Ep175- Per Google, A Page Doesn't Have To Be In The Top 10 Results To Be A Featured Snippet

Episode 175 contains the notable Digital Marketing News and Updates from the week of August 21 -25, 2023.

1.LinkedIn Makes it Easier to Create and Manage Newsletters - LinkedIn is updating its newsletter creation user interface (UI) to make it easier for users to create and manage their newsletters. The new UI includes a number of improvements, such as a more intuitive design, a preview pane, and the ability to host multiple newsletters.

First off, LinkedIn’s rolling out an updated newsletter editing and publishing process, improving on the current creation flow. The preview pane allows users to see how their newsletter will look before they publish it. This is a helpful feature for ensuring that the newsletter is formatted correctly and that all of the content is displayed as intended.

“The revamped article editor is purposefully designed to offer a seamless and dependable experience, allowing you to completely focus on sharing your insights and expertise. It’s now easier than ever to format, layout, and add a mix of photos, videos, links and more. You can save your articles in progress as drafts to seek a second opinion and gather feedback from others before it goes live. With customization options, you can schedule your article to publish when your community is most active and add a SEO title and description for even more reach”

The ability to host multiple newsletters is a new feature that allows users to create different newsletters for different purposes. For example, a user could create one newsletter for their company's news and updates, and another newsletter for their thought leadership content. “Any member or Company via Pages can now host up to five newsletters in one place with different topics, design and frequency of posting for each newsletter to strengthen relevance and engagement.”

Finally, LinkedIn’s also now adding auto-follow for newsletter subscribers, so that when a new subscriber signs up to your newsletter, they’ll also follow your regular LinkedIn updates as well. I’m not sure that this is the best way to go, as newsletter subscribers are not explicitly seeking to follow all of a member’s updates, but it could help in building your LinkedIn audience, and maximizing engagement through extended notifications.

LinkedIn says that its newsletter updates will be rolled out to all users over the next month.

2. TikTok Pushes Retailers to Adopt Native Shopping - TikTok is pushing retailers to adopt its native shopping elements, as it looks to further grow its in-app commerce business. The company recently announced that it is shutting down its Storefront feature, which allowed merchants to connect their third-party shopping process into the TikTok UI. Originally launched back in 2021, TikTok’s Storefronts are primarily focused on direct connection with Shopify, and enabling Shopify merchants to display their products in-stream. TikTok has since expanded Storefront integration to other eCommerce providers as well, but now, it’s confident that its own TikTok Shop offering will cover all retailer requirements.

Now, TikTok wants retailers to rely on its own shopping tools, such as TikTok Shop, which allows users to browse and purchase products directly from videos and live streams. According to TikTok: “Storefront will be officially discontinued and unavailable for use. This means your Storefront products will no longer be visible on your TikTok profile, or be eligible for inclusion in short videos, LIVEs and ads. You will also lose access to your Storefront on Store Manager. It’s important to migrate from your Storefront to TikTok Shop as soon as possible.”

TikTok Shop is still in its early stages, but it has already seen some success. In April, TikTok announced that it had processed over $3 billion in GMV through TikTok Shop. The company is also working on expanding TikTok Shop to other countries, including the United States.

The move to native shopping elements is a sign of TikTok's ambitions in the e-commerce space. In China, in-app shopping has become the key revenue stream for the local version of the app, but thus far, Western users haven’t shown the same enthusiasm for in-stream purchases. TikTok has the reach, the experience, and the expertise to make this happen. Now, it’s just down to whether users actually want to be able to shop in-stream.

3. TikTok Launches Search Ads: A New Way to Reach Your Target Audience - It’s official – TikTok is bringing ads to its search results.  TikTok has begun rolling out ads in search results, giving brands a new way to reach users who are actively looking for information about their products or services. The ads will appear alongside organic search results, and they will be labeled as "Sponsored." TikTok said this depends on: Relevancy, user intent (as understood from their search query), and broader learnings from other user behavior. Per Tiktok: “The typical search journey starts with a user clicking the search button at the top of the For You feed. From there, they type in a search query, which then yields a series of search results. The ads appear among these search results. Once a user clicks on a search ad, the ad mirrors the in-feed TikTok experience, with users able to continue scrolling through the search results in the order they appear on the page.”

TikTok’s search ads are not a standalone ads product. Rather, ads are an extension of a TikTok video ad buy. TikTok's search ads are powered by the same technology as its In-Feed Ads, which means that they can be targeted to users based on their interests, demographics, and other factors. This makes them a highly effective way to reach a specific audience with relevant advertising.

The launch of TikTok's search ads is a major development for the platform, as it opens up a new revenue stream for the company and gives brands a new way to reach their target audience. It is also a sign of TikTok's growing ambitions in the advertising market. TikTok has 100 million U.S. monthly active users, which means there is a big opportunity for your brand or business to be found. Google has acknowledged TikTok search is a legitimate threat to its search business.

4. YouTube's Tips for Creating Successful Shorts - YouTube Shorts is the fastest-growing content type on YouTube, and is now driving over 50 billion daily views in the app. YouTube has published a new interview with Shorts Product Lead Todd Sherman, in which Sherman answers some of the most common questions about Shorts, including how they’re using hashtags, how often you should post, the Shorts algorithm, and what’s coming next.

“For example, on long form, a lot of the times people are choosing which video by tapping on it on their phone, or clicking on it on the web, and that choice is something that drives a lot of engagement. On short form, people are swiping through a feed, and discovering things as they go. That’s one important difference.”

Sherman says that Shorts views are not measured when a Short appears on screen, but are more aligned with actual viewer interest. “What we try and do with a view is have it encode for your intent of watching that thing, so that creators feel like that view has some meaningful threshold that the person decided to watch. It doesn’t mean it’s their favorite video ever, it just means that they are deliberately watching it.” Sherman says that YouTube doesn’t publish its actual calculations on this, in order to stop people trying to game the system.

Sherman says that t...