From Instagram hiding likes globally to Black Friday sales, November was a busy month for digital! We’ve got you covered with our monthly round up of digital marketing news, so you can stay up to date.

Let’s take a look at the stories you might have missed…

Facebook to limit the number of ads ran by a page

Facebook says it’s implementing ad limits as “very high ad volume can hinder an advertiser’s performance. Fewer ads exit the learning phase and more budget is spent before the delivery system can optimise an ad’s performance.”

Starting next year, the change is likely to impact a small percentage of advertisers. 

Twitter: ‘Topics’, 2020 features and inactive accounts

There’s been a lot of news surrounding Twitter this month!

Early in November, the platform announced ‘Topics’. This new feature lets users follow specific topics across sports, gaming and entertainment. Twitter hopes the topics features will enable users to personalise their experience on the platform, and interact more with the content they love. It could also be a great way to keep up to date with breaking news in your industry.

As we approach the new year, attention is shifting to what 2020 will bring. In a tweet, the VP of design and research for Twitter gave us a sneak peek by sharing a list of features he’s looking forward to in 2020:

If these features roll out next year, it’s an indication that Twitter is looking at how users communicate and interact on the platform.

Finally, there’s been discussion around Twitter’s decision to purge accounts that have been inactive for 6 months. In a bid to make more usernames available, Twitter was looking to delete accounts that haven’t logged in for 6 months. 

However, it’s decided to put this plan on pause whilst it creates a way to memorialise Twitter accounts that are no longer in use. In a statement on Twitter, they explained the decision:

“This impacts accounts in the EU only, for now. We’ve always had an inactive account policy but we haven’t enforced it consistently. We’re starting with the EU in part due to local privacy regulations (eg, GDPR)... We will not be removing any inactive accounts until we create a new way for people to memorialize accounts. Beyond complying with GDPR, we may broaden the enforcement of our inactivity policy in the future to comply with other regulations around the world and to ensure the integrity of the service. We will communicate with all of you if we do.”

 Google introduced page speed reports in Search Console

If you’re wondering which pages on your website are slower and how you can fix them, Google’s new tool is just what you need.

The feature groups URLs into 3 categories: ‘fast’, ‘moderate’ and ‘slow’, based on data from the Chrome User Experience Report. It identifies any issues causing pages to be slower. 

When you click on any identified issues, you’re taken to Google’s Page Speed Insight tool, where you can learn more about how to optimise your pages. You’ll be on your way to speedy web pages in no time!

Google is adding shopping ads to YouTube

With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas, the last few months of the year are busy for retailers. So, it’s the perfect time for Google to expand ad options for advertisers.

The shopping ads on YouTube will appear in the home feed and within search results. Google says that ‘nearly two-thirds of shoppers say online video has given them ideas and inspiration for their purchase’.

Advertisers will be able to target customers based on their interests when they are watching video content related to their product.

Instagram expanded its hidden likes text globally

After announcing it would be trialling hiding like counts in certain countries, it appears Instagram is showing no signs of slowing down. Last month, the platform rolled out the experiment worldwide for all users, following ‘positive’ feedback.

When asked about the reason behind hiding likes, this is what Instagram’s CEO, Adam Mosseri, had to say:

"It's about young people - the idea is to try and depressurise Instagram, make it less of a competition, give people more space to focus on connecting with people that they love, things that inspire them.”

Many brands are now left wondering how this might impact their marketing strategy - we've explored how it will impact your marketing.

Instagram trialled a new TikTok inspired feature

TikTok is one of the fastest growing apps, taking the world of social media by storm. In fact, it reached an impressive 1.5 billion download as of last month. 

Instagram is testing a new feature in Brazil, called ‘Reels’. It allows users to create short videos that can be shared and remixed with a variety of editing options. With TikTok’s users largely Gen Z’s, it would seem that Instagram is looking to attract this audience to their platform.

 

 

Google’s reminder about frequency of updates

When rumours circled about a new important update to Google’s logarithm, SearchLiaison confirmed the updates but clarified that they ‘have several updates in any given week on a regular basis.’ 

With Google constantly making updates, it’s always good to be aware of any changes. Google Webmasters is the best place for the latest information.

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