Today in Digital Marketing - Facebook Has No Idea What “Improved” Means Any More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today, Facebook says it's improved reporting by crippling it, Core Web Vitals might give you a Google ranking boost after all, people might soon be littering your company's profile with photos, and we are looking for a guest host. It's Friday, March 12th, 2021. Happy National Shield Day, Argentina. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital. Here's what you missed today in digital marketing. This weekend is your last opportunity to apply for our guest host job. Yes, it's paid work. We're trying to find a substitute for me

Starting point is 00:00:29 when I'm on holidays. It's a simple form and a script that we will ask you to record. It's like maybe 45 seconds long, mostly so we can hear the quality of your mic and how echoey your room is. You can apply if this interests you at todayindigital.com slash host or tap the link in today's notes. Heads up if you run Facebook ads and prefer your reporting to be, you know, accurate. Facebook has made a change. It hilariously calls improved result summaries. Hilarious because they've made result summaries much less valuable now. As usual, Facebook advised us advertisers about this by putting a pop-up in the ads manager of maybe like six people and then calling it a day. The pop-up reads,

Starting point is 00:01:15 Now, when you view result summaries for your campaigns, the numbers will reflect the total for those campaigns regardless of any filters applied to your ad sets or ads. This is a big deal. As usual, it's not clear whether this is active for everyone now or if it's rolling out or if this is a test or if the moon is in Virgo. Do the people at Facebook even look at their own product? Who asked for this? Please, for the love of God, Facebook, stop. An update on the forthcoming core web vitals change to Google's ranking algorithm. To briefly recap, Google is close to adding a new ranking factor. The core web vitals are actually three metrics. How fast the first element appears on your page,

Starting point is 00:02:05 how soon a user can interact with the page, and how much the layout on your web page jumps around. Until now, Google has said this is a pass or fail score. If you pass, your ranking stays the same. If you fail, you might lose a bit of position. But now, Martin Splitt, a key engineer at Google, says, quote, all things being equal, a page with Core Web Vitals field data may have a tiny advantage over one without, unquote. This is the first time we've heard

Starting point is 00:02:31 that passing could give you a ranking boost. Some people are speculating that in the case of a ranking tie, it could make the difference of putting your site up just a tad higher. If you rely on Google Local for your company's revenue, like plumbers or handymen, their latest test might interest you. They're testing a box that comes up when people search for a business in Google Maps and will show the estimated prices near the user.

Starting point is 00:03:00 One person who reported seeing this test had done a search for roofing companies in his area and it estimated prices for a roofing job in that community. It looks like this data is being sourced from HomeWise. Google does have a data connection with that site for other stuff, but this is certainly an interesting change. Heads up, social media community managers. Google says it will soon let users share photos about a business without leaving a review.

Starting point is 00:03:26 And by share photos, Google actually means post photos on your company's Google My Business profile. They'll also be able to leave a short text description. This will be the first time users can drop photos on your profile without writing a review to go with the photo. It's not clear whether the photos will also drop into the comments API so that your third-party tool of choice can access them, let you act on them, like delete them and so on. My guess is it won't be in the API, at least not right away. So best to install the Google My Business app on your phone to get those notifications. And finally, small items. Starting on March 24th, Eventbrite will stop supporting the following widgets.

Starting point is 00:04:09 Calendar, Countdown, Button, and Text Link. If you are currently displaying any of those widgets on your website, you will need to remove the HTML code ahead of March 24th, as the widgets will no longer render once they remove support for them. We try really hard to make this a good use of your time. Short, punchy, no rambling. Well, not much rambling anyway. And if you find this valuable, I'd really appreciate it if you'd take a minute to rate and review this podcast.

Starting point is 00:04:35 We have made this easier for you than you can imagine. There's a link in this episode's notes that will take you right to the review page of your app. Well, that's it for this week. Today in Digital Marketing is produced on beautiful Vancouver Island by EngageQ Digital. Production support and fact-checking by Sarah Guild. Our theme is by Mark Blevis. Music licensing by Source Audio.

Starting point is 00:04:57 I'm Todd Mappin. Have a restful weekend, friends. I'll talk to you on Monday One government report Projected by the year 2000 The United States will have a 30 hour work week and month long Vacations as the rule you

Today in Digital Marketing - Facebook Has No Idea What “Improved” Means Any More

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