Social Media Marketing News and Google SEO Changes for April 2019

A lot has been going on in the past weeks and there’s a boat load of updates and social media marketing news you might need to sift through. There are major updates from the big social media platforms and also a possible competing search engine for Google.

Updates and Social Media Marketing News about Google’s Glitch, Facebook Ads, Instagram checkout, and More!

1. Instagram Announces New ‘Checkout’ Feature for Businesses

Good social media marketing news for entrepreneurs and businesses looking to sell their products and services on Instagram, the popular app announced that they are introducing ‘checkout on Instagram’ in a post on March 19, 2019.

“When you tap to view a product from a brand’s shopping post, you’ll see a ‘Checkout on Instagram’ button on the product page. Tap it to select from various options such as size or color, then you’ll proceed to payment without leaving Instagram,” it said.

“You’ll only need to enter your name, email, billing information and shipping address the first time you check out,” Instagram added.

Consumers will also be able to track the shipment and delivery of their purchase without leaving Instagram

Reports indicate that businesses will have to pay a fee to Instagram for every transaction on the platform.

The ‘checkout on Instagram’ feature is still in closed beta testing for businesses in the US. The initial rollout involves 23 businesses including Adidas, Burberry, Nike, Uniqlo, Zara, MAC Cosmetics, Prada, and others.

2. Ahrefs CEO Wants to Create New Search Engine

Ahrefs wants to take on tech giant Google in the search engine landscape. A March 27, 2019 report shows that CEO Dmitry Gerasimenko wants to take on Google because he believes that the world’s top search engine is unfair to users and publishers.

Ahrefs is working on general purpose search engine to compete with Google. Sounds crazy, right?
But lets talk about two huge problems with Google which they will never want to fix:

— Dmitry Gerasimenko (@botsbreeder) March 27, 2019

“Putting away the lyricism, what we plan to do is to launch a search engine with commitment to privacy and a 90/10 profit share model, meaning 90% goes to content creators, leaving 10% for expenses and profit,” Gerasimenko said in the Twitter thread.

He points out that Google as a web content gatekeeper was not encouraging innovation and better content especially since it was also scraping and showing content from the creators for free. Gerasimenko highlighted the need for a profit sharing model with the content creators so that there’s incentive for them to create quality content.

3. Updates from Social Media Marketing World 2019 Conference

The customer is always right and key speakers during the Social Media Marketing World 2019 conference are training their sights on connecting with customers once again.

Starting with Facebook in the opening keynote, Social Media Examiner CEO Michael Stelzner highlighted how video is the best performing content on the world’s leading social media platform.

“Facebook is a platform that thrives on people connecting, not on content. In order to influence, we must connect with people,” he said.

“The best-performing content on Facebook – by far – is video,” Stelzner added.

Being human and authentic on Twitter was highlighted by UK-based KPS Digital Marketing’s co-founder Dan Knowlton in his presentation.

“Talk like your customers talk, share how you feel [and] demonstrate passion. Be more human and less robot,” he said. For example, Coca-Cola, a well-known American brand uses emotions like happiness and enjoyment in their marketing to relate to consumers on a personal level. These two emotions are embodied by their current slogan, “Taste the Feeling.”

For instance, Coca-Cola is a quintessential American brand driven by key characteristics such as happiness, enjoyment, and community, wrapped up in their slogan “Taste the Feeling.” Marketers can utilize this tactic by creating a relatable brand identity that can be embraced on a personal level.

Jay Baer, author and found of Convince & Convert, said in his presentation that “the best way to grow your business is to have your customers do it for you.”

For more information about social media marketing news and the conference, check their website here.

4. Facebook Ads Library now Searchable in Transparency Initiative

Facebook launched a new initiative to be more transparent with the ads running on its platform, according to a March 28, 2019 post on FB Newsroom.

“We’re working hard to make advertising more transparent and to give people more information about the ads they see,” Satwik Shukla, Product Manager, said in the post.

The improved Ad Library aims to increase the transparency of ads that are related to politics or issues from Pages. Facebook said that it also allows greater access to their API so the public can analyze political or issue ads.

The centralized library allows users to see a variety of information related to a certain Page including: Creation date, Page name changes, country location of Page managers, and “advertiser spend information for ads related to politics.”

The Ad Library is available even to people who do not have a Facebook account, according to a report by TechCrunch.

5. Preparing for a Social Media Network Outage

When social media giant Facebook, along with Instagram and WhatsApp, experienced its longest ever outage last March 13, social media managers were left grasping at straws.

Experts provide a guide for social media managers to follow in the event of another widespread and prolonged outage:

1. Determine if outage is widespread and not just you. Engage with customers on other platforms to let them know you are also experiencing the outage. Monina Wagner, Content Marketing Institute’s community manager, suggest that brands can “Poke fun at the situation. Show your audience you’re in the same boat.”
2. Optimize for other platforms. David Herrmann, co-owner and advertising director for Social Outlier, advised advertisers to optimize at least 20 percent of their budget on other platforms during the outage. Undertone’s Director of Social Strategy Jon Mottel said that advertisers might need to make more drastic changes if they have time-sensitive campaigns that would be severely affected by the outage.

“For short term, high volume efforts, a change of investment might need to happen drastically and rapidly to stay necessarily relevant,” Mottel said.

3. Go into recovery mode: Once the platform is back online, Mottel suggests going into recovery mode and double checking that all campaigns have returned to normal within 12 to 24 hours. He also advised social media managers to take the opportunity to review what happened as they will need to be prepared again in case of another outage in the future.

For more guidance on contingency plans in case of social media outages, check here.

6. Google glitch leaves web pages deindexed for a few days

A technical issue in Google has left many web pages deindexed prompting Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst, John Mueller, to respond to questions on Twitter.

Neither the actual glitch nor the cause of the glitch that lasted for a few days starting April 5 was fully explained but Mueller apologized on Twitter and assured webmasters that the issue “should be resolved in the meantime.”

Sorry — We had a technical issue on our side for a while there — this should be resolved in the meantime, and the affected URLs reprocessed. It’s good to see that the Inspect URL tool is also useful for these kinds of cases though!

— ???? John ???? (@JohnMu) April 6, 2019

The Google Search Liaison account on Twitter (@searchliaison) provided updates on how they were resolving the issue throughout the week.

It announced on April 11 that the “indexing issue” has been fully resolved but did not provide any further explanation or details about what caused the glitch.

The indexing issue has now been fully resolved. We apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate your patience as we restored normal operation.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) April 11, 2019

Concerned stakeholders who might be worried about what happened can check out Danny Sullivan’s Twitter profile (@dannysullivan) for additional information.

Just the Tip of the Iceberg

We’ve barely scratched the surface on the latest updates and social media marketing news. This is just the tip of the iceberg and there are more information about the world of SEO, Social Media and Online Marketing.

Stay tuned for more social media marketing news and updates so you can stay on top of the game.