By Guest Blogger Catherine Russell
Are You Ready For Some Changes?
If there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s change! Content marketing and social media are always changing. Normally I don’t list all the changes because everyone else does! But right now there are so many changes going on – and so many impact me and my clients – that I’m doing a quick roundup of all the changes rolling out through the end of 2021 that will impact small business owners like you and me:
- iOS Updates
- Facebook New Tools and Algorithm and Group Updates
- New Instagram Features and Changes
- Email Data
How Will The iOS 15 Updates Impact Small Business Owners
The Apple iPhone iOS 15 updates will have a big impact on digital marketing and email marketing in particular. Small business owners will have a harder time tracking iPhone user behaviors. iOS 15 has two features that will impact email marketing:
- Mail Privacy Protection
- Hide My Email
These features are both a user choice, but most users will likely opt to protect their email addresses from spam. Open rates, click-through rates, location data and subject line A/B testing will not be as easy to evaluate.
What Are Instagram’s New Features and Changes
Swipe-up stories sticker will be replaced with tap
Users are used to tapping on images on other platforms, so this change is more intuitive for users. The tap feature will likely be available to accounts with less than 10K users, unlike the current swipe-up sticker, so this is another win for small business owners.
Go-Live
You can now go live for up to 4 hours (until now, you could only go live for an hour.)
Ads On The Shopping Tab
A shoppable image or carousel will be able to be displayed on your ad
Save To Wish List
Users will be able to save items to a wish list by the holidays
New Search Criteria – Not Just #Hashtag
1. text user enters
2. previous search criteria
3. how active you are on Instagram
New #Hashtag Recommendations
Do not put #hashtags in comments: comments are no longer searchable. Keywords and #hashtags are only in the post itself.
The new algorithm recommends 8-15 #hashtags per post: 3-5 repetitive, the rest specific to the post.
Recommendations Directly From Instagram
Use keywords in Bio
Use location in Bio if you are a brick and mortar store
Use #hashtags in the post itself
What Are The New Facebook Tools and Algorithm and Group Updates
New Ad Campaign Idea Generator
Resources, ideas and tips to inspire small brands’ next ad campaign
Small Business Badge
Rolling out now to show that you are a certified Facebook digital business
Page Suggestion
Your page may be suggested if a follower’s friend recently engaged with you or a similar business or topic
Reaching Consumers In Real-Time
Posts are displayed to your followers based on where they are physically located in real-time
New Group Features
Conflict notifications
Slowing down too many comments timed too close together
Member summaries
Customized rules
New admin dashboard and tools to improve comment moderations and make it more intuitive for group administrators to customize the settings
Algorithm Update
Facebook has announced an algorithm update with the 4 criteria they use to determine what content users see in their newsfeed:
1. Predictions: based on the behavior of the user and how likely they are predicted to have a positive interaction with a piece of content
2. Relevancy Score: a number assigned to a piece of content based on the likelihood the user will respond positively to it using information such as the length of time the page has been live, how active it is, how engaged it is, how many stories it posts, etc
3. Signals: information that Facebook can gather about a piece of content including the type of content, the publisher, its age, purpose, and more
4. Inventory: all content that can display to a user on Facebook’s News Feed, which fluctuates based on user activity once scrolling has begun including everything posted from friends and publishers
What’s Working – And What’s Not – For Your Small Business?
Content marketing is always changing. It’s important to know how social media and technology are changing so you can adapt your content marketing strategies to stay ahead of the curve. Content continues to be the core ingredient of marketing, branding, lead generation and sales campaigns for both inbound and paid channels, primarily due to one thing: it works.
