This Week in Digital Marketing - May 6, 2022

This week in digital marketing, LinkedIn is adding a new website link feature, Elon Musk is taking over Twitter, the WCM debate is heating up, and more!

LinkedIn is Rolling Out a New Website Link Feature
LinkedIn is adding links to profiles with creator mode enabled. According to LinkedIn, the purpose is to boost awareness for a creator's business, personal website, online store, event, or other resource.

Where it Appears: The link will appear beneath your user name and description in the introduction section, above your number of followers and connections.

If you disable creator mode, the link will disappear from your profile.

Why We Care: With customizable anchor text you can use as a call-to-action, this is a great method to attract some extra visits and traffic to your website from LinkedIn. Although the links will most likely be nofollowed, a nofollowed link can be useful if it leads to relevant traffic.

Elon Musk is Taking Over Twitter
Elon Musk bought Twitter a week ago, and if his tweets are to be believed, he has big plans for it, including an edit button, long-form tweets, and combating spambots.

A couple reasons 58% of marketers aren’t concerned: 

• Verification of accounts
  
• Removing bots
  
• Free speech
  

A couple reasons 42% of marketers are concerned:

• Brand safety 
  
• Less users
  
• “Free speech” (which many believe is code for “hate speech”)
  

Why We Care: The sale of Twitter marks a significant shift in the digital marketing landscape. At some point, we will all be affected. When? That is the query. Despite some serious issues, Musk has a track record of investing in or operating successful businesses such as PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX. Every day, we get closer to seeing if Musk can realize Twitter's full potential. The question is whether businesses and marketers will stay on board and continue to invest time and money in the platform after seeing Musk's vision for Twitter.

Is WordPress Really the Answer for All Businesses?
“Why can’t it be as easy to use as WordPress?” or, more pointedly, “Why can’t we just use WordPress?”

Many digital marketers who are disappointed with their enterprise-approved Web Content and Experience Management (WCM) solution are asking these questions. They may have previously used WordPress for a personal site or blog, or had a WordPress microsite built for them by an outside agency. In any event, publishing is much easier in this context than in their enterprise-level WCM system.

WordPress is not suitable for all users. With each passing year, it grows in sophistication, but it remains more on the product side of the product vs. platform divide, and WordPress, like all technologies, has at least as many flaws as benefits. As a result, even though WordPress is an extremely productive blogging and content management system, it may not be a good fit for many firms, particularly larger enterprises, for general purpose WCM services and micro-site offering.

WordPress could be useful in the workplace. However, additional capabilities such as back-end integration, content sharing, component content management, personalization, globalization, and injecting content into transactional contexts (aka "headless" mode) will be required by some of you for your core corporate WCM platform.

Roku Expands Measurement Program to Boost Streaming Advertiser Experience
Roku, the streaming TV platform, has announced the addition of media mix modeling (MMM) to its Measurement Partner Program, allowing advertisers to bridge the measurement gap between traditional media and the burgeoning streaming landscape.

What It Does: Roku presently offers media mix modeling through an existing partner, marketing research firm IRI. MMM enables brands to track and measure campaign-level ad success, allowing advertisers to modify their spending accordingly.

This extension of Roku's measuring program comes ahead of the company's first in-person upfront on May 3 in New York. For years, upfronts have been the usual mechanism for advertisers to lock up linear TV inventory, as ad veterans know. Streaming services like Roku are now part of the regular cycle, but they must still provide advertisers and agencies with the ability to demonstrate the impact of streaming and compare it to other media in their budgets.

Twitter Circle: Limit Who Can View Your Tweets
Here’s what we know about Twitter Circle so far:

• Add people: Choose up to 150 users to include in your Twitter Circle.  
  
• Tweet to only those people: Only people in your Twitter Circle can view and reply to your tweets.
  
• Edit your Circle: Twitter users won’t be notified if you remove them from your Circle.
  
• If you reply to a tweet that someone sent to a Circle, other members of the Circle can see and react to your response.
  

You may limit who can see your tweets using this new Twitter function, which is now accessible for "some" Twitter users. Up to 150 persons can attend.

While the goal of Twitter is to reach as many people as possible, there are times when you don't want that to happen.

The ability to limit tweets could have some fascinating brand and commercial applications (think: exclusive content), but it's not a game-changer. Will it entice previous users to return? Doubtful.

However, if you've been on Twitter for a while and want to avoid some of the negative aspects of tweeting to everyone, you could find this useful.

DMCA Request Removes Moz from Google Search Index
You won't see the moz.com home page if you search for [Moz] in Google Search since it was removed from the Google index owing to a DMCA takedown notice. Moz's home page, along with 185 other URLs, were "distribute modified, cracked, and unauthorized versions" of the Dr. Driving software, according to the takedown complaint.

For most SEOs and site owners, this is a nightmare. To have your trademarked phrase deleted from Google Search. It should not have happened; it is truly inexcusable and heartbreaking to witness, yet it did.

I am certain that Moz will return soon, but there isn't much we can do to prevent this from happening to your site. The good news is that Moz is a big enough brand that issue rapidly attracted Google's attention and will most likely be remedied soon. Good luck to small businesses.

This is why it’s important to have a good marketing team in your corner with the knowledge to fight for your brand in the online space.

Google Blocked 3.4 Billion Ads, and They Suspended 5.6 Million Accounts in 2021
According to Google's annual Ads Safety Report, which was issued today, 3.4 billion ads were prohibited or removed in 2021. In the last year, Google has increased the amount of account-level suspensions for advertisers.

Certain advertisements cannot be seen to all searchers in all locations. All of these advertisements were either legally or culturally sensitive.

Searchers, advertisers, and publishers all suffer as a result of these "bad actors." This broad picture perspective is a terrific (and perhaps alarming) reminder of the numerous threats that legitimate advertisers face in reaching their intended audience. This helps to explain why Google is pushing for advertising verification and enacting policies like the three-strikes policy.

TikTok Pulse Puts Brands Next to the Top 4% of Videos
TikTok has unveiled plans for a "contextual advertising solution" that will allow advertisers to be seen alongside the top 4% of content in the For You feed.

What exactly is TikTok Pulse? According to TikTok, this is the company's first venture into an advertising revenue share program with creators, celebrities, and media outlets. Ad money will be split 50/50 between creators and advertisers.

TikTok has grown into a big social platform that companies are finding difficult to ignore. This new program gives advertisers the opportunity to be shown alongside the most popular TikTok videos, which can receive millions of views.


Digital Marketing Snippets

• When your SEO traffic is flat, usually your pages are fluctuating. You’ll want to take a look at pages that are losing traffic and improve those.
  
• The same marketing strategies and principles from Web2 also apply to Web.
  

Some of this information is relevant to your business, and some of it might not be. This is where we can help. We’re able to break down these updates and figure out which ones are most important for you and your business. Contact us for a consultation!