Today in Digital Marketing - 164: A Hashtag, a PSA, and a Mystery

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

A new hashtag has taken Instagram by storm... A PSA to update your iPhone — and why... LinkedIn just gave advertisers more options... And, a Google ranking mystery is solved! Today in Digital Marketing is produced by engageQ.com. Can we help you with YOUR brand’s digital marketing and social media? Email [e-mail] or visit engageQ.com/contact Help Spread the Word! • Review this podcast at ratethispodcast.com/today • Click bit.ly/tweet-tidm to preview a tweet you can publish Advertising: Reach ~1,000 Digital Marketers • Classifieds ($20) — todayindigital.com/classifieds • Mid-Rolls — todayindigital.com/advertising TOD’S SOCIAL MEDIA: • Tod’s web site: TodMaffin.com • Tod’s agency: engageQ.com • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/todmaffin • Twitter: twitter.com/todmaffin • Instagram: instagram.com/todmaffin • Facebook: facebook.com/tmaffin • TikTok: tiktok.com/@todmaffin • Mixer: mixer.com/HappyRadioGuy • Xbox Gamertag: Radio#9573 SOURCES: https://twitter.com/instagram/status/1267859718917120001 https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/02/tech-companies-mark-blackout-tuesday/ https://twitter.com/TwitterSupport/status/1267105441278033920 https://wersm.com/update-your-iphone-to-ios-13-5-1-now/ https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/facebook-adds-option-to-send-marketing-emails-via-pages-app/579003/ https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/02/linkedin-ad-retargeting/ https://searchengineland.com/google-local-ranking-changes-in-early-may-thank-a-bug-335452 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/todayindigital/messageOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

A new hashtag has taken Instagram by storm, a PSA to update your iPhone, and why. LinkedIn just gave advertisers more options, and a Google glitch mystery is solved. It's Tuesday, June 2nd. Happy Republic Day, Italy. I'm McKenna Hadley-Burke from EngageQ Digital, filling in this week for Todd Maffin. And here's what you missed today in digital marketing. If you checked your Instagram feed today, you've probably seen that many users are sharing black squares to their Instagram profiles with the corresponding hashtags Blackout Tuesday or

The Show Must Be Paused. TechCrunch shared that this movement was started by two music industry executives to, quote, call on fellow industry members to protest police violence against Black people by pausing operations for the day, unquote. Many individuals and brands were quick to participate in the growing movement on social media and took to their platforms to cancel regularly scheduled content in favor of promoting Black Lives Matter resources, information, and affiliated donation links. TechCrunch shared that Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music all made changes to their platforms, playlists, and content in a show of support. As the narrative online shifts, platforms are trying to find new ways to keep the flow of information timely, accurate, and up-to-date.

Instagram asked users that were sharing a black square in support of Blackout Tuesday to refrain from using the Black Lives Matter hashtag. Some users were concerned it was covering up important information and resources related to the movement and protests. Twitter's support profile also shared a tweet reminding users how they can access the latest tweets by clicking the star in the upper right-hand corner of their home timeline. If your brand is planning on participating in the movement, nearly all content scheduling

platforms have a way to pause the queue and resume when you're ready. As any digital marketer can attest, your phone is often your lifeline. What none of us want is a compromised security system. Yesterday, Apple released a new update that patched a security issue involving the Uncover Jailbreak. According to Weir Social Media, the Uncover Jailbreak was popular among iOS users because it was, quote, allowing users of the latest Apple devices to install new software features outside of Apple's gated App Store, unquote. But jailbreaking your phone doesn't come without a risk. What you may gain in access to apps and software, you lose in terms of security. So if you're a fan of keeping what's on your phone yours, think about popping into your settings and updating your iOS to the latest version. If you advertise on LinkedIn, you might be excited to

learn they just released new features to integrate into your next campaign. TechCrunch reported that LinkedIn has introduced retargeting capabilities for video ads and lead generation forms. TechCrunch reports that the new retargeting features offer advertisers the option to target users based on how much of the video ad they actually watched, whether that be 25% or all of it. When LinkedIn tested the new feature with advertisers like Topdesk, they saw a 20% increase in conversions and a 24% drop in cost per conversion. TechCrunch also reports that LinkedIn has made video retargeting capabilities extend to the LinkedIn audience network, which now includes publishers like Flipboard, Microsoft News, and MSN.com. Quoting TechCrunch, LinkedIn can now extend the reach of a sponsored content campaign by 25%, while adding nine times more monthly touchpoints with some LinkedIn members.

Sounds like a feature worth testing the next time you set up your LinkedIn ad campaign. If you use Facebook's Pages app, you may have noticed a new option to send customized marketing emails to your email subscribers. If you intend to send emails using this page, Social Media Today reports that you will need to manually add your email contacts.

You can not just use pre-existing ones from Facebook profiles. What's the benefit of this new tool? Quoting Social Media Today, it essentially seeks to replicate CRM systems with all of your marketing messages coming from your Facebook business hub, unquote. speculates that the rollout of this feature, quote, could also be part of Facebook's extended tools to help small and mid-sized businesses shift to digital marketing in order to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 lockdowns, unquote. So far, users in the U.S. and Australia are already reporting seeing the new feature, but whether it will be put to use is another question. The mystery of Google rankings fluctuations that some people in the SEO community flagged early last month may have been solved. In a reply to an earlier tweet about the issue, Google search liaison Danny Sullivan tweeted, quote, just wanted to update. Thanks for

the examples. They helped us find a bug that we got resolved about two weeks ago, and that seems to stabilize things since, unquote. Search Engine Land shared the update along some tips on what to take away from this experience. Talking about how ranking issues can sometimes just happen, Search Engine Land suggests that reacting right away isn't necessarily the best response. Quote, often it makes sense to wait a bit, look at the data, see what your competitors are doing, analyze your own site data before drawing conclusions or taking action, unquote. So basically, don't get too concerned until you're sure there's reason to. Mistakes and glitches happen. That's it for today. You can find more information and links to the articles we mentioned in our show notes.

I'm McKenna Hadley-Berg. Talk to you tomorrow. You can get cash back from over 750 stores on electronics, holiday travel, home decor, and more. It's super easy. And before you buy anything, always go to Rakuten first. Join free at Rakuten.ca. Start shopping and get your cash back sent to you by check or PayPal. Get the Rakuten app or join at Rakuten.ca. R-A-K-U-T-E-N dot C-A.