A crucial component of marketing yourself as a loan officer is social media. Social media has made it easier than ever for businesses to reach their target audience, with both its accessibility and the sheer number of internet users on social media. 

Social media has assisted businesses of all sizes in establishing customer connections for years. While it is a helpful tool in increasing traffic and lead generation, more than anything else, social media helps businesses gain more exposure. 

With all that said, it’s a lot easier to state the benefits of using social media than it is to start.

There’s also the issue of keeping up the momentum –knowing what to post, finding the right image, editing it, and writing a catchy headline…

It’s a lot of work, we know!

Read on to learn the steps that can make social media content less intimidating and assist you in creating a lead-generating strategy.

Have you checked out the newly expanded Social Media Marketing Program? Our awesome automated evergreen content now also comes with done-for-you branded content to share on your personal social channels plus the ability to create your own branded social content for partners to share. 

Learn more in this video.

How To Create A Mortgage Social Media Strategy

1. Define your Audience

If you’re a loan officer marketing your services to everyone you can, you’re wasting time, energy, and money. Let’s say, for example, you’re based in Texas. Instead of marketing to “everyone in Texas,” it may be helpful to narrow it down to “first-time homebuyers with poor credit looking to buy in Houston.” Being aware of and planning for your audience, in particular, can help you reach the right people with the right message and more successfully accomplish your marketing objectives.

So, to start, decide who your target market is. Broadly, you may say a homebuyer, but what does a homebuyer specifically look like?  You should base the specifics of who these people are on your market research and the audience information you already have.

Find your target audience by:

1. Gathering data. You must be aware of your target market’s characteristics to reach them. To effectively market to your audience, you should learn what a typical homebuyer’s age, location, and engagement trends are on various sites. Although gathering this data may seem difficult, a CRM makes this information easily accessible and simple to use.
2. Taking advantage of social media analytics. Many social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have built-in analytics that can provide you with information about your followers, such as when, where, and other interests they may have. Additionally, using these tools with business accounts is free.
3. Keeping up to date with the competition. You’ll gain insights into how to communicate with your audience by knowing what those around you are doing. To fill any gaps in your current strategy, you can look at where your rivals are lacking and improve upon that.

Once you’ve identified your target market, stay up to date on their needs and interests, and put a social listening strategy into practice.

2. Establish Clear Goals

Setting objectives that direct your work is crucial to succeeding at social media marketing. The SMART goal strategy provides a helpful framework for setting up fundamental goals and achieving your overall objectives.

• SMART is short for:
• Specific: It’s critical to be clear about the specific, smaller results you hope to achieve to meet your goals and measure your progress. By being specific, you can narrow in on what you and your team need to do to achieve your larger goal. For instance, you might want to increase your Instagram followers by 15% this quarter as a specific social media goal.
• Measurable: You have to have a way to quantify whether or not you have succeeded in achieving your goal. Having clear ways to measure your goals can do that– you can use metrics to gauge your development and adjust your goals as necessary. For instance, if you discover that likes and follows don’t result in increased website traffic, you can change the metric to one that will.
• Achievable: All of your objectives should be attainable for your company. Unrealistic goals can discourage workers and cause conflict in your business plan. Realistic goals can increase your productivity and keep your motivation up. Make sure to adjust your goals as you set them if it seems like you aren’t achieving them.
• Relevant: Ensure that your social media marketing objectives align with your overarching business goals. For instance, if increasing brand awareness is your goal, you might set a target of getting 25 social media followers to click through a post to a landing page that details your services.
• Timely: Your goals should have a clear and firm deadline to hold yourself accountable. Set a specific cadence to check in and ensure you’re staying on track rather than setting a goal for some vague time in the near future.

Using SMART goals gives you a place to start, as well as a way to check in on your progress and make adjustments as necessary. Even though social media marketing has many moving parts, these goals can help to keep you on track and not get disoriented.

