Oh my – is that…the sun? Spring’s arrived, and not a minute too soon. Of course, the sun never sets on the world of digital marketing, and we’ve been out picking the very freshest digital marketing insights to keep you up to speed with what you need. Here’s our ‘3 in 3’ Trio news roundup.
Episode 20, with Colleen, Jess, and Jamie-Lee – watch here
LinkedIn has launched a podcast network
LinkedIn have announced a limited series of 12 podcasts to launch the LinkedIn Podcast Network. The series features top creators from a broad range of professional fields, including the celebrated tech journalist Alex Kantrowitz and inclusion pioneer Mita Mallick.
Colleen applauds LinkedIn’s agility in responding to the growing popularity of podcasts. Jamie-Lee confesses her love for the podcast format, but admits struggling to consistently find good ones. Colleen points out that having curators like LinkedIn is a good way to find consistent quality.
TikTok’s What’s Next trend report
TikTok’s new trend report is dropping some major hints about how to optimise your use of their platform. There’s a lot of emphasis on how valuable sound is – 88% of users report that sound is important to their TikTok experience – and how the best creators use original sound to their advantage.
There’s also a lot in the report about the increasing role played by social commerce on TikTok, demonstrated by the new feature allowing products to be pinned to the top of comments on live streams.
The SEO impact of changing website hosting locations
Google’s Senior Webmaster, John Mueller, lets slip another tip – apparently websites changing hosting provider should expect a dip in crawl speed, which may lead to your fresh content taking longer to be indexed. Thankfully, he reassures us that this is only a temporary hitch, and normal service can be expected to resume fairly quickly.
He threw in an extra factoid for good measure, about how a website should be hosted in its native country to optimise speed. The Trio gang debate this, arguing that any drop in speed as a result of overseas hosting has been non-existent in their experience.
Colleen demonstrates her new prosthetic neck, and then it’s all wrapped up for another week.
Episode 21, with Beth, Jess, and Darren – watch here
Google rolls out short titles for product ads
Google’s new guideline for shorter product ad titles have arrived. The general guidance suggests keeping your titles under 65 characters, and a recommendation to include your brand name and most important keywords first.
Darren’s viewing it as another helpful Google content nudge, encouraging people to be more direct and to get to the point. Beth sees the benefit for potential customers viewing the ads – shorter titles will make the user journey smoother.
Instagram is working on Livestream Direct Replies
There are rumours that Instagram are set to launch direct reply functionality within livestreams, allowing creators to simultaneously stream and reply to viewer’s comments.
Everyone’s seeing the upside of this. Jess thinks it’ll be great for building communities around the output of popular influencers and celebs, letting the most committed fans communicate directly during livestreams.
Darren ponders whether they’ll include a function to appoint a moderator, so that a designated user can provide the answers, links and tags requested by the viewers while the livestreamer gets on with presenting to the camera.
Beth thinks it’d just be a good start to have the questions answered immediately, without waiting ages for the livestreamer to see the question and respond – by which time the conversation has often moved on.
Twitter Podcasts may be coming soon
Twitter are alleged to be working on their own podcast function, in part to answer criticisms of Twitter Spaces, which some have found to be a recipe for rambling boredom and confusion.
Beth looks forward to seeing some of the guest hosts that Twitter should be able to pull in for the launch. Jess points out that this move by Twitter could be in response to LinkedIn’s Podcast Network – it’s interesting how the social platforms are starting to lean into the podcast space. Darren is also keen to see how creators make use of the feature – as a creator, he’d be far more comfortable working on scripted content rather than busking it in Twitter Spaces.
Episode 22, with Nichola, Jess, and Kaitlyn – watch here
TikTok has launched a platform for music creators
TikTok are making moves in the music distribution space, in keeping with their current emphasis on audio-driven content. The ‘Sound On’ music distribution feature will be directly available within the current app, and artists signing up will get to keep 100% of their royalties for the first year. Have they reinvented Myspace?
Nichola recognises it as a great USP, and one that fits well with their demographic – lots of musicians on TikTok.
Jess sees the function as being useful to smaller artists – but points out that royalties will be split with TikTok after the first year. Kaitlyn likes the fact that the function is integrated directly into the existing UI.
Twitter’s 2022 Trend Report
Twitter have made use of their new Trend Report to urge brands and marketers to make more meaningful use of their influence over audience behaviour. The report encourages brands to link up with their competitors in order to talk about sustainability and climate change.
Jess sees this as a potential opportunity for brands to reposition themselves, and demonstrate their engagement with these issues. It’s a good way to get involved in the conversation, even if you’ve not previously done so.
Kaitlyn rightly points out that businesses should consider carefully whether they can make a genuine attempt to clean up their act, or whether they might get caught out for greenwashing, which is now against the law.
Google may surface more short-form video in search results
Google have announced that short-form video is going to be surfacing in Google Search results. There are limits, obviously – video from Instagram and Facebook won’t be eligible, and videos of more than five minutes in length won’t be featured.
Nichola says it could actually be better than looking on YouTube for some stuff – recipe videos, for example, are much better as short form, so you can avoid the lengthy intros. She wonders if we’ll see mainly YouTube content in the results.
Kaitlyn suspects that Google’s motivation might have been to increase viewing figures for YouTube Reels, in the face of competition from other video-based platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Nichola and Jess attempt to develop some kind of funky hand sign for ‘3 in 3’. It isn’t a success.
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