Digital Marketing News 03/29/2022 – 04/04/2022

Social

YouTube Rolls Out 5 New Features for Livestreams

YouTube enhances the Live stream experience for creators and viewers with five new features in the pipeline. 

New features were previewed in a video on YouTube's Creator Insider channel. These five features include: 

• Go Live Together – collaborative live streaming feature for mobile devices. It allows creators to invite guests to stream with them by sending a link. The host who creates the live stream can invite and screen their guests before going live to their viewers. Pre-roll and mid-roll ads can appear in a Go Live Together stream, but guest streamers won't benefit from those. Ad revenue will be attributed to the host channel. The feature is currently running a small pilot test, and the test will expand to more creators after.

• Live Rings – helps viewers identify when a channel is live by adding a ring around a channel's profile picture. It's intended to help increase discovery and viewership for a creator's live streams on YouTube. Tapping on a profile picture with a Live Ring will direct the viewer to the active live stream. Currently, Live Rings are seen on certain screens on mobile devices and will be rolled out across YouTube later this year.

• Cross-channel live redirects – creators with at least 1,000 subscribers can use a feature called live redirect to direct viewers from a live stream video or premier to another live stream or premier on their own channel. However, they can't direct viewers to a live stream or premier hosted on another channel. 

• Uninterrupted split-screen viewing – a new uninterrupted view of the live stream is now possible with the split-screen approach, available with two different viewing experiences for mobile devices. In the "lean in" video and live chat experience, the live chat engagement panel will be on the right side of the screen, replacing the live chat overlay from the classic view. The "lean back" or collapsed live chat experience allows the video to be on full screen when watching in landscape mode. The chat is then represented by the viewer count in the lower right corner. When the viewer count is clicked, it brings the viewer to the "lean in" mode. The "lean back" experience will show a teaser of key moments like polls to ensure the viewer doesn't miss anything. This feature is already available as of writing.

• Live Q&A – live Q&A allows viewers to submit questions during a live stream based on the creator's question prompt. 

Social

Instagram Will Enable All Users to Tag Products in Feed Posts

All users can now tag products on Instagram, starting with users in the US.

Instagram now allows all users to tag products on their IG posts, starting with users in the US. Initially only available to approved creators, everyone now has the ability to provide a direct link to products and brands in their uploads. 

As explained by Instagram, "Scored a new pair of earrings from a small business you love? Tag the product in your Feed post so your friends and followers can learn more about the earnings and shop them!! People come to Instagram to share and discover trends and inspiration. Product tagging will make it possible for anyone to support their favorite small businesses, share how they styled their looks along with the products they used, and more."

Instagram says that over 1.6 million users tag at least one brand, on average, each week already, so this new feature makes it more convenient for viewers to shop products of their favorite influencers and increase brand discoverability. 

Business and creator accounts can also tag products in Stories and Reels.

Brands will receive a notification when someone tags one of their products and will be able to see all tagged content on their profile. Brands can also choose to allow tags from everyone, people they follow, or no one at all, and remove tags of their items and brand if they choose to.

Search

Google Removed 7 Million Fake Business Profiles in 2021

Google reveals it removed seven million fake business profiles and prevented 12 million from being created throughout the previous year.

In a report from Google about how it keeps Maps information reliable, the search company reveals it removed seven million fake business profiles in 2021. 

Google receives 20 million contributions everyday from people using Maps, such as updated business hours, contact numbers, photos, and reviews.

To keep information reliable, Google uses a combination of machine learning and human operators to identify content in Maps and Business Profiles that's fraudulent or abusive. 

In 2021, fake information removed from Google Maps and Business Profiles included: 

• Blocked over 100 million  abusive edits from going live.

• Received 630K reports of fake Business Profiles, which were acted on.

• Stopped eight million attempts to claim Business Profiles from people they didn't belong to.

• Disabled over one million user accounts due to policy-violating activity, such as online vandalism or fraud.

• Blocked or removed 95 million policy-violating reviews.

• Blocked or removed over 190 million photos and five million videos that were low quality or violated content policies.

Social

Meta Publishes New State of Small Business Report 

Meta released its latest State of Small Business Report aimed to examine the ongoing impacts of the pandemic to SMBs worldwide.

The State of Small Business Report series is based on ongoing surveys of almost 24k business leaders across 30 countries, including 5,324 business leaders from the US.

Meta says that despite vaccine take-up increasing and lockdowns and closures reducing, 20% of SMBs reported that they were not operational or engaging in any revenue-generating activities in January 2022, up from 18% in July 2021. Despite the increased closure rates, employment remained stable. Approximately 11% of businesses reported that employment had increased, the same percentage as in July 2021, with significant gains in East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Of those who remained open, 30% reported that sales in 2022 were higher than the same period in 2021, while 36% of US SMBs reported an increase in sales.

50% of SMBs globally reported using digital tools to communicate directly with customers, while 38% of SMBs in North America indicate the majority of their sales were made digitally.

More than 200 million businesses use Meta apps every month to create virtual storefronts. Meta's 71-page State of Small Business Report includes in-depth insights and notes on the ongoing impacts of the pandemic. View full report here.

Social

Twitter Introduces Keyword Search for DMs

Twitter finally launched keyword search for DMs to locate specific mentions within any DM text.

Twitter announced the rollout of keyword search for DMs, letting users find specific conversations within the direct message. This new updated search option now filters your queries into four segments: 

• All – Which displays all the results for your query, including username and key term matches

• People – Highlights relevant usernames based on your search term

• Groups – Shows group chats that use your search term

• Messages – Which now displays any keyword matches in specific DMs

Scanning DMs and looking for previous conversations is now easier and will provide more functionality, especially for customer service and chasing past responses and engagement.

What you can do next

• Make sure your products are organized and are easy to find so your followers on Instagram can start tagging your brand's products when they post.

• Regularly check your Business Profile and Maps details to make sure bad actors have not compromised your information.

• Learn insights from Meta's State of Small Business Report and replicate best practices that can work for your business.

• Step up your customer service game by utilizing the new Twitter keyword search for DMs, letting you streamline customer engagement and improve your clients' experience.

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