establishing your practical approach.

The main chunk of the new guide, however, is dedicated to month-by-month listings, where Twitter has left room for marketers to enter daily details on key objectives, events, and ad campaigns to assist in performance tracking.

The final element of the guide is a listing of tweet tips and notes, to give you that final push in maximizing your tweets.

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