Today in Digital Marketing - Searching for Redemption: Will Google’s AI Announcements Be Enough?

Starting point is 00:00:00 It is Thursday, May 11th. Today, it was a big day for Google, maybe one of its most important. But will yesterday's AI announcements shift the hype tide back in the company's favor? More social media will make it to Google's search engine. Pinterest simplifies its main post type. And the best times to post on social media for 2023? Sort of. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:00:24 That's ahead today in digital marketing. All right, Google announced a number of new AI updates yesterday at its developers conference, and we have rounded up everything that you need to know. First, the company is adding generative AI to its search engine. It's a test version of this new search engine called search generative experience, which is a title only an engineer, of course, could have come up with. And it includes text generation capabilities kind of similar to what we've seen in ChatGPT. The updated search engine still requires users to enter a query.

Starting point is 00:00:56 It will continue to display links to sites, content snippets, and ads. In some cases, though, the top page will feature AI-generated text gathered from across the web, along with links to those pages. Users will also see suggested next steps when conducting a search, and tapping on these steps will initiate a new conversational mode where they can ask Google more about the topic they're exploring. This is obviously inspired by Bing. Context will carry over from one question to the next. This is integrated with Google Shopping. The platform's shopping graph, which has more than 35 billion product listings, powers the new generative AI shopping experience. Search ads will continue to appear in dedicated ad slots throughout this new experience. And the

Starting point is 00:01:41 company says that ads will remain distinguishable from organic search results. The new search experiment is available to a few users in the U.S. through a new feature called Search Labs that should be opening up in the next week or two. Google is also bringing more tools to its workspace product, including automatic table generation in Sheets and image creation in Slides and Meet. With Google Sheets, users can now generate tables by typing in a prompt of what they want to accomplish, like agenda for a one-day sales kickoff event with session descriptions and status, and it will provide a personalized template with content. This does not, though, include automatic formula generation. As for Slides and Meet, the image generation feature lets users

Starting point is 00:02:26 type in what kind of visualization they want, and it will create that image for you. The use case for Google Meet is custom backgrounds. Google Docs is also getting an update to its AI assistant, which can now surface smart chips for locations and status. Looking ahead, Google says it plans to add a BARD chat style interface to Docs. Meanwhile, BARD, that is Google's chat GPT rival, is getting some generative AI upgrades courtesy of a partnership with Adobe. Firefly, that is Adobe's recently introduced AI model for generating media content, is coming to BARD alongside Adobe Express, its free graphic design tool. This means that users will be able to generate images through Firefly and modify them using Adobe Express. Within BARD, users will be able to select from various templates, fonts, and stock images, as well as other assets from Adobe's library. Those updates will be available soon. Google also introduced a new image editing

Starting point is 00:03:23 feature called Magic Editor that uses generative AI to make complex edits to photos without professional tools. You'll be able to remove unwanted elements from a photo, relocate and change the scale of the subject or the product, create new content to fill in the gaps after repositioning that product. You can't play with it yet, though. That tool will not be available until later this year. And with all these tools for AI-generated images, Google has added a new feature to search that can identify whether an image has been created by AI. It's called About This Image. It provides information on when the image was first indexed by Google, where it may have appeared, and if it was featured on news or fact-checking sites. Users can access it by clicking the three dots above an image on search results, including Google Lens, or by swiping up in the Google app. All right, well, besides its push to integrate more AI into search, Google also announced

Starting point is 00:04:22 yesterday that a new Perspectives feature will be coming to the top of some of its search results. As it looks to reclaim search traffic from some of the newer kids on the block, this new feature will let users access content like TikTok videos and Reddit links directly in search results without having to append the platform name to their query. The filter will also provide users with more information about content creators, including their name, their query. The filter will also provide users with more information about content creators, including their name, their profile picture, and the popularity of their content. Previously, the company announced Perspectives would launch under Top Stories on desktop and mobile. Now, it will be available in general search results where relevant.

Starting point is 00:04:59 Google added it's developing an enhanced system for understanding and ranking personal content, as well as improving how it ranks review content on search by giving more weight to high-quality sites that include original information. Do you have business insurance? If not, how would you pay to recover from a cyber attack, fire damage, theft, or a lawsuit? No business or profession is risk-free. Without insurance, your assets are at risk from major financial losses, data breaches,

Starting point is 00:05:31 and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today, starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected, be Zen. Some bad news for anyone using an ad blocker, but good news for those of us advertising on YouTube. The company confirmed it has launched a new test that prevents consumers from viewing content while using ad blocking software on their browser. As a result, some users have reported seeing a new pop-up message while trying to watch videos, which notifies them that ad blockers are not permitted on the platform.

Starting point is 00:06:07 According to the pop-up, users must either disable their ad blocker or sign up for a YouTube Premium membership where they can go ad-free. Change is coming for brands and social media marketers. On Pinterest, the platform is streamlining its tools for all pin formats into one creation flow, combining video pins and images, as well as other editing features like stickers and overlay text, all into a single post format. Now, to create video or image content, you just select the Create a Pin option. access to features that were previously only available with idea pins or users with a business account like post-publish editing, flexible aspect ratios, and links. All pins will have the option to include external links to direct users to a website. Pinterest has also introduced new performance metrics including views and watch time across all pins, pin scheduling, as well as pin components like title details and links post publication.

Starting point is 00:07:12 If you are looking to maximize engagement, social media management platform Sprout Social recently published its annual report on the best times to post on all social platforms. According to the report, the best time to post on Facebook is weekday mornings, specifically 8am to 1pm, Monday to Thursday in your local time. No real surprise that weekdays outperform weekends. On Instagram, most engagement occurs during the mornings, with the most effective posting times being Mondays from 10am to noon, Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Fridays 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Notably, Sunday is the worst day for engagement on Facebook and Instagram. As for TikTok, engagement is higher during the afternoons, with the optimal times being Tuesday to Thursday after 2 p.m., but before 6 p.m.

Starting point is 00:08:03 The data suggests that weekends are not that great for TikTok engagement either. For LinkedIn company pages, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon are the best times to post. Again, weekends, not so good. And as far as Pinterest goes, engagement peaks between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.

Starting point is 00:08:22 Tuesday to Thursday. Full disclosure, our agency uses Sprout Social as one of its engagement tools. We do pay for it, and several years ago we received a small amount of revenue from the company from referral links. We got spring back, so I'm going out for a walk. Thanks for listening. I'm Todd Maffin.

Starting point is 00:08:41 See you tomorrow.

Today in Digital Marketing - Searching for Redemption: Will Google’s AI Announcements Be Enough?

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