In a month where we’ve reached the 6-month mark of COVID-19, pubs started to shut at 10pm and Donald Trump attempted to ban social media platform TikTok, it’s no surprise you might have missed some of the marketing news from this month.
So here’s your 5-minute marketing round-up for September 2020:
Sir David Attenborough blows up Instagram
Possibly the most exciting news story this week has been Sir David Attenborough breaking the Instagram universe when in just 4 hours 44 mins he broke the record for reaching one million followers. Now at 4.6m followers and counting, Sir David’s initial post has reached a whopping 16.8 million views in less than four days.
With comments of support from brands such as Ladbible, Netflix, WWF, and recent household favourite Joe Wicks, it was no surprise that it didn’t take the 94-year-old long to rack up the followers.
Spreading the important message that “Saving our plant is now a communication challenge”, Sir David Attenborough reminds marketers and businesses owners of the phenomenal reach Instagram can have if you have the right content and a message that resonates with your audience.
LinkedIn Gets An Upgrade
With huge growth in new users and engagement rates soring, brought on largely by the move to remote working in recent months, it’s no surprise that LinkedIn has released some new features to keep their audiences engaged and advertisers spending.
It’s been a busy month for LinkedIn, but here’s the quick roundup:
Introduction of LinkedIn Stories - Similar to other social media platforms, LinkedIn users can now post videos, images, or text to profile picture for 24 hours. The aim is to create a softer and more engaging environment that doesn’t solely rely on a CV-based profile.
Enhancements to the messaging experience - with updates to search results, the introduction messaging functionality such as edit, delete and react, and the the ability to video messaging, these latest feature upgrades have been designed with today's user in mind.
Updates to Business Page features - Business page owners are now about to see who their followers are (not just amalgamated demographic insights), while the “My Company” Tab is a place for employees to engage with each other, and an “Events Tab” for followers to easily browse your events.
Google Limits Search Terms Visibility For Paid Ads
Alas, it can’t all be good news. As one platform gives, another seemingly takes away. With that, September was the month Google told us that they were limiting Search Term Reporting to protect the privacy of the end user.
Earlier in the month, Google announced that Search Term reporting will stop showing the details of search queries if there is not “significant” search volume.
But what does this mean?
Until recently it was possible to see a search query with just one impression or click, however with this update, that information will no longer be visible to advertisers.
On one hand, I can sympathise with Google on the privacy front here, as a single user may add personal identifying information to that search query. However, from an advertiser perspective this will likely impact on the efficiencies of bidding strategies, and will increase the need to carefully manage keyword lists within the ad account.
Bing Continue Enhance AI and Natural Language In Search
However, let’s not end this month’s round-up on a sad note - September was also the month we saw Bing introduce the next wave of their AI and human language innovations.
Second to Google, it’s important not to forget about the value Bing search can provide to businesses. With this, in September Bing announced further enhancements to the way they are introducing real-time autosuggest search phrases and enhancing search results page with People Also Ask feature. We can expect this to increase user engagement and search behaviour, so we will all eagerly await the impact of this latest wave on innovation on advertisers performance.
Enjoyed this round up? Hit the share button to share with other busy business owners and don't forget to sign up to our mailing list to catch next months round-up.