Hi 

Hope all is good with you.

To help keep your digital marketing up to date, in this June update I'll let you know about some recent changes on the main Digital Marketing platforms that could impact your marketing in the coming months.

Recent Digital Marketing Changes

1. Google will be deleting Gmail accounts, Google Drive and Google Photos accounts that have not been used in 2 years.

Do you have a Gmail account that  you haven’t used in the past 2 years but you might have used it to setup a Google drive, Google photos or YouTube  account? Or you might have used a Gmail account to create an account at another website eg. Twitter? Google announced that it is going to delete Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos accounts if they have not been active in the past 2 years. To ensure your account doesn’t get deleted you need to do one of the following: login to your Gmail and read / send an email or login to Google Drive or sign in to Google photos. 

2. Google Bard (It’s Generative AI search tool) is rolling out to 180 countries

Google introduced it’s new generative AI search tool called Google Bard two months ago in the US and UK but in May  it announced that it is now starting to roll it out to 180 countries including Ireland. There was previously a waiting list but it has also removed that. This is Google’s answer to Chat GPT and Microsoft’s integration of Chat GPT into the Bing search engine. It isn’t yet available in Ireland but to check you can keep an eye on this web page https://bard.google.com/  - it currently says that it is not available in my country. However, if you know how to use a VPN, set  the location of your device to the UK.  If you do this you will be able to use Bard.

In the coming months I will be delivering a few Live Zooms for members of our Digital  Marketing School to show how all of these new generative AI tools can be used to improve your digital marketing and where the future of Search engines is heading.

 3. Instagram’s CEO  has explained how the Algorithms work for Feed, Stories and Reels

Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram has provided an update on how the Algorithms work on Instagram. They also did this back in 2021 but this update reflects recent changes. As you probably know there are separate Algorithms for the main Feed, Stories and the Reels feed and he breaks down the main elements within each. A big recent change has been the introduction of Suggested posts in the main feed which are posts that AI thinks you will find interesting and these will eventually form 40% of the feed. I mentioned before that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are all going down this road because they can see it’s so successful at keeping users engaged on TikTok. You can read more about the Instagram Algorithms here  

4. Facebook Verified and Instagram Verified have rolled out in the UK. It should be in Ireland soon.

I updated you a few months ago that Meta were testing their new subscription product called “verified” in New Zealand. Since then they have rolled it out in the US and now the UK. For £10 a month (or £12.50 if your buy using their app) you will get a blue tick that proves that you have been verified and can be trusted. Your account will be monitored and protected from hackers and you also get access to a Facebook support person who will help with any problems you have. When it was initially tested in New Zealand it also included more reach for your posts but they have dropped that but haven’t explained why. At the moment Verified is only available for people (not business pages) and the monthly cost is per platform – the one fee does not cover Facebook and Instagram. All of this follows on from Twitter pushing it’s Twitter Blue subscription product and it looks like the social networks are slowly moving towards having tiers of paid and free users. Presumably if you don’t pay you can forget about any help if things go wrong. I’ll let you know when this starts to roll out in Ireland. 

5. You can now schedule Instagram Stories using 3rd party tools like Hootsuite

If you use 3rd party tools like Hootsuite or Buffer to post your content across multiple social networks you will now be able to schedule your Stories. If you don’t use these tools but would like to schedule stories don’t’ forget that you can already do this using Meta Business Suite app. (There is a course on the members website that shows how to use Meta Business Suite)

Historically the reach of Stories has been lower than the reach of posts in the main feed for most accounts (7% average reach Vs 17% reach – Source: Rival IQ benchmark report)  but with Instagram aiming to make 40% of the main feed suggested posts by AI, you should definitely start comparing the reach of your Stories versus posts  - it could be that Stories becomes a better route to reach more of your followers.

6. Meta has explained how it is integrating AI into it’s ad targeting process

When Apple introduced the privacy update to  ios14,  96% of iphone users opted out of being tracked by Facebook. This had a big impact on retargeting and lookalike audiences and it impacted Meta’s ad business. Since then they have been looking at ways to improve the targeting of ads and have now rolled out a system called Meta Lattice that uses AI to analyse what users are doing across their platforms and feeds in order to predict their likelihood of engaging with ads. 

7. Linkedin will no longer include inactive accounts in your connections or followers stats

If you have seen a reduction in your Linkedin connection or follower stats this is the reason.  A Linkedin spokesperson explained  “In order to better support LinkedIn members and contributors with more reliable engagement and reach insights, restricted and hibernated accounts will no longer be included in the total number of followers and connections listed on a member’s profile. Going forward, we’ll regularly update all members’ connection and follower counts to remove restricted and hibernated accounts. This is part of our efforts to build a safe, authentic, and transparent experience, helping reflect a more accurate view of your audience.”

Hope you found this update useful for keeping your Digital Marketing skills and knowledge up to date.

All the best

Evan

Tel: 066 9762137     

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