Full Transcription
[Introduction] – 00:00
Hey everyone, welcome back to episode 88 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 20, 2021. First off, I hope you all had a good Christmas, you know, got a chance to spend some time with your loved ones and you know, let’s get started.
[Update 1 – Facebook Ads Manager Updating Campaign Objectives with Outcome-Driven Ad Experiences] – 00:24
So first update, we have update from Facebook. Facebook has announced that starting next year, they’re going to change their campaign objectives in Ad Manager from what it is right now to more outcome driven ad experiences. Right? So what I mean by that or what Facebook means by that here is that in the past there were outcomes. When you go to create ad campaigns, you would see something like brand awareness, and then there would be traffic. And then there was an awareness. And then there was things like video views, lead generation messages, things like that. And they have quite a few of them. They’re consolidating all of them and bringing it down to, I think, six or seven categories. So for example, right now, engagement remains engagement, but video views becomes engagement. Lead generation becomes leads, and messages
can become either engagement or leads. So when you go to messages, when you choose the option messages, then Facebook is going to ask you, hey, are you going to optimize or count an engagement or as leads? So for example, if someone you send a message, someone responds back to you. Will you count it as an engagement, or would you count it as a lead? This is some of the small changes they’re making again to me. If you ask me, it feels like this is related to iOS 14.5 Privacy tracking. And it’s here to say if you want to really find out what becomes what, then go ahead and check our show notes. I basically go into it and made it easy for you to kind of say what becomes what the current version and what it changes to in the future. With that, let’s move on to the next update on Facebook.
[Update 2 – Meta Shutting Down Facebook Jobs] – 02:13
Facebook is shutting down Facebook jobs outside of US and Canada. Again, it doesn’t affect a whole lot of you
listeners if you’re still based in the US or Canada, but outside of US and Canada, starting February
22, 2022, jobs is going away. Why? Facebook hasn’t announced given us any reasons for why they do that.
But if you ask me, I’m pretty sure that jobs are going to go away again here in the US and Canada sometime in the future, just because I don’t know if you ever gone and applied through Facebook jobs in the past. I’ve used this Facebook jobs back in 2017 2018 timeframe when it first came out and I will tell you and that was for my business in Bangladesh. And the response I’ve got and was really crap, right? People would apply. We would not get the resumes properly, things like that. I rather rely on something like LinkedIn where it’s more professional and Facebook is more personal. People do lots of crazy stuff and when they apply, you really do not get to see their full profile, things like that. But I’ll leave that up to Facebook to decide what it is. I hope if Facebook is really looking to keep jobs around, then I would want them to kind of enhance it, add a lot of stuff. Oh, by the way, talking about which I just realized we did use Facebook jobs in the US for my business in 2017. Again, the results have been really crap and since then we haven’t used it. But if you want to use it, how everything that you can use it in the US currently will remain in effect, it’s just that outside the US and Canada, it’s going away. Okay with that, let’s move on to the next update.
[Update 3 – Export a List of Paid YouTube Members & Members] – 03:54
This is an update from the YouTube front. So YouTube has announced this week that if you have a channel with paid members, YouTube will allow you to export a list of all your members in CSV form. That’s one. And the second update that they have also shared with us is that now for your channel, you can have custom form in custom form. You can get additional information from your members, such as name. Obviously, you’re getting email address, other options, things like that, and then you can integrate in the back end with if it is, then that too. If you haven’t used if it, then go ahead and check it out. And that will really help you create a better experience. Again, if you ask me, I like what YouTube is doing, even though we do not have a paid channel
on YouTube or paid channel members on YouTube. But this is really great from the YouTube standpoint
where they’re giving you the option to export your data and do things with your things. Maybe you want to send
your members holiday gift, right? Or holiday card. Just an idea that just popped into my head just because we are in the holiday season.