3. Administer your resources wisely

Social media tasks are often mindlessly handled as an afterthought for loan officers. It may seem that you’re saving money and time by just handing social media to whoever has the free time, whether that be yourself or a colleague, but managing social media successfully calls for specific abilities such as:

• A strategic mind
• Organizing abilities
• Branding knowledge

Hiring a specialist to manage your social media can be beneficial if you have the funds. If you don’t have the funds to hire a social media manager, you can still spend money on social media advertisements, increasing reach and promoting brand awareness. 

4. Use each platform differently

You may want to post on as many platforms as you can be strong, but doing so could hurt your social media marketing plan. For instance, if your target audience is people over 40, you may want to focus less on TikTok. You will likely find that most of your audience is on Facebook or Twitter.

When you are creating your strategy, take into consideration:

• Where your competition posts
• Where your target audience is most likely to be
• Your metrics

Additionally, you should consider how to use each platform most effectively based on the purposes for which it was designed and the types of content that perform best there. For example, Facebook is good for quality live video streaming and interacting with followers one-on-one; Instagram and Tiktok rely more on visual content, like pictures, infographics, and short, entertaining videos.

Youtube is also for videos but is more oriented toward longer, informative videos. LinkedIn and Twitter are more written content-based, but Twitter is better for real-time conversations and quick news alerts, while LinkedIn is better for long-form written work, like articles and blogs. 

You might discover that the majority of your target demographic doesn’t tend to use fast-paced platforms like Instagram, so you’ll want to gear your focus more toward Facebook or LinkedIn. Maybe you want to be able to frequently give quick updates to your clientele, in which case Twitter may be helpful.

To get the most out of your marketing efforts, research the best strategy for each platform you use. While there are many ways to expand your small business, social media can be useful for attracting and keeping new clients.

Done-For-You Social Media for Loan Officers

5. Be consistent with your content.

Consistently posting compelling, engaging content is the key to success on social media. This will not only help to give you an appearance of trustworthiness, but it will also demonstrate that you care about engaging with your audience and that you have relevant information to share.

The principle of posting frequently is still valid despite changes in social media platforms’ algorithms over time. It increases the likelihood that your content will appear in newsfeeds. By concentrating on producing consistent, pertinent content, you can convince the algorithms that your posts deserve to appear in different newsfeeds, which will eventually draw users to your page.

6. Engage with your followers

Because social media users enjoy interacting with brands, you can gain advantages like:

• Increased brand awareness and a broader market reach
• Increased brand loyalty
• Seen as a local expert

According to Forbes, a staggering 83% of consumers place a high value on the customer experience, which makes the potential for a high return on investment (ROI) enormous. This includes interactions with brands on social media that help customers feel seen, heard, and understood. Using social media, you can keep an eye on conversations as they happen and quickly address any queries or concerns from your audience.

This can mean several things: it can include posing questions about your offerings, making Facebook groups, and employing the use of fun features like GIFs, emojis, and videos.

It can also be helpful to employ tools like Instagram Live to open up a dialogue with people looking to purchase or refinance a home. You can answer their questions and let your experience speak for itself as you engage with both prospective and current clients in real-time. 

Allow yourself at least an hour a day of constant social media activity to keep engagement high. 

With this hour, however, you should do your best to respond to any urgent concerns as quickly as possible throughout the day.  

7. Keep things professional

Remember that whenever you post something on social media, you are representing your company. Too frequently, posts can be misinterpreted, upsetting followers and causing conflict. Consider developing a social media policy to direct your staff members’ posts and interactions to avoid any unnecessary issues. 

A typical social media policy will include the following:

• Clear, non-confusing guidelines on what to post and how to react to unfavorable comments
• Platform regulations and guidelines
• The consideration of brands
• Security measures

Investing in a social media policy can ensure that your company is prepared for any situation. Remember that social media is fundamentally about putting your customer service philosophies into practice.

8. Hone in your brand identity

Your company’s brand identity makes customers relate to you and distinguishes you from the rest. Therefore, consistency should be maintained across all marketing channels, including print, digital, and social media.

For loan officers, maintaining brand consistency can be difficult, especially in the beginning. But it’s significant in all aspects of your company, and social media is no exception. As you post, be sure to maintain your brand voice (how you speak to customers), keep your posts consistent across each platform, and concentrate on your value proposition. 

