Weekly Digital Marketing News and Trends

Every week we’re collecting a host of links, videos, and assorted analysis on the ever-changing world of digital marketing. We invite you to skim, share, analyze, argue, and refute – just so long as you don’t get embarrassed at the water cooler again. Here are the latest digital marketing news and trends for the week of January 19, 2018.

What You Need To Know About Facebook’s News Feed Changes

Mark Zuckerberg posted last Thursday that Facebook is once again shifting how users will see organic content posted by publishers and brands. Facebook will, in essence, deprioritize organic content posted by publishers and brands in the News Feed in favor of content from friends and families.

Location3’s Tom Lynch and Brooke Renzelmann teamed up to analyze how this shift fits within Facebook’s larger strategy and how it will affect businesses. Here are a few things to note:

This is not an entirely new development. Facebook has made similar changes in the past, including updates in 2014 and 2017 that swung the pendulum away from organic posts from businesses and toward paid ads and posts from friends and family.

There will be increasing demand for decreasing inventory. Facebook is essentially telling businesses they must pay to boost posts or create Facebook ads. This will reward the highest-paying advertisers and those with the most sophisticated targeting capabilities.

Paid Facebook campaigns will be prioritized. Facebook has the largest social audience, and the increased competition for decreasing inventory means businesses and marketers will need to make the most of their Facebook marketing budgets.

We highly recommend reading the full analysis here.

Adobe’s Latest Labs Project Can Track In-Store Customers In Real-Time

Adobe Labs is developing technology capable of tracking live foot traffic in a store and labeling shoppers by behavior including how much they spend and what products they buy. This segmentation is acquired through Adobe Analytics.

The current project is designed for grocery stores, but has the potential to be applied to retail and home improvement stores. As described in this article from Adweek:

“If a store manager wanted to gain better insight on a customer, they can click on one of the moving dots and see their visitor profile. There, they can find out demographic information about them like if they’re married, where they live, what kind of device they’re using and how much they usually spend. The idea behind this profile is to understand the customer’s wants and needs and then target certain offers to them.”

Survey Reveals Facebook As The Leading Platform For Small Business Growth

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey of 1,000 small business owners revealed that Facebook is a primary driver of business growth. More than 60 percent of businesses report using Facebook to increase sales and reach new customers across a wider geographic region than previously thought possible.

One of the reasons Facebook is viewed so positively is because for many small business owners, it serves as a centralized platform for maintaining their online presence. A majority of survey respondents reported that digital tools were seen as major stumbling blocks in establishing an online presence.

Google My Business Video Upload Now Available For Business Owners

As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, a select few business owners were able to upload videos on their Google My Business listings. This feature is now available to all business owners, allowing them to upload videos about their business.

The videos are allowed a maximum of 30 seconds. Customers are also allowed to upload videos that can be viewed by the business owner. It could take up to 24 hours for videos to be available after upload. They will display where local photos display.