[Update 4 – Delivery-Only TikTok Kitchen Restaurants Experiment] – 05:04
With that, let’s move on to the next update where TikTok is trying to become more than a social media or a short form video entertainment portal. And TikTok is partnering with Virtual Dining Concepts to open up 300 delivery only virtual kitchens across the United States next year. Now you would ask Sajid, why are you sharing this in a marketing podcast? Well, I’m sharing with you for a couple of reasons. Number one, you see how TikTok is new to the social media game. We just came with video and already thinking outside the box and expanding their business and creating partnerships with other companies who do these things well and growing their business.
Whereas Instagram is kind of lagged behind and they’re just optimizing for other things. But anyway, I’m not trying to put down Instagram but I’m just kind of admiring the innovation or the out of the box thinking that TikTok is bringing to the table. Now, what is virtual dining concept? Virtual dining concept is basically a company that has virtual kitchens, and what they’re going to do is they’re going to see those viral recipes on TikTok, and they’re going to basically Cook it up. So that those viral recipes that you see on your ‘For You’ page on TikTok.
Now you can order it. So if you see something that you really like and it shows up on your for you page on TikTok, you can actually order that food. How amazing is that it will remain to be seen whether this concept takes off or not. But TikTok is definitely trying. So that was one reason why I said we like it. The other reason here is that now you as a market here as a small business owner, if you’re in that space where you are creating meals, obviously, there is more incentive for you to share those recipes on TikTok and see if it goes viral. And if it gets picked up by virtual dining concepts. Although I do not know how you as a business owner will get monetized whether virtual dining concept is going to give you some form of Commission for the recipe. And I’m pretty sure that’s going to happen down the road when TikTok says this thing is really working out because TikTok has been good at that.
But for now, your business people on this podcast make sure you are focusing on out of the box thinking solutions and what can you do to enhance and make things easier for your consumers, for your customers, for your member.
[Update 5 – TikTok Adds Live-Stream Intros] – 07:35
With that, let’s move on to the other update for this week from Tik Tok which is TikTok has added live stream intros, which enables you to add short text description to welcome new viewers as they come across your broadcast. Right. The new live intro option when switched on will display a short explainer to viewers when they come into your stream. That could be a simple way to welcome viewers, explain what your broadcast is all about, what you’d like them to do as participants in your stream, things like that. I like it. I have been to Instagram live streams where I do not know why I’m there. It’s just happening. I think it’s a very small change in a way, but it’s helpful. That reminds me, maybe I should spend more time on TikTok every day now and not on Instagram.
But I will tell you folks, I do not go to TikTok purposely. It is addictive. It is super addictive where at least for me, where I go there and I’m sucked into the next thing I know, it’s been 45 minutes, but Instagram not so much.
I get bored very quickly and I’m out of there, but I think I will turn 22 resolution. My resolution is that I’m going to go to TikTok every day and I will make sure it’s only for five to ten minutes. No more than that every time I go there with that.
[Update 6 – Clubhouse Launches Saved Replays] – 08:46
Let’s go to next update of this week, which is Clubhouse. Well, the should I say the social media app known as Clubhouse because Clubhouse is still around. They just rolled out this feature where now you can launch. You can have the ‘Saved Replays’ can be played back earlier this year we covered or Clubhouse launched where you can save a room recording, but they didn’t have an option to replay it now to give it to you to replay it again.
I stopped going to Clubhouse just because it’s audio only again and I cannot always join a clubhouse just because I’m in the middle of something during the daytime with an audio recording. Maybe I will like it that I want to be able to go back and listen to it at my leisure. The other thing I’ll tell you that I haven’t seen happens in Clubhouse, but I wish there’s a feature that has is available in Clubhouse is listening to a recording in 2X speed or 1X speed because one of the things I like to do these days and I don’t like to go to live events. I like to watch recordings because of that reason because I can watch in 1 hour recording at one and a half to two weeks. The speed and I can actually watch the same knowledge, same content in half the time and it saves me time. I’m all about optimizing so I don’t like to go to live recordings unless I have to. With that. I hope this is a feature that gets added onto Clubhouse as well as other platforms. And this is one of the reasons why I like watching videos on YouTube, not so much on Facebook unless I’m on my desktop because there is an extension in Chrome. There’s an extension where you can actually speed up Facebook videos. If not, I totally skip Facebook videos with that folks.