A consistent brand identity can help increase loyalty and make it simpler to decide what to post.

9. Quality over quantity

Instead of randomly producing as many posts as you can per day on as many platforms as possible, you should concentrate on producing regular, high-quality posts. It’s actually very likely that posting too many low-quality items will penalize your account and flag you as spam.

It’s also difficult to keep up with a schedule that requires you to post several times a day. So ultimately, posting too often will end up hurting rather than helping your strategy.

Consider implementing a social media calendar to reduce these risks. You can use these calendars to organize your schedule and plan posts in advance. Marketers can keep track of the various moving parts of social media by categorizing posts into categories like when to post, post captions, post visuals, and which platforms to post on.

To keep your posts’ quality high, constantly ask yourself before posting something: Does this information benefit my readers? Is this something new, motivating, inspiring, or enjoyable? Does the text cite its sources?

You can use these to produce high-quality content that interests and draws readers.

10. Watch your outcomes

Social media marketing is influenced by various variables, so it’s crucial to evaluate and track progress. Analytics are helpful because they can improve campaigns, set new objectives, and identify tracking metrics.

Before you begin tracking, you should decide which metrics are most critical to your marketing objectives. 

The most typical metrics include:

• ReachsEngagementsImpressions
• Mentions
• Posting clicks
• Video views

Although social media marketing can seem intimidating, there is much to gain. When done properly, social media marketing can be a reliable, cost-effective solution to keeping your pipeline filled and your referral network active.

If you still need help with your social media presence (or would like a quickstart way to supplement your posts), consider adding our social media marketing to your website plan. Click below to learn more and schedule a conversation with an account executive.

See Our Newly Expanded Mortgage Social Media

Every couple of years, Facebook has tried its best to crack down on clickbait in the Feed. Now Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is warning marketers to avoid a new tactic they call “watchbait.”

What is watchbait? According to Facebook, watchbait is video content that “intentionally withholds information, sensationalizes content, or misleads viewers into watching or engaging with the video.” Watchbait can happen in the title, caption, thumbnail or within the video itself.

Here are six examples Facebook cited as using watchbait:

• His Reaction Was Priceless!!
• THIS IS THE WORST WAY TO WAKE UP!!
• And then his GF did this!!!
• Absolutely mind-blowing details in the latest recipe from Kai!
• Your bestie just sent a crazy message to your girlfriend!
• SHOCKING weather phenomenon could explode your plans!!!

Facebook views watchbait and clickbait as basically the same thing. See the language Facebook used about clickbait when it cracked down on it in 2014, 2016 and 2018. 

What will happen if a Page uses watchbait? If Facebook’s system detects watchbait in your video, the company says it will limit how often it is recommended and its ability to rank. If you regularly post watchbait, Facebook may reduce your page’s overall distribution.

You can read their Meta’s blog post and help doc on watchbait. But keep reading for quick “do this, not that” checklist to watchbait.

What not to do. In short, what should you avoid when publishing videos on Facebook? Don’t:

• Omit key information
• Use exaggeration
• Use extreme language
• Use excessive capitalization or emojis in the title
• Create misleading expectations
• Deceive users
• Use Photoshopped or cropped images that aren’t taken from the video as your thumbnail
• Portray staged, scripted or fake content as being real

What to do. So what should you do when publishing videos on Facebook? Do:

• Use accurate, informative headlines
• Add your voice
• Be original
• Be authentic
• Use actual clips from the video as your thumbnail

Why we care. Watchbait results in disappointed or frustrated viewers, as Facebook noted. We all know that clickbait works – that’s why Facebook has to make changes like this every couple of years. Always make sure you’re giving something of value to your viewer – something that is relevant, helpful, useful, or inspiring. Deception may be great in the short-term or even expected in some specific industries, but the question you have to answer is: is it worth potentially damaging or destroying your reputation (and your discoverability and visibility) in the long run? 

