Today in Digital Marketing - The Days of "Would You Please Review Our Store?" Are Over

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Is Google blocking reviews from your in-store customers? Also: Not even a day after Instagram adds it, Pinterest now has Reply With Video... Where's the money going? Online video and social media. And Walmart puts commerce right into its video player.Go Premium! No ads, more stories, and extended deep-dive weekend episodes — https://todayindigital.com/premiumADVERTISING as low as $20: https://todayindigital.com/adsShowcase your marketing tool for free! https://todayindigital.com/showcase  JOIN OUR SLACK! https://todayindigital.com/slackFOLLOW US: https://todayindigital.com/socialmedia (TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and more) ENJOYING THE SHOW?- Please tweet about us! https://b.link/pod-tweet- Rate and review us: https://todayindigital.com/rateus- Leave a voicemail: https://b.link/pod-voicemail FOLLOW TOD:- TikTok: https://b.link/pod-tiktok- Twitter: https://b.link/pod-twitter- LinkedIn: https://b.link/pod-linkedin Today in Digital Marketing is hosted by Tod Maffin (https://b.link/pod-todsite) and produced by engageQ digital (https://b.link/pod-engageq). Subscribe at https://TodayInDigital.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (Theme music by Mark Blevis. All other music licensed by Source Audio.)Does your brand need a podcast? Let us help: https://engageQ.com/podcastsOur Sponsors:* Check out Kinsta: https://kinsta.comPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. 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. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. Today, is Google blocking reviews from your in-store customers?

Also, not even a day after Instagram adds it, Pinterest now has reply with video. Where's the money going? Online video and social media? Walmart puts commerce right into its video player. And on the premium podcast, with more stories, no ads, and deep dive weekend episodes, what happens when you combine storytelling with

the carousel ad format? Actually, much less than you expect. It's Tuesday, December 14th, 2021. Happy International Monkey Day. I'm Todd Maffin from EngageQ Digital, and here's what you missed today in Digital Marketing, episode 526. So Google isn't showing your business's reviews? Join the club. There are always only two reasons why Google reviews are missing. Reviews were removed manually because they violated guidelines, or Google's automated review filter is catching them and removing them.

If you'll recall, a few weeks ago, we reported that Google actually wants you to get some bad reviews here and there. The company updated a help document to say that having a mix of positive and negative reviews makes your business more credible to the search engine and users alike. Local SEO agency Sterling Sky this week provided insight into three common reasons why Google filters reviews, and those reasons might surprise you. For one, Google will likely filter out a review if it thinks your customer left that while connected to your location's Wi-Fi. The IP address filter, if you will, has actually been around for a long time.

Colin Nielsen is VP of local search at Sterling Sky. I spoke with him earlier today. As long as I can remember, we've been advising businesses on why their reviews went missing, that's probably been number one. It is the first thing we'll sort of suggest to them is we'll say, first of all, do you have an on-site review station

which is connected to your Wi-Fi, which is explicitly not allowed by Google to have an on-site review station. But then also, if somebody is at your location, connected to your Wi-Fi, even on their mobile device, because now they're sort of on your IP address, it tends to throw up a flag with the reviews if they leave it in that moment. And it kind of seems to be like the number one reason historically for reviews getting filtered. I did not know that it was a policy that you weren't allowed to have a review station.

I've been in so many places that have those. Oh, for sure. Well, I mean, I go into so many businesses and they're running contests for reviews too, right? Which, you know what? It's not always, it's usually done with really good intentions or just not fully knowing Google's rules

because they don't do a good job at communicating them. As for the two other reasons, quoting their piece, the users who left your reviews aren't located anywhere near you or haven't traveled there recently. One user from Canada reviewed a business in India and then noticed that not only did that review not show up, but several reviews he left after for local businesses did not show up either. Or you're using an education or school category on your Google business profile. Certain countries like the US and the UK working as intended, they disabled reviews for educational institutions, but haven't shared more about if the functionality will return in the future, unquote. If these reasons don't apply to your business, it's possible that Google doesn't have enough

information about the user or that the review violated guidelines. Here's what you can do to try to get your missing reviews published. Quoting the article again, if you have legit customer reviews that are being filtered, it's worth asking on the Google Business Profile Forum to see if Google can reinstate them. When you post a thread, make sure you include the details of your business along with the following information. The exact number of reviews that have gone missing, the date they were left, the names of people, as appears on Google, that left reviews, and screenshots of the missing reviews, unquote. By the way, the customers who left reviews can grab these while logged into their accounts. Sterling Sky's blog is always chock full of great information. You'll find their website at sterlingsky.ca.

