This Diwali, many Digital giants rolled out important updates, to stay ahead of the race in 2019. From WhatsApp bringing in a major update by introducing a way to make your own personalized stickers, Instagram extending its promotion to stories, Facebook finally enabling the ‘Unsend Message’ feature, and testing the new co-viewing of videos, to LinkedIn allowing the managing of business pages through its app and YouTube showing multiple ads in the beginning and Instagram’s fight against fake likes and followers. Check out this comprehensive list, if you have missed out on anything in Digital this month!
#1 New Workflow in Creating Goal-based Google Ad Campaigns
Google has created a new workflow that lets advertisers define their goal first, which in turn provides relevant suggestions on how to set up the rest of the campaign.
#2 Yandex Beating Google in Europe’s biggest Internet Market
Yandex’s search market share has grown from 38% to 53% between 2014 and 2018 (using Statcounter data). If we focus on desktops, we see Yandex’s share peaked at nearly 60% , a little earlier this year.
#3 WhatsApp Now Lets You Design Your Own Stickers
Whatsapp Marketing will dominate in 2019 and we all know that for sure, they have slowly started innovating and allowing you to create your very own Whatsapp Stickers.
#4 Snapchat Discover Adds Comscore Audience Measurement
Snap partnered with measurement company, Comscore to tabulate total viewership for Discover, a section of the photo and video-messaging app that has stories from media brands like ESPN, MTV, Vice and The New York Times. Comscore’s Media Metrix data that now includes Snapchat Discover viewership will be available to Comscore subscribers later this month.
#5 Instagram Begins Testing ‘Promoted Stories’
Instagram now lets you promote your stories making it a good promotional option, expanding the creative options available for a marketing plan.
#6 LinkedIn Offers New Integrations with Google Campaign Manager and Vimeo
LinkedIn has announced a new integration with Google Campaign Manager, which will enable marketers to better compare and manage their LinkedIn ad performances in comparison to other ad efforts, all within a single dashboard.
#7 Google Adds New Options to Manage Search Presence to its Google My Business App
With a press of the new Post button in the app, you can upload a photo, create an offer or event and add it right to your Business Profile on Google. You can also manage your business information on Google from the Profile tab and watch your edits appear seamlessly across Search and Maps.
#8 Facebook Rolls Out ‘Unsend’ Option in Messenger
Facebook is now rolling out its ‘unsend’ feature to Messenger users in both iOS and Android versions of the app
#9 Twitter Segments News in Explore to Improve Content Discovery
Twitter has unveiled a new update to its Explore section which separates the latest news into sections, helping to improve relevant content discovery.
#10 Instagram’s New Usage Dashboard is Now Being Rolled Out
This month, Instagram has started rolling out its new activity tracking dashboard to all users. The tool not only informs you of your time spent (both total and average), but it also enables you to put limitations on your activity to better manage the same.
#11 Facebook is Testing A New Option For Joint Video Viewing in Messenger
Facebook is working on a new communal video viewing option within Messenger to tap into this. It will allow you to watch a video together with your friends and also chat about the same videos at the same time with the chat thread members receiving a notification that a co-viewing is starting. Everyone in this chat can control the video and see who’s watching.
#12 Google Releases Target Impression Share
If you’re looking to maximize reach for your paid search campaigns, Google Ads has just released a new Smart Bidding strategy called target impression share.
#13 Reach YouTube users on connected TVs
Now, we can target YouTube users on connected TVs with new TV screen type device category. Google Ads has launched the TV screens device to make it easy for you to find engaged, valuable audiences while they are watching YouTube on that original device purpose-built for watching video: the TV
#14 LinkedIn Now Lets You Manage Business Pages Through Mobile App
LinkedIn has announced a revamp of its company Pages, adding in a range of new enhancements focused on making it easier to generate engagement and participate in relevant conversations from your business Page.
First off, LinkedIn has now fully integrated page posting and management functionalities with its mobile app, so admins can maintain their company presence on the go.
In addition to this, LinkedIn also says that ‘admins can now associate their Page with hashtags, so they can listen in and respond to conversations happening about their brand or relevant topics on LinkedIn’.
#15 YouTube Will Play More Ads in The Start Itself to Avoid Disrupted Viewing
YouTube knows that its mid-roll ads can be annoying, but ads are also how the platform makes money. So now it’s looking to make something of a compromise – you watch two ads before your video plays, and you can avoid being disrupted later.
#16 Instagram Launches New Crackdown on Fake Followers Gained via Third Party Apps
Instagram is launching a new push to eliminate inauthentic followers and likes gained via the use of third-party tools which promise to boost your on-platform presence.
#17 LinkedIn is Testing its Own Versions of Reactions and Stories
LinkedIn too is testing its own version of reactions and stories on its profile. LinkedIn has been working to add in other Facebook-style tools, including event filters and video stickers.
#18 Facebook Pages to be Approved For Subscription Messaging Permissions
There’s a deadline and it requires action by Facebook Page admins. As of January 1st, 2019, Facebook Pages will need to have successfully been approved for subscription messaging permissions – if not, they won’t be able to send the free messaging type called ‘non-promotional subscription messaging’.
#19 Bing Ads Now Supports 3rd Headline
Bing Ads now support 3rd headline and 2nd description in text ads. We can also import our longer ads from Google Ads or create new ones in Bing Ads.
#20 Google Launches Special Black Friday, Cyber Monday Deals Ad Unit
To help retail advertisers increase their exposure for their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals this year, Google has launched a new experiment with promotion extensions in Google Ads.