The post Facebook warns publishers to avoid ‘watchbait’ tactics appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, can you imagine a search engine without a results page?

That’s what Neeva, the ad-free, private search engine, introduced yesterday — a feature called FastTap Search that enables users to bypass the results page via a list of direct links that are generated when the user puts a query into the URL bar or the Neeva app (learn more about the feature below).

It is very interesting to see what kind of features are possible when a search engine isn’t reliant on ad revenue. Neeva is supported by its subscribers, meaning that the company has no skin in the game when it comes to whether users spend time on their properties or head directly to another site.

Of course, Neeva is not on the same plane as Google, but neither is its strategy.  Google has a similar feature (the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button that takes users straight to the top result for their query), but appears to be moving towards more robust results pages. In fact, its MUM-related announcements from Search On in September gave us a preview of results pages that lead to even more search results, with featured snippets that may resolve queries without users having to click through to another site.

Will Neeva’s new feature change the way we optimize for search? Unlikely, but I’m hoping this spurs even more innovation among search engines. That kind of competition is important because it often provides marketers with more opportunities, like the free product listings Google introduced last year (and Bing also launched shortly after), which help it compete against e-commerce platforms like Amazon.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Neeva’s ‘FastTap Search’ feature presents direct links instead of a results page

Neeva is launching a feature that enables searchers to type queries directly into the URL field of their browser or the Neeva app to be shown a drop-down menu with direct links. Dubbed “FastTap Search,” the feature allows users to bypass traditional search results pages and head directly to a site via the list of links generated based on the query. As Neeva’s founder and former SVP of ads at Google, Sridhar Ramaswamy, said in the announcement, this type of feature is made possible by the search engine’s unique business model, in which users pay $4.95 per month for an ad-free, customizable search experience.

Why we care. This feature may take on more significance if Neeva is able to increase its share of the search market or if Neeva is popular with your particular audience. While this is a reimagining of the search results page, it is still a list of results and there is still a top position, which means algorithms have to determine relevance and award that position to a page, just as they do on other search engines. However, since FastTap Search only presents a few results, the brands or publishers that are able to earn that top spot stand to gain significant visibility, which can be important if you operate in a highly competitive sector.

Read more here.

Facebook changes how it measures users for advertising purposes; Instagram introduces notifications for outages and a new Account Status tool

Facebook changes how it measures accounts for advertisers. “If someone does not have their Facebook and Instagram accounts linked in Accounts Center, we will consider those accounts as separate people for ads planning and measurement,” Facebook announced Monday, adding, “Facebook and Instagram accounts that are connected in Accounts Center will continue to be counted collectively as a single person.”

Previously, if someone used the same email address for both their Facebook and Instagram accounts or accessed both platforms using the same device, the company counted them as one person when they interacted with ads. As this new methodology rolls out over the next few weeks, advertisers should expect increases in pre-campaign estimates such as estimated audience size, “but for most campaigns we do not believe this will have a substantial impact on reported campaign reach,” Facebook said.

Instagram launches notifications for outages and a new Account Status tool. Instagram is testing Activity Feed notifications to inform users when the platform experiences outages (like the one from last week), technical issues and when those issues are resolved. “We won’t send a notification every single time there is an outage, but when we see that people are confused and looking for answers, we’ll determine if something like this could help make things clearer,” the company said. The test will run in the U.S. for the next few months.

Alongside that announcement, the company also unveiled a new tool called “Account Status.” The tool is designed to inform users about whether their account is at risk of being disabled. Within the tool, users can see if their content has been removed and why. They can also appeal a removal by requesting a review from their Account Status menu.

For the visual learners among us

“Short Videos” carousel spotted on desktop. First appearing as a test in mobile search results in November 2020, Brodie Clark has spotted a “Short Videos” carousel in Google’s desktop search results (shown above). The screenshot even includes a video from TikTok. Search feature junkies might also want to bookmark Brodie’s timeline of Google SERP features, which is sure to become even more handy as the company experiments with more features.

