Happy Tuesday, content marketers, digital marketing strategists, blog writers and other industry professionals. This is Tuesday Newsday, your weekly briefing of the latest trends and news in social, search and content marketing. In today’s edition, we discuss the implications of the most recent Facebook slipup, how Instagram feeds are changing and new updates on Google’s mobile-first index.
Are Users Disenchanted with Facebook? What the Latest Data Scandal Means for You
Unless you spent all of last week at an off-the-grid resort, you probably heard about Facebook’s latest blunder. If not, here’s your play by play.
On March 17, 2018, The New York Times released a report revealing that Cambridge Analytica, a political analytics company hired by President Trump’s 2016 election campaign, acquired private data on more than 50 million Facebook users. And here’s how.
Back in 2014, Aleksandr Kogan – a data scientist and Russian-American psychology professor at the University of Cambridge – asked users to participate in a personality test and download an app, which scraped private information, such as user identity, friend networks and “likes,” without their permission. This information was sent to Cambridge Analytica, who used it to map personality traits and target audiences with digital ads during the 2016 election cycle.
Add this latest breach to the fake news controversy stemming from the spread of Russian propaganda on the platform, and you have the perfect storm.
Although Mark Zuckerberg has apologized for the incident, his words fall on deaf ears. Shares have slipped. The hashtag #DeleteFacebook is trending on Twitter. Elon Musk even pulled his Tesla and SpaceX Facebook pages. And that brings us to the question: how does this affect content marketers?
According to a survey of 1,000 consumers conducted for Marketing Week by Toluna, 34.4% of users have updated their privacy settings on Facebook, and 7.66% have deleted their Facebook since the scandal first broke. In addition, nearly 50% of respondents are much warier of the social media content they post and share on Facebook. That may be bad news for content marketers, who rely on social shares to boost brand awareness. Not to mention, overly cautious users may avoid Facebook ads for fear of a personal data breach.
Nevertheless, the number of active monthly Facebook users is expected to climb between now and 2022. Whether this is just another hiccup or something else entirely, you’ll just need to wait and see. Until then, keep on posting and make sure to keep audiences engaged across all your social platforms.
Instagram Recalibrates Users’ Feeds
As its parent company faces backlash, Facebook-owned Instagram has announced that it’s changed its algorithm. Years after the social media network decided to go from a chronological to a filtered feed, Instagram is now flipping back the switch – well, sort of.
Based on user feedback, the company tweaked its algorithm so that newer posts will appear at the top of users’ feeds. While Instagram isn’t entirely going back to a chronological schema, they’re hoping to make the platform feel fresher with this update.
According to an Instagram spokesperson, old content should no longer get bumped up higher in users’ feeds. As a result, those in the inbound content marketing universe may be able to get more eyes on their content. Prior to the change, Instagram photos and videos were ranked according to users’ preferences. Now, posts have a higher chance of appearing in a more prominent location, rather than being buried at the bottom of the content pile.
To learn more about Instagram’s newest update, check out this Fortune article.
Google Reveals More Details on the Mobile-First Index
At SMX Munich on March 20, 2018, Google’s John Mueller unveiled several new bits of information about the mobile-first index. Back in November 2016, it was announced that Google PageRank would soon begin ranking search results based on the mobile version of content. This change was made to adapt to how the majority of users search, which is using mobile devices.
Over the last couple of months, Google’s mobile-first index started to roll out for a handful of sites. However, moving sites to the new index will be a slow, ongoing process, so don’t worry if you haven’t noticed anything yet. While Google plans to notify webmasters via Search Console once a site has been moved to the mobile-first index in the future, no one has been alerted yet.
Mueller also said that Google will continue to move sites to the mobile-first index that are deemed ready. These include websites that have mobile-friendly, responsive and Accelerated Mobile Page (AMP) content. Markup, such as alt tags, on mobile websites is an important factor, too, because Google PageRank will no longer reference the desktop site for ranking purposes.
Last, but certainly not least, Mueller indicated that a good desktop site is still better than a subpar mobile one. In other words, don’t scramble to publish a mobile site that isn’t ready yet. For now, stick with your desktop version and work to build a quality mobile site that will provide a great mobile-friendly experience.
And that wraps up today’s Tuesday Newsday. Check back next Tuesday for your weekly dose of news and insights on digital marketing and social media. In the meantime, make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and brush up on the latest changes in the realm of content marketing with these recent Tuesday Newsday posts:
