TIKTOK
E-commerce is coming to TikTok, and app selling rumors continue
We got a healthy batch of updates about TikTok yesterday, and it’s not all about the potential acquisition of the app – though there’s plenty of that, too. From buyout rumors to e-commerce, this is what’s happening on TikTok:
- There’s a new avenue of profit for TikTok creators: e-commerce. Starting this month, creators will be able to create and sell merchandise via Teespring directly from the TikTok app. This isn’t particularly interesting for marketers just yet, but if the app continues to add e-commerce integrations, it could be another massive source of revenue for brands.
- TikTok’s hosting a webinar about AR. If you’re looking to make the most of AR in your TikTok campaigns, check out the announcement for an upcoming webinar designed to help brands level up their campaigns.
- A deal to buy the app may be announced soon, and the company has reportedly already chosen a bidder. A report from CNBC claims that TikTok may be announcing a sale in the next 24 hours to a U.S. company. Well, this sounds familiar…
Though the future of the app remains uncertain, it remains a great platform for marketers. Things could get particularly interesting if we start to see more e-commerce integrations into the app – we’ll have to wait and see!
ADVERTISING
The smartest way to leverage influencer-generated content
Influencer marketing isn’t anything new, but it’s still one of the most effective ways to advertise on social media – if you know what you’re doing.
Taylor Lagace just dropped a guide on Twitter on how to leveraging influencer-generated content the right way, and these were his main points:
- Caption every single ad. We’re not all lip readers (even if we kind of wish we were), and most people won’t be watching your ad with the sound on. This applies to any campaign, but make sure your influencer-generated content is captioned!
- Reformat into 1×1 and 9×16 for optimization on Facebook. Making sure your content is formatted correctly is key before launching your campaign!
- Create iterations with graphics and overlay, and test them against the raw footage. If you’ve got a plain clip of your influencer talking to the camera, test that ad against iterations with branding and fancy graphics. Taylor gives some great examples in his Twitter thread.
Your approach to influencer marketing will largely depend on your brand and the niche you’re in, but Taylor’s advice rings true for most campaigns. Make the most of those well-spent influencer dollars!
SPONSORED BY ONE VA AWAY CHALLENGE
Battlefield-tested method to hire a rockstar Virtual Assistant on your first try and make your business hands-free
Do you want to hire a VA but don’t know how?
Let us introduce you to John Jonas. He’s the founder of OnlineJobs.ph, the marketplace that helped companies like Google and Uber to hire rockstar VAs.
This smiling dude has been helping companies hiring Filipino VAs since 2007. And spent the last 15 years of his life creating the hiring system that allowed him and other entrepreneurs to hire an efficient and reliable assistant. On the first try. And in a replicable way.
It’s called the 7-Day One VA Away Challenge. It’s a 7 steps system designed to help you find your perfect hire in a single week. From writing the job post, to assigning tasks.
You start today. And the next week you’ll have more time for yourself, your business, your family or your memes collection.
Here are some insights:
- Red flags you should know when it comes to evaluating a VA candidate’s response and their profiles.
- What’s WRONG with the traditional approach to hiring a VA (And how to do it the right way).
- How to test all your VA candidates the right way.
- How to weed out 50% of candidates before watching their applications.
- Why doing a Skype interview is likely to find you the wrong candidate.
- How to assign the first task, and what your goal should be with the first task.
- What to include and what to NOT include in your job post to quickly spot your rockstar.
Start the One VA Away Challenge and free up your schedule in one week.
SURVEY
Got three minutes?
We promise it’ll only take three minutes, and it’ll be a lot less painful than working with rising CPCs this holiday season. Speaking of the holiday season, that’s what this is all about: we’d love to hear from you, and the other 16k marketers reading this, about your plans for Q4.
Shopping season is just around the corner, and we’ve put together this quick (and anonymous!) survey to let us know how your marketing will be adapting.
At the end of September, we’ll analyze it and share all the insights in this newsletter, for free! There won’t be any forms or paywalls to access the data – we’ll be sharing it all, right here.
If you’re working at (or run) an agency, feel free to fill it in with stats from each of your relevant clients.
We’ll make you a deal: Give us 3 minutes of your time, and we’ll give you awesome insights about marketing in Q4.
And share it with your marketer friends – they don’t have to subscribe to fill in the survey or read the report. It’ll be free for everyone on our website!
SEO
What does local SEO look like in 2020?
It’s 2020, but most businesses are still using local search techniques from 2010.
But what’s changed in that time period?
In this blog post, David Mihm walks us through the main differences between approaching local search a decade ago and optimizing for local search now.
Before we dive in, it’s worth noting that a majority of multi-location brands believe that local search is still an untapped opportunity – and the businesses that are practicing local search currently aren’t always doing it very well. Put simply, it doesn’t take much to lead the pack.
So how can you optimize for local search the right way?
Read on…
+ Traditional citations are irrelevant: Many businesses continue to pay horizontal Internet Yellow Pages directories to get citations. However, these won’t help you rank on Google anymore, and the exposure your business is getting is very limited.
What does work? Citations from vertical sites – for example, Yelp and Facebook. You’re much more likely to get users finding your business this way!
+ Engagement to your Google My Business (GMB) listing isn’t a ranking factor. And, according to David Mihm, it will take years before Google starts using engagement as a ranking factor. Over time, though, it will become increasingly important.
What does help your ranking, then? Links and reviews. These will help Google to recognize your business as a legitimate one, boosting your local search rankings in the process.
+ Your website content and traditional organic signals are still essential. However, conversions are happening more and more on the SERP, inside GMB and ad units.
We already talked about the concept of “On-SERP-SEO,” and this concept expands to local businesses as well. As Google continues to build more features into GMB that will give users fewer reasons to visit your site, it’s time to optimize for the reality of local search!
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
ALGORITHMS: Whether you’re an algorithms expert or do your very best to stay away from the technicalities of search and social algorithms, this article from Carolyn Lyden does a great job of breaking down how they work.
TWITTER: Quote Tweets are a thing now. Is it exciting? Not really, but it’s a small improvement to the platform that we’re certainly not complaining about.
FACEBOOK: If you’re interested in learning how to grow a community on Facebook, the new (free!) online courses announced yesterday might be a good place to start.
GOOGLE: AdSense reports are being limited to three years, but there’s still a way to download your data, and this article explains how.
FACEBOOK: We now have a set of guidelines explaining what won’t get recommended by Facebook’s algorithms. The bottom line: for more of you out there, your content is in the clear!
GOOGLE: Ready to find great photos you can actually use? Google has updated their usage filters on Images, and there’s now a usage right badge that’ll be clearly displayed on photos in search.
BRAIN TEASER
What can you put in a cup but never take out?
You can find the solution here.
POOLSIDE CHAT
Cool tech, (funny) business, lifestyle and all the other things marketers like to chat about while sipping cocktails by the pool.
A surprisingly entertaining deep-dive into video game packaging
Whether you consider yourself a gamer or not, the industry is massive. What started as a ball bouncing between two rectangles has evolved into what we know as video games today, where you can hop in a virtual airplane and fly across the entire planet.
YouTuber Scott the Woz just released a video analyzing video game packaging, and talking about how it’s changed over time.
Ever noticed how most video game covers, especially older ones, just look like templates of each other? Scott goes over that in the video, along with plenty of other interesting facts and tidbits.
If you’re interested in seeing how visual marketing for video games has evolved over time, it’s definitely worth checking out – even if the last game you played was Pong.