Digital Roundup is a monthly edition of the most relevant news on social media, fresh insights, marketing statistics and guides that every successful marketer needs.
Digital Roundup #4 – November Edition
In this edition:
- Google to acquire Fitbit
- Drive reader revenue with Subscribe with Google
- Package Tracking Early Access Program
- An update on Google’s political ads policy
- Chrome – Moving towards a faster web through badging
- Facebook has a new company brand
- Facebook Viewpoints
- Facebook Pay
- Instagram – A step-by-step guide: Planning and creating content consistently
- Charlie’s Angels director Elizabeth Banks relied on Pinterest to find creative inspiration
- Pinterest’s top trends for December 2019
- YouTube gift codes are now available on Amazon
- YouTube is looking for the next Freddie Mercury
- “Growing With LinkedIn” series
- The winners of Best of LinkedIn Pages 2019 have been revealed
Google to acquire Fitbit
On November 1, Fitbit officially announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by Google for $21.1 billion.
Fitbit views Google as the ideal partner to advance the company’s mission. With Google’s support, Fitbit will be able to accelerate innovation in the wearables category, scale faster, and make health even more accessible to everyone.
Google Senior Vice President, Devices & Services Rick Osterloh says acquiring Fitbit supports Google with achieving its goal: creating tools that help people enhance their knowledge, success, health and happiness.
The software and hardware manufacturer will also help Google make progress towards a second goal: introducing Made by Google wearable devices into the market.
Drive reader revenue with Subscribe with Google
Google has created a set of technologies and solutions designed to help news publishers engage users across the funnel.
With the help of Google’s digital tools, publishers can
- reach new readers,
- drive conversions,
- engage subscribers and members.
Here’s how:
Flexible Sampling allows publishers to decide how many free articles a publisher wants to provide to potential subscribers based on their own business strategies.
Subscribe with Google eliminates the need for account registration, memorizing new passwords, or entering credit cards.
Google manages the subscription, but publishers choose what to offer and can manage the customer relationship.
This tool also helps users stay logged in, retain access to their premium content across devices, and encounter that content on Google products.
Grupo Reforma, a news publisher in Mexico, has integrated Subscribe with Google with its website paywall.
Over a third of all subscriptions now occur through Subscribe with Google, and the Subscribe with Google purchase flow has driven a 43-per cent conversion rate increase over their traditional purchase flow.
Reader engagement also increased: Subscribe with Google users had 13 per cent more page views compared to direct digital subscribers.
Package Tracking Early Access Program
Package tracking is a feature that displays package tracking related information on Google.
When people come to Search looking to track a package shipped with your company, they’ll be able to enter a package ID directly.
The feature uses the courier’s API to retrieve the package tracking information and then displays it to the user.
An update on Google’s political ads policy
Given recent concerns and debates about political advertising and the importance of shared trust in the democratic process, Google has set out to improve voters’ confidence in the political ads they may see on their ad platforms.
Regardless of the cost or impact to spending on our platforms, we believe these changes will help promote confidence in digital political advertising and trust in electoral processes worldwide.
What will change:
Google is limiting election ads audience targeting to the following general categories: age, gender, and general location (postal code level).
Political advertisers can, of course, continue to do contextual targeting, such as serving ads to people reading or watching a story about, say, the economy.
Read more on Google’s political ads policy.
Chrome – Moving towards a faster web through badging
One of Chrome’s core principles since the beginning has been speed.
The browser’s main goal is to give users an experience that is instant. A slow-loading site offers users a negative experience.
In the future, Chrome may identify sites that typically load fast or slow for users with clear badging.
Badging is intended to identify when sites are authored in a way that makes them slow generally, looking at historical load latencies.
They are building out speed badging in close collaboration with other teams exploring labelling the quality of experiences at Google.
We are being very mindful with our approach to setting the bar for what is considered a good user experience and hope to land on something that is practically achievable by all developers.
Chrome
Facebook has a new company brand
Facebook has updated its company branding with a new company logo.
The reason for this rebranding was to further distinguish the Facebook company from the Facebook app, which will keep its own branding.
The new branding was designed for clarity and uses custom typography and capitalization to create a visual distinction between the company and the app.
Facebook Viewpoints
Facebook Viewpoints is a new market research app that rewards people for participating in surveys, tasks and research.
Once you set up a Facebook Viewpoints account, you’ll be invited to join programs.
The first program launched in Viewpoints is the Well-Being Survey.
Information from this survey will help Facebook build better products that aim to limit the negative impacts of social media and enhance the benefits.
Facebook Pay
On November 12, Facebook introduced Facebook Pay, which will provide people with a convenient, secure and consistent payment experience across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.
As with previous payment options on Facebook-owned apps, when users make payments with Facebook Pay, the social giant will collect information about the purchase such as the payment method, transaction date, billing, shipping and contact details.
Facebook Pay is designed to securely store and encrypt users’ card and bank account numbers.
The actions users take with Facebook Pay can be used for purposes such as to deliver them more relevant content and ads, to provide customer support and to promote safety and integrity.
Instagram – A step-by-step guide: Planning and creating content consistently
Are you looking for tips on how you can create content consistently and build a brand for your business on Instagram?
Read this guide from Instagram.
Charlie’s Angels director Elizabeth Banks relied on Pinterest to find creative inspiration
The latest instalment of the iconic Charlie’s Angels movies was released to a worldwide audience on November 29 with actress Elizabeth Banks directing the movie.
An avid Pinterest user, Elizabeth relied on Pinterest for everything from finding early creative inspiration to reaching moviegoers and action fans with trailers and other promotional content.
To start the conversation with her production team, she created secret boards for locations where they might shoot the film, architecture that would lend the right feel to various scenes, looks and style for the cast and more.
Pinterest’s top trends for December 2019
Want to know what’s on the horizon?
Check out Pinterest’s top trends for December 2019.
YouTube gift codes are now available on Amazon
Give the gift of endless entertainment to your friends and family this holiday season with YouTube gift codes, now available for purchase on Amazon in the U.S.
YouTube is looking for the next Freddie Mercury
Can anyone match Freddie Mercury’s legendary voice? Queen and YouTube Music are challenging fans to find out!
YouTube launched Super Stickers, a new and fun way to deepen viewers’ connections with creators.
“Growing With LinkedIn” series
Are you looking for a unique insight into the power of content marketing?
Watch LinkedIn’s animated series Growing with LinkedIn, a series of short, insightful videos.
The winners of Best of LinkedIn Pages 2019 have been revealed
For this year’s competition, LinkedIn received enthusiastic participation from the LinkedIn community with 12,000+ nominations, 2,000+ participating companies from 111 countries.
Here are the winners of Best of LinkedIn Pages 2019: