Music videos are officially coming to Facebook
Facebook might be in the midst of turmoil coming from all sides, but that isn’t stopping the company from making aggressive moves. As Matt Navarra and Sean Adams originally reported on Twitter, a new music video feature will be making its way to the platform that aims to draw music video audiences away from YouTube. Here are the key takeaways:
- This is a big change for music labels. YouTube has historically been the platform of choice for labels, but complaints about revenue sharing and flexibility have long been an issue.
- A music video-only feed is coming alongside the update. This aims to target YouTube’s layout – whether it’ll be successful on Facebook’s platform remains to be seen.
Why does this matter?
You probably don’t run a music label (major props if you do!), but what’s interesting here is the bigger picture. Facebook is clearly going after YouTube in this move, and the update could bring more attention to Facebook Watch, which does sound interesting. More impressions for pre-roll ads, similar to YouTube.
SEO
Google addresses some juicy SEO rumors
There are probably more questionable SEO rumors out there than brands boycotting Facebook – and hint: that’s a lot. Fortunately, Google is pretty reliable at confirming (or, usually, denying) these SEO rumors as they pop up.
Yesterday, the Google Webmaster team put out a video on YouTube addressing some of the biggest site crawling myths. Here are the main takeaways:
- Good news, you probably don’t have to worry about crawl budget. As long as your site doesn’t have more than a million pages, according to Google’s own Martin Splitt, you won’t need to worry that Googlebot is going to get tired of crawling your site.
- Be a perfectionist when it comes to site migration. It’s normal to have some worries about migrating your site. To make sure Googlebot processes your migration effectively, make sure your sitemap and redirects are being continually updated.
The rest of Google’s tips can be found in the video here.
No optimization for Discover?
Google’s crawling video wasn’t the only thing they addressed recently. In an update to their Discover information page, Google made note that there is no way to optimize or create content specifically for Discover.
The Crew’s take: While this is disappointing to hear, creating content doesn’t have to be a shot in the dark. We’ve noticed that high-performing Discover content is typically well-written, has good images, and appeals to common queries. Produce great content, and there’s a much better chance it’ll get clicks in Discover.
SPONSORED BY JUNI
Finally, a bank tailored for e-commerce and online marketers!
It’s called Juni! This bank is built for marketers of all kinds: media buyers, e-commerce stores, affiliates, networks and everything else in between.
While a bank on the surface, Juni is much more than that. It’s really a comprehensive tracking tool for your money that is also a bank. Here’s what it can do for you:
- Track all your cash flow (from different bank accounts, PayPal, affiliate networks, ad networks etc.) in one place.
- Automated invoice retrieval so you can spend less time and money on accounts and chasing receipts.
- Since Juni sees who owes you money through integrations, you can get a credit instantly. You don’t have to wait to get paid anymore and you can scale faster.
- Up to 1% cashback on your ad spend.
- Unlimited VCCs and physical CCs. No more struggles with getting enough cards to scale your spend.
- Juni will be regulated in the EU & US and will adhere to the highest security standards.
You’re probably thinking “Where do I sign up?”, right? Well, Juni wants to make sure it truly is the bank for marketers so this is what you have to do.
Check out the demo (on desktop only) and fill in the 5 minute survey here. You will get $250 in your Juni account at launch (estimated to be Q4 2020). You can also get up to $1k if you refer others to Juni as well.
CONTENT MARKETING
A genius content planning strategy for LinkedIn and other social platforms
When it comes to creating content on LinkedIn and across other social media platforms, half of the battle can be planning content. We’ve all been there: you’re sitting at your desk, staring blankly at your computer screen, trying to figure out how to plan awesome content, and nothing’s coming to mind.
Yigit Durdag recently posted a guide on Reddit detailing how he plans a year’s worth of LinkedIn content in one hour – the post went viral, so that’s one good sign he knows what he’s doing.
These are the tips he shares:
- Be a thought leader. Yigit recommends following what he calls a “Library Profile” strategy – posting frequently, consistently, and picking a niche.
- Create topic clusters. This is the key to creating a massive content plan in such a short amount of time. Brainstorm general content ideas, and figure out every possibility branching off of that. An example from us: newsletter marketing is an overarching topic, and email deliverability for newsletter marketing is one specific branch of that.
- You don’t even have to think of ideas yourself – take them from your potential readers! This is a really cool one. Yigit recommends sorting through Reddit, Quora, Twitter, and other social platforms to figure out what your audience wants. Writing marketing content? Go check out the marketing subreddit and see what people are asking.
- Transform one piece of content into ten. Make your content multipurpose. Yigit will take some raw footage from an interview or workshop and turn it into all sorts of content – short clips, a long-form blog post, a slideshow…the list goes on.
This is some great advice, and it can be applied to almost any content creation application. If you’re having struggles planning content, we’d strongly recommend checking out the entire guide here on Reddit.
ROUNDING UP THE STACK
LINKEDIN: LinkedIn is adding a ‘share a profile’ feature, which will allow you to share a profile’s connection with your network.
SEO: Google is beginning to test topics filters in SERPs, which will provide users with related topics after a search.
FACEBOOK: As per Matt Navarra, Facebook will be adding a feature that allows you to choose from multiple image layouts when you’re posting more than one photo.
GOOGLE: Chrome 84 is here! The new version of Chrome includes a few minor changes that should improve the overall user experience.
WHATSAPP: Having trouble using WhatsApp lately? You’re not alone. The app had a widespread outage yesterday, leaving many users unable to communicate on the app.
SPOTIFY: The music platform announced its expansion to Russia and a dozen other eastern European countries, inviting a big expansion in subscribers and ad inventory.
CCPA: If this is still an unsolved issue, a quick reference guide by Deloitte might be able to help your CCPA troubles.
BRAIN TEASER
Some months have 30 days, some months have 31 days. How many have 28?
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.
What’s better than working remotely? Working remotely in Barbados!
Even in today’s world, a cocktail-sipping, poolside-chatting, tropical lifestyle might not be an unrealistic idea – if you’re fine with living in Barbados, that is (and we’re guessing you are).
The Prime Minister of the small island country, Mia Amor Mottley, stated recently that the country will soon be open for foreigners to work remotely for up to 12 months at a time.
In an era where travel can be unpredictable and stressful, this almost sounds like an invitation to paradise. And, as Barbados opened to travel on Sunday, your tropical lifestyle could come sooner than you expected.
From a purely recreational perspective? This is great. From a marketing perspective? This is a smart way to bring stable tourism back into the country.
See you in Barbados.