Full Transcription
[Introduction] – 00:00
Hey everyone, welcome to episode 90 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 January 3rd, 2022. This is the first episode of this year 2022 and you know the new year just got started and you know it’s been a little slow. But however, there are some quite a few interesting updates. that you know I want to bring in share with you all especially some couple of two important updates actually you must listen which are going to be covered under towards the end of the show so stay tuned with us or with me with that let’s dive in.
[Update 1 – Starting 1/19, Facebook Will Be Removing Some Detailed Targeting Options] – 00:36
First of all, Facebook has announced that starting the 19th of this month, which is going to be a few days from today, that they were going to remove some detailed targeting options because they relate to topics people may perceive as sensitive. So some of the options they are removing at a high level are health causes, sexual orientation, religious practices and groups, political beliefs and so forth. So what falls under health causes somethings like lung cancer awareness, world Diabetes day, chemotherapy, under sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, LGBT culture, under religious. It’s going to be Catholic Church or Jewish holidays, political beliefs, obviously. Right, left, whatever and social causes things like that. So they’re removing all these options. So if you have an ad that’s already running using these targeting options, you have till March 18 with 17th, which is about two weeks time, eight weeks time for you to remove this and make changes. However, starting 19th, you would not be able to create any new ads using any of these options. Facebook also went to mention that they’re going to remove some of the other options that have not been widely adopted, sighting that they may be redundant with other options that may be too granular. Now what they are.
Facebook hasn’t announced it. So if you’re running Facebook ads, go ahead and figure it out. That’s what Facebook is saying. I’m also saying that I do not run Facebook ads, so I really cannot say how or what could be there. What the impacts are going to be. My job was to just to bring and tell you some of the things that are happening in the Facebook world and hope this helps you with that. Let’s move up to the next update of this week.
[Update 2 – TikTok Partners Up With Atmosphere To Provide More Exposure To Creators] – 02:22
Tiktok partners up with Atmosphere to create more exposures to creators. So what is atmosphere? Atmosphere is basically they provide license and curated video content for commercial venues with big clients including Westin, Taco Bell, and Burger King. So what basically is like if you ever go to any waiting room or for example, if you pump gas, you will sometimes see on top of the gas stations what they call it gas TV, right where they create and show you videos while you’re pumping gas here in the States, at least I believe what atmosphere does in the back end is like they curate the content and they pump it into things like gas TV or in this case, Taco Bell, Burger King. So TikTok signed up with them as a partner. And what TikTok is planning to do is they’re planning to send Atmosphere some curated contents and basically promote TikTok or promote creators on TikTok, and as a result, bring build-up TikTok’s popularity and reach into the market space. If you ask me, I will tell you this is
a brilliant move from TikTok, whereas they’re like going right through it and getting more eyeballs on the screen and getting more users, creating more ad inventory and basically becoming a better, bigger platform than Instagram. How long before Instagram or YouTube figured this thing out? I do not know. I think it’s going to be quickly that I’m pretty sure Instagram would be copying them. Youtube? I do not know so much because YouTube has a reach and it has quite a big brand recognition. I mean, people go to YouTube for anything
you want to learn, go to YouTube, right. So we’ll see how it plays out. But that’s the update for this week from TikTok.
[Update 3 – Twitter Adds Spaces Replay Stats for Recorded Broadcasts] – 04:04
Next up on Audio Space Land. Twitter has added Spaces, Replays tabs for recorded broadcasts. This was something we have covered in the past in our episodes last year 2021 about Twitter allowing you to save and do replay broadcast. What Twitter is not doing is just going to give you some analytics. Hey, how many people show up live, how many play the replay and things like that? And this is great for people who want to do data analytics and figure out. Okay. Is this really the right time for me to have an event? How many people are showing up to my events may be modified, change, do A/B testing things like that. So this is for those data geeks amongst us who loves to kind of look over those numbers and figure things out. I know it will help me if I was doing Twitter audio room or spaces in this case. So now you know about Twitter, let’s move on to another update on the audio space from Clubhouse.