And this particular blog post is called, Why Are My Google Reviews Not Publishing? Pinterest this week announced a new feature called Reply with Idea Pins that allows users to reply to comments with videos. You probably have deja vu since the update comes not even 24 hours after we reported that Instagram announced basically the same thing, although they call it their Reels visual replies feature. And both of the platforms are guilty of borrowing this engagement tool from TikTok. When pinners decide to respond to a comment, they can select the three dots and click reply with an idea pin. An idea pin is what Pinterest calls a TikTok video, by the way, where they can upload a video or film a new one. These video replies are super common on TikTok and make it pretty easy for you as a brand content creator

to have fresh ideas for what to post. Just go through your comments, make a reply video out of it, something that clearly all platforms will be able to do soon. So where should you be spending your money in the new year? According to a recent survey by Wark, social media, online video, and search were the ad channels that grew the most year over year in 2021, and this trend is expected to continue next year.

In 2021, despite the pandemic, by the way, the overall ad market grew 24% year over year. It is expected to slow down a little bit to grow by 13% in 2022 and 8% in 2023. The report was based on data from 1,350 marketers worldwide. Here's what else the analysis found. Quoting the report, cinema advertising was drastically reduced in 2020 due to COVID. E-commerce is set to lead growth to 2023 by when the market should be worth double its 2020 take. And more than two-thirds of marketers surveyed

plan to increase their ad spend on online video. And 68% plan to increase their spend on social media next year. It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots. So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. 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.ca. 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, and natural disasters. Get customized coverage today starting at $19 per month at zensurance.com. Be protected. Be Zen. video player, which could convert to a lot more sales. Consumers can buy what appears on screen without being redirected to another page and having to miss out on the show or whatever toaster Drew Barrymore is trying to sell them. Quoting the announcement, Talk Shop Live is now fully integrated with Walmart. Connecting through Commerce API, all brands with products distributed by Walmart can use

the platform to create shoppable content. The platform and retailer aim to present a suite of holiday programming, delivering content and products directly to audiences across the U.S. In-video selling will also be available on Walmart.com, Talkshop.live, the MSN Shopping tab, as well as all partner product sites included in the programming. Digital marketers can take another small step toward the metaverse. Meta, the company that is, is opening up its Spark AR Go app in closed beta. The app enables anyone to create their own effects for Instagram. It includes built-in templates and other options to make it easier to create in augmented reality, which provides opportunities for marketers and brands to come up with creative content. Quoting Meta,

Spark AR Go is an iOS app designed to let creators whose first mediums, maybe something like photography, memes, art, or video, express themselves and their perspectives through AR. Creators will be able to extend their personal brands, assets, and creative vision to fans in new ways, unquote. The company is inviting anyone interested in creating augmented reality effects for Instagram to apply for the Spark AR Go beta. Besides receiving access to the new mobile app, you will also be able to create and publish AR effects and get insights into how your effects are performing. Today's premium newsletter includes a link to the application if this sounds like something your brand would be interested in.

TikTok has announced its new TikTok Measurement Academy on LinkedIn, and the company is inviting your agency to enroll. Quoting the announcement, TikTok is building a measurement badging program for agencies that focuses on the best practices and deployment of our latest measurement solutions to help advertisers quantify the true business value generated by their TikTok ads. We welcome any of our leading partners to join this pilot program and are grateful to be collaborating with GroupM, Horizon Media, VaynerX, and many others in 2022, unquote. According to an article on Digiday, Horizon Media will put 80 of its employees through the academy.

From the company's perspective, quote, the program is designed to help them understand which measurement solutions, from media or brand effectiveness to online or offline sales attribution, are most appropriate to implement to suit clients' TikTok strategies, unquote. In the article, a TikTok representative stated the program is still in its early stages, it's free, and the invitation is open to all brands and agencies that are interested. Attention social media marketers, here are a few trends to consider when building your content strategy for the new year. Instagram has released a new predictive trends report for 2022. Here are some predictions for next year on Instagram.

In fashion and beauty, it's all about bold moves, styles, and choices in fashion. They call this maximalist fashion, which is expected to take over their words. As for makeup, it's entirely the opposite. Minimalist faces and natural beauty will be trending. In shopping trends, more AR shopping and digital thrift stores. You'll find some more valuable insights in the 13-page report. If you're looking to up your Instagram marketing strategy game in 2022, a link to the report is available in today's premium newsletter.

We had a bit of COVID scare here in the house over the weekend. My wife was starting to feel a little bit ill. She went to the website. The government, you know, did the self-assessment thing, and it said, well, you should probably get a test. So she went and got a test. It was fine. It was just a cold. A cold which she promptly gave me, and then it turned into what was a mild cold for her into a man cold for me, you know?

One of those death is on my doorstep, I feel terrible colds. If I don't make it through this cold, you can have my Xbox. This Omicron thing, though, scares the hell out of me. So we are going to stay inside the house For the next few days Which to be honest Not really different than what we usually do I guess that's a positive Talk to you tomorrow So now, this world is your oyster Hold it by the wings and ride it forever It's the season for new styles, and you love to shop for jackets and boots.

So when you do, always make sure you get cash back from Rakuten. And it's not just clothing and shoes. 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.