What changed in the digital marketing scape during January 2023? The Fandango team discusses this below.
Google updates
The last quarter of the year saw a few Google updates. A link spam update using the AI technology, SpamBrain, was rolled out at the end of October. This update went after link-buying sites and sites which were solely used for outgoing links. The best practice for link-building is to earn links by creating engaging content and asking other sites to link to it or host your content.
The Helpful Content update continued to be rolled out until the end of December. This a big topic we’ve talked about a lot, and we’re still making sure our client’s content is following Google’s helpful guidelines. We’re just about starting to the effects of these updates on
Google announces Bard, an AI tool rivaling ChatGPT
With Bing chomping down on AI chatbox ChatGPT with plans to offer a new search engine with the tool integrated, Google had to make moves. The founders of Google were called back into the office and asked to discuss this development. The outcome is Bard. This hasn’t been officially released as engineers iron out issues like bias but it will be with us shortly. It’ll be interesting to see how search changes this year. Danny Sullivan, a Search Liason for Google, said that AI-generated content used to rank for search engines is against company guidelines. Again, we come back to the “people-first” mantra. Using an AI tool for ideas and research is a good idea but content will always need to be written by a human for a human audience.
Social Media updates
New Meta comment moderation tools
Creators will now be able to search comments by keywords, phrases, names, and dates. This makes it easier to find particular comments and take bulk actions on them, liking or hiding them.
Instagram lead forms
Instagram has added “lead forms” which allow users to fill in a form of questions determined by the company. This is a great step for improving lead generation via social. It now gives brands the opportunity to receive and qualify leads on the platform.
Instagram Notes
Instagram has added a new feature, notes. These are 60-character-long status that appears at the top of a user’s direct messages screen. They are basically a Facebook status but Instagram-afied as they disappear after 24 hours. Its main goal is to boost messages as they can be directly replied to. Businesses could ask a question and start talking with potential customers through direct messages. An interesting new feature that might be useful for your social media goals.
LinkedIn native scheduling
Now you can schedule posts directly on LinkedIn! Which is a godsend for social media managers who lose track of their posts if they aren’t using a third-party scheduler. This was rolled out last month to every LinkedIn user.
Twitter struggles along
Twitter has been struggling to hit year-on-year revenue targets under new management. It seems the paid verification badges are not receiving enough subscribers to justify the change. There are also talks of muting and blocking other accounts’ features being removed as it harms discoverability. We’ll have to see where the platform goes but it’s not at its best right now.
We hope you enjoyed this quick roundup! Make sure to come back next month to be in the digital marketing loop.