[Update 4 – Clubhouse Adds New Way to Share Rooms, Additional Analytics and Access Option] – 05:01
So Clubhouse has now adds a new way to share rooms, additional analytics and access options. Right. So what they are number one, one challenge on the Internet or on social media these days is discovery. What is discovery by me is like figuring out especially things like audio-only live room such on a platform like Spaces or Twitter spaces or clubhouses that sometimes you don’t get aware of a good conversation happening on these audio rooms until it’s done right. And that’s where the recorded sessions come in. However, say, I am a friend with Tom and Tom is listening to a room or as part of a room that is having an exciting conversation. I may go into Clubhouse at the same time, but I may not know that Tom is in that room. So now Clubhouse is saying we’re going to allow you, Tom, to reshare that. Hey, I’m part of this room. Come join and check this out. Things like that, right. And then it will show up in my feed, which is basically a way of the retweeting of Twitter tweets. Right.
That’s the idea that a Clubhouse came up with in a bit to kind of increase discoverability of good content as well as keeping users on the platform and figuring things out, which is great. However, I will tell you if I was a product manager for Clubhouse or if I was looking at Clubhouse, what I will tell you is Clubhouse needs to add this image component. What is this image component? Because Clubhouse is very text based and it gets very boring and it puts a lot of pressure on the eye to read what’s happening. I used to be a Clubhouse early user and I’m looking at Clubhouse as I’m recording this session is like, you know, it’s been a while since I went to Clubhouse because when I go to Clubhouse, I get notification. It’s all text. It’s all text. Right? What I would like to do is have some visual images so that it breaks it up. It’s easier to read because I know so it’s a card style, but people are using emojis and things like that. It’s hard. So I would say if there were some images to break it down and make it more visually like a combination of text plus a little bit of Instagram into it. That would be awesome. But hey, I don’t work for Clubhouse. I’m just giving my opinion. The other thing that it’s worth mentioning in this episode is that Clubhouse is also testing a replay option. In fact, why shouldn’t say testing, because it’s already on my feed where I have access to rooms where it says, stop Replays and I can look at replays So Clubhouse has actually promoted it and brought it back. And now he’s giving you analytics on those things.If you are into Audio game, please go ahead. Try it out. Let us know how it is. You can follow us on social media and kind of comment back and let us know what you think about it with that, let’s move on to the another update in the audio
[Update 5 – LinkedIn Launches Audio Rooms] – 08:02
space world, which is LinkedIn, has now launched audio rooms. How funny. Right. Again, if you’ve been with us for a while, you know, I’ve been all the same in this day and age. Every platform is copying each other. There’s like very little innovation. It’s like Clubhouse came out with audio rooms and Twitter jumped into it. Facebook jumped to it now LinkedIn into it. And then somehow they’re going to say this thing is not working out for us. Right again. The same challenges have remain in this platform is like audio. It’s great for people who want to consume content content. Is there’s a lot of plethora of content out there? Right? People are drowning in content. So what we need to do is we need to basically figure out a way to kind of reduce the noise. But again, these platforms are thinking from the other angle, which is people who are on LinkedIn are not on another platform. So let’s just capture those LinkedIn, which is great. But I think in a way we need to pick and choose our platform and stick with those platforms because we cannot be everywhere unless we are a billion dollar company, multi million dollar company, because it takes a lot of resource to kind of create a content and publish it everywhere else. Anyways, I digress and I kind of rant off, but less talking about it. It says LinkedIn has launched audio rooms. It’s testing it out. It has given access to a few thousand, I guess heavy LinkedIn users to try it out and see how it goes. It just goes in addition to LinkedIn live virtual room. So I guess it’s great for people who get off the bed and start a LinkedIn room and go from there. Okay. Let’s move on.
[Update 6 – Google: Keyword Density Still Not An SEO Search Ranking Factor] – 09:43
Moving into the world of SEO and Google. So Google, someone asks Google’s. John Mueller, who is basically search advocate at Google, is like, hey, is keyword density still a thing in 2022? Is this something we should be worried about? It should be considered about things like that, because again, if you go back into the world of SEO, there are some SEO gurus who are going to say, hey, keyword density makes a difference. Like, no, before I go any deeper and answer the question whether it’s really relevant or not, if keyword density is relevant or not, or if keyword density is an SEO factor or not, let me explain to you what keyword density is. Keyword density is basically according to Wikipedia, it’s like the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a Web page compared to the total number of words on the page. Right. So say, if you have 100 words and there are some SEO gurus out there or self-proclaimed SEO gurus out there who’s going to say, oh, you need to have a keyword density of 30% or 40%, which basically means out of the 100 words on your page, 30 of those words should talk or talk about the keyword that you want to index it for. Right? That’s what keyword density is in layman’s term Google’s John Mueller is saying, no, that’s not the case. We don’t care about keyword density. Now, if you ask me, why is that? I will tell you why. Because the artificial intelligence algorithms or machine language algorithms, whatever we call it. Basically, machine language is a part of artificial. It’s a subset of artificial intelligence. Google’s artificial intelligence or machine language algorithms have gotten smarter. Now it can read a page. It will read a block of text and it can figure out what this page is all about. Now, is it 100% accurate? No, but it’s 70% to 80% right there. That’s why we get good results out of Google. So Google has figured out that there are algorithms out there. Google can read a page and tell you what this page is about. They can look at an image and they’ve trained the images to tell you what this image is about. They’ve trained algorithms. They have algorithms that can look at a video and talk about what the video is all about. Right? That’s why Google doesn’t care about keyword density anymore, or it never did. It’s just that some people through the gridline gurus came out and said, keyword density works. Keyword density works. And let’s just run with it. So enough about keyword density. All you need to know is that you need to write a web page where the content is actually relevant and explains what you’re talking about and off you go. Okay with that.