[Update 7 – Google Search Algorithm Update] – 10:40
Let’s go to the next update, which is from Google on the SEO front. Google has announced as well as confirmed that they have finished updating the SEO and they’re calling in the December 2021 product review update. Basically they tweak their SEO algorithm that basically are now going to give you credit. If you have a product page with lots of nice review versus a product page where you throw products together just to game the SEO game. Again, this is more applicable to businesses who are writing product reviews. So if you’re a blog then it’s good for you or if you are a product company, right with direct to consumer, any product company and you’re writing reviews and you’re comparing your product with another product competitor product, then you should basically what you need to know is that Google will reward you and rank you higher. If your page has an insightful analysis and original research, right? What that does mean? Google doesn’t tell us that. But what I think it means is that you need to basically go deep down and talk about beyond just the features and easy to find things. Oh, this is 10 HP versus 15 HP. But you could probably say right around those features like, oh, these 10 HP motor allowed me to get things done faster, slower versus the 15 HP things like that. I think you get the point where just expand on it. That’s what Google is saying. Expand on it. And again, remember, it’s a machine learning just wants to. I’m not saying game the system because please, by all means, understand that. I’m not trying to tell you to game the system, but I’m just saying write things. If you cannot find things, just think here’s this feature. What will this person be able to do with this feature? And how can I expand and explain that and explain that? That’s all right. It has the speed or it has the braking power that can even stop car from 60 to zero in 6 seconds and talk about it. Give a small story. And I think that’s what Google is going to give you a reward. Okay. And by reward means, you’re going to rank higher, show up on first page and you’re going to get more people, more clicks, more visitors, more leads, more sales, things like that. Okay.
[Update 8 – What’s Good For SEO – Self-Hosted WordPress or Wix?] – 12:56
Last update for this week is actually a question that I’ve always asked. And I’ve always said, What’s good for SEO?
Is it self hosted WordPress? Or should we go to platforms like Wix? So Google’s John Mueller comes back and says, you know what Wix is fine for SEO? There was a back in the day, which was in the early days of Wix. Wix was terrible. It was very bad for SEO. But according to John Mueller and he agrees that they’ve made fantastic progress. They’re a fine platform for businesses. So if you are looking to go to platforms such as Wix or maybe even to Squarespace, or even though John Miller doesn’t talk about Squarespace indirectly, he says, you can safely go to any of these platforms because it works. And again, it’s much more easier to manage. You don’t have to have a WordPress site, which can be cumbersome. So if you have a template and you want to go on the go, something like Wix or Squarespace or something out there, by all means, go ahead.
[Closing] – 13:58
Ok 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 or additional details of some of the things we have covered. 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. Facebook Ads Manager Updating Campaign Objectives with Outcome-Driven Ad Experiences (00:24) – Ads Manager objectives are being updated to help you choose the objective most closely aligned to your business goal. When you create a new campaign, you’ll choose from six, new objectives. Campaigns you create before the release of our new objectives will remain active and there is no need to make any changes to your existing campaigns. You’ll also be able to edit and duplicate your existing campaigns through the end of 2021.
Objectives are now grouped together based on their expected business outcome. Objective names will change but you can still perform the same functions and access the features you’re familiar with. Most objectives will now require that you choose a conversion location. The conversion location is the place where your desired business outcome will occur. For example, if you create a campaign with the Leads objective, you can choose Website, Instant Forms, Messenger, Phone, or App as your conversion location. Depending on the conversion location you select, you’ll then choose a conversion event. The conversion event you choose will tell us the action you want your audience to take once they’ve landed on your conversion location.
- Brand Awareness & Awareness will become Reach.
- Traffic will remain Traffic.
- Engagement remains Engagement.
- App Installs will become App Promotion.
- Video Views will become Engagement.