[Update 7 – IndexNow WordPress Plugin Released By Microsoft Bing] – 12:27
Again, the other thing on the SEO front again, this is not from Google, but this is from Microsoft Bing is that Microsoft Bing has launched this plugin called IndexNow it’s obviously a plugin, so it’s available only to WordPress sites. So if you have a WordPress website, you should definitely look into this index now plugin. What does this index now plugin does? It enables automated submission of URLs from WordPress websites to multiple search engines without the need to register and verify your site with them. So it just makes it very easy for you to as you make, add new content, and as you edit content, it just automatically updates and notifies the search engine. In this case, Microsoft Bing and the index that, hey, this site has changed. Go ahead and re index it or add this to your index and updates the whole thing. In the back end. This is a step away from the previous model of indexing, where you update the site and you’d go into the Microsoft Bing or Yandex or Google and you say, hey, please come back to my website, Mr. Crawler, send a crawler to my website because I changed it and I need it to be updated. So it’s more real-time and things like that. Now, Google has not officially adopted IndexNow but Google is testing it. So there’s a chance that this is going to be adopted and you should definitely use it as well. Now, keep in mind back in. I don’t remember the date yet, exactly. But in last year, in episode 47 of The TWIMshow, I covered about Microsoft releasing another plugin called Bing URL Submission API. The only difference between IndexNow and Bing URL Submission API is that Bing URL Submission API only works with Bing with IndexNow. Right now it’s working with Bing and Yandex, and so maybe if Google jumps onto the wagon, then it’s going to be Google so it’s obviously more it’s better So definitely if I were you and if I was using because we use Bing URL submission since it came out. So we are going to take off Bing URL submission and we’re going to go on to IndexNow this week.
[Update 8 – Google Launches’ Shops’ Section In Mobile Search Results] – 14:26
Okay with that, let’s jump into the last update of this week is that Google launches Shop section in mobile search results. What is this? So Google has updated the Google app on mobile. I use iOS. I’ve seen it on iOS. I do not use Android, so I do not know how it looks on Android, but basically when I search for something on Google Mobile. So for example, I was looking for Lipo laser suction devices. This morning I see a tab called Shopping, just how you see it on desktop. And over there I can see lot of things. Obviously there are ads. But what Google is saying that if you rank higher, if you rank in the top ten for that particular device or search query, then we are going to show you the results through those prints or not show the user searching for it the page. So for example, when I was doing Lipo laser suction, I saw ads and then I also saw an organic results. So why is this a big thing? Google is taking a two-pronged approach because Google is realizing that we need to give users the
way to find products organically to be there. And also they remember back last year they added like if you have a Shopify store or if you have an e commerce store, you can actually add your products to Google Shopping without having to pay for ads. So this is kind of feeding into it again. At the end of the day. Google will also want your money and they’re going to push you to have an ad because there’s only so many businesses that can be in the top ten, and you’re going to be like, shit, I’m never on top ten. Let me just go pay for it and be showing up. So Google is a double edged sword, right? They’re in the business to make money. So they’re going to make money. But the main key takeaway for you here is that if you need to make sure your website, which I’ve been talking again and again for a long time, is that it’s mobile-friendly as well as if you have a product to sell, make sure you are using the free plugin, which are depending on whichever site you are on and pushing the data into Google. Okay
[Closing] – 16:42
With that folks, that’s it for This Week In Marketing. 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. And 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.
- Health causes (e.g., “Lung cancer awareness,” “World Diabetes Day,” “Chemotherapy”).
- Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage” and “LGBT culture”).
- Religious practices and groups (e.g., “Catholic Church” and “Jewish holidays”).
- Political beliefs, social issues, causes, organizations, and figures.
The company will also remove targeting options that haven’t been widely adopted, citing that they may be redundant with other options or be too granular, although it did not specify which options.
2. TikTok Partners Up With Atmosphere To Provide More Exposure To Creators (02:22) – In yet another sign of TikTok’s ever-increasing presence and popularity, the platform has announced a new deal with video content provider Atmosphere which will see curated TikTok content appear on TVs in restaurants, bars, gyms, and more, providing new exposure potential for TikTok creators.
Atmosphere provides licensed and curated video content for commercial venues, with clients including Westin, Taco Bell, and Burger King. As per the above example clip, Atmosphere repurposes video content from a range of platforms, which also includes YouTube, then adds its own audio soundtrack, essentially creating a stream of music video content that points back to the originating platform. And now, TikTok clips will be part of that offering.
Given TikTok’s rising popularity, the partnership makes sense, and it’ll be interesting to see how many waiting rooms and venues take on this new TikTok channel as a means of keeping their customers entertained. Atmosphere reports that it doubled its business footprint over the last year, with its content now being shown in over 19,000 venues worldwide. Cumulatively, Atmosphere claims to reach more than 20 million unique visitors per month, which could provide another boost for TikTok, and prompt more users to log into the app and become regular users.
3. Twitter Adds Spaces Replay Stats for Recorded Broadcasts (04:04) – In the details for recorded Spaces chats, hosts will now be able to see how many listeners tuned into the stream live, and how many replays the session has garnered. This will add more context to your Spaces analytics, and help you better plan your strategy, by giving you more info on how your audience is tuning in after the fact.
4. Clubhouse Adds New Way to Share Rooms, Additional Analytics and Access Options (05:01) – Clubhouse has added a new way to improve Room discovery, with a new re-share option that will enable users to highlight interesting sessions that they’re into other users. The process is essentially Clubhouse’s version of re-tweeting, in order to help amplify great discussions. To be clear, Clubhouse has had the share via social network and share via messaging app options for some time, it’s only the new, internal sharing function that’s been added.
5. LinkedIn Launches Audio Rooms (08:02) – First off LinkedIn’s launching an initial test of its own, Clubhouse-like audio events platform, which will enable users to tune into live discussions in the app, and participate by raising their virtual hand to join as a speaker, or posting likes in response to the chat. The format looks very much like Clubhouse and Twitter Spaces, with separate panels for those ‘on stage’ and speaking, and those tuning in below.
6. Google: Keyword Density Still Not An SEO Search Ranking Factor (09:43) – So it is now 2022 and some folks are asking if keyword density is an SEO Google search ranking factor. The answer is still no, according to John Mueller, a Search Advocate at Google.
Keyword density as an SEO topic is older than Google and it is one of those topics that will likely never die.
According to Wikipedia, “Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization, keyword density can be used to determine whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.”
7. IndexNow WordPress Plugin Released By Microsoft Bing (12:27) – Microsoft Bing has published a new WordPress plugin that makes it easy to integrate your WordPress blog and site with the IndexNow protocol. The plugin was released over the holidays and is available over here in the WordPress plugin directory. Currently, both Microsoft Bing and Yandex have adopted the protocol, and Google is supposedly testing it out as well.
The WordPress IndexNow plugin enables automated submission of URLs from WordPress sites to multiple search engines without the need to register and verify your site with them. Once installed, the plugin will automatically generate and host the API key on your site. It detects page creation/update/ deletion in WordPress and automatically submits the URLs in the background. This ensures that search engines will always have the latest updates about your site.
What is IndexNow? IndexNow provides a method for websites owners to instantly inform search engines about the latest content changes on their website. IndexNow is a simple ping protocol so that search engines know that a URL and its content has been added, updated, or deleted, allowing search engines to quickly reflect this change in their search results.
Instant indexing is an SEO’s dream when it comes to giving search engines the most updated content on a site. The protocol is very simple and it requires very little developer effort to add this to your site, so it makes sense to implement this if you care about speedy indexing. Plus if you use Cloudflare, it can be turned on with the flip of a switch.
In Episode#47 of TWIMshow, we covered the release of “Bing URL submission API”. Index Now is somewhat duplicative to that, however, Bing’s URL Submission API only works with Bing’s index. So there is a benefit to switching to IndexNow.