- Lead Generation will become Leads.
- Messages will become Engagement or Leads.
- Conversions will become Engagement, Leads, or Sales.
- Catalog Sales will become Sales.
- Store Traffic will become Sales.
2. Meta Shutting Down Facebook Jobs (02:13) – Jobs on Facebook is shutting down outside of the United States and Canada. from Feb 22nd, 2022. Facebook’s ‘Jobs’ was a feature that allowed businesses to post job vacancies on their page, which were visible to anyone who visits the page, and also appeared on the news feeds of FB users who have ‘liked’ the page, easing the job finding process for the people. Here’s everything that you need to know about the new update.
- Existing Facebook Groups with a “Jobs” group type will be changed to the “General” group type and the “Jobs” group type will no longer be available.
- The ability to distribute free jobs via a partner integration with the Jobs on Facebook API will no longer be available.
- Jobs on Facebook will no longer be available on the Facebook Lite app or Facebook mobile website (m.facebook.com/jobs) for both employers and seekers.
- The Jobs on the Facebook browser will no longer be available.
- JOBS on Facebook is shutting down outside of the United States and Canada.
- Employers in the United States and Canada can continue to use Jobs on Facebook tools to create job postings from their Page for free on the Facebook app and Facebook desktop website (www.facebook.com). They can also choose to boost their posts as ads.
- Employers in the United States and Canada will continue to be able to manage their job applications and view details about all their job posts (boosted & non-boosted) through the Inbox and Manage Jobs sections of their Page.
- Job seekers in the United States and Canada can continue to apply to positions using Job on Facebook product features like clicking Apply now on the job post, which will bring them to the detail view and then to an application form.
3. Export a List of Paid YouTube Members & Members (03:54) – only Form with IFTT – YouTube now allows you to export a list of paid members in .csv format. They have also introduced an integration with IFTT that helps you connect with members via a custom form.
4. Delivery-Only TikTok Kitchen Restaurants Experiment (05:04) – In partnership with Virtual Dining Concepts, TikTok is opening 300 delivery-only restaurant kitchens next year across the United States that will serve the same meals you scroll through on your For You Page.
5. TikTok Adds Live-Stream Intros (07:35) – TikTok has added a new ‘LIVE intro’ option which enables you to add a short text description to welcome new viewers as they come across your broadcast. The new LIVE Intro option, when switched on, will display a short explainer to viewers when they come into your stream.
That could be a simple way to welcome viewers, and explain what your broadcast is all about, and what you would like them to do, as participants in your stream. Live-streaming has gradually become a bigger element of TikTok as it looks to broaden its horizons beyond short video clips.
6. Clubhouse Launches Saved Replays (08:46) – Clubhouse has launched the ‘Saved Replays’ option which will enable users to save the audio from recorded Clubhouse chats to listen to at a later stage. I’m guessing not many people will care. Clubhouse has dropped off the face of the social media earth after its massive, sudden rise earlier in the year, and while audio social is still being used by many, it now seems fairly clear that it’s not the game-changing format that some had envisioned at one stage.
7. Google Search Algorithm Update (10:40) – December 2021 Products Reviews – Google has confirmed that the December 2021 product reviews update is now finished rolling out. This update has officially completed rolling out a few days before Christmas. This update is “designed to better reward” product reviews that “share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products.” Reviews that are written in a way that has “insightful analysis and original research” will be rewarded, especially “content written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well,” Google said.
8. What’s Good For SEO – Self-Hosted WordPress or Wix? (12:56) – Google’s John Mueller Says Wix is Fine For SEO.
“Wix is fine for SEO. A few years back it was pretty bad in terms of SEO, but they’ve made fantastic progress, and are now a fine platform for businesses. The reputation from back then lingers on, but don’t be swayed by it. What they’ve done in recent years is really good stuff, including making it trivial to have a really fast site (as you see in the Lighthouse scores — admittedly, speed is only a tiny part of SEO). If Wix works for them, and they don’t need more, there’s no reason to switch.”