I heard you like flowcharts. Aleyda Solis has published her 10 favorite flowcharts to support SEO decision making. The charts can help you avoid the “it depends” answer with stakeholders, they may be easier to understand for non-SEOs and can make the criteria for various decisions more transparent.

Shipping delays mean Santa’s got some bad news this year. Marketoonist Tom Fishburne addresses supply chain slowdowns with the help of Santa and a young child wondering whether a year of good behavior was even worth it. Fishburne’s take is especially pertinent since so many businesses pivoted to e-commerce over the last year and a half. If you’re looking to learn how shipping delays might affect your advertising, check out Fred Vallaeys’ post on the subject over at Optmyzr.

What We’re Reading: Leaked documents suggest Amazon has been doing exactly what some merchants and regulators have suspected for years

“Use information from Amazon.in to develop products and then leverage the Amazon.in platform to market these products to our customers” — That quote comes from an internal Amazon document that details the strategy for Solimo, a private brand Amazon created in India. Reuters reporters have analyzed thousands of internal Amazon documents showing that, in India, the e-commerce platform ran campaigns to create knockoff products, undercut the original brands and promote them using manipulated search results.

“The documents show that two executives reviewed the India strategy – senior vice presidents Diego Piacentini, who has since left the company, and Russell Grandinetti, who currently runs Amazon’s international consumer business,” wrote Aditya Kalra and Steve Stecklow for Reuters.

The documents are about as damning as it gets: There are specific instructions on identifying which brands to “replicate,” a strategy for partnering with the manufacturers of the original item, there’s even a designated term for the practice of placing Amazon’s own newly launched private brand items in the top three ASINs in search results — “search seeding”; seedy indeed. Focusing specifically on the above-mentioned Solimo brand, Amazon matched or exceeded the quality of competing products but were 10–15% cheaper, the documents from 2016 revealed. 

This is bad news for merchants who have reached a high degree of success selling their own products on Amazon: “It is third-party sellers who bear the initial costs and uncertainties when introducing new products; by merely spotting them, Amazon gets to sell products only once their success has been tested,” Lina Khan, now-chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, wrote in a 2017 paper for the Yale Law Journal. “The anticompetitive implications here seem clear: Amazon is exploiting the fact that some of its customers are also its rivals.”

“As Reuters hasn’t shared the documents or their provenance with us, we are unable to confirm the veracity or otherwise of the information and claims as stated,” Amazon said in a written response. “We believe these claims are factually incorrect and unsubstantiated.”

The post Search results, but without the search results page; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, have you made headway with your DE&I initiatives?

Diversity is constantly top-of-mind for me as an SMX programming team member, as it is for our entire team. It’s easy to issue statements in solidarity with victims or denouncing injustices, but the real struggle is in identifying opportunities to make our events, workplace and industry more inclusive. Complacency and procrastination are our worst enemies here and only work to institutionalize inequity.

Making your own company more inclusive doesn’t mean treating certain demographics, like white males, as second-class citizens. “Inclusion management is really about a rising tide that lifts all boats, making sure that everybody feels that they are contributing to the mission of the company,” Dr. Lauren Tucker, founder of Do What Matters, said in an interview with MarTech. She also distinguished between intention and completion, calling out companies that hired chief diversity officers for performative reasons. Instead, she advocates for employee resource groups with leaders who can advise the company on implementing diversity initiatives.

At the top of this introduction, I said that the real struggle is in identifying opportunities to increase diversity. The Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing is one way we’re hoping to recognize professionals or organizations that have honored their commitments to positive change. I hope that this accolade shows aspiring professionals that they have a place among search marketers — I hope you’ll help us find that recipient by submitting a nomination before our October 8 deadline.

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google rolls out ticket booking links, ‘Things to do’ ads and an eco-certified badge for hotels

Google is introducing new organic and paid features for travel and leisure businesses, including ticket booking links and pricing in search results, new “Things to do” ads and an eco-certified badge for hotel listings.

The ticket booking links (shown above) can be viewed in the Tickets tab when users search for attractions (like the Statue of Liberty, for example). Things to do ads are available to tours, activities and attractions operators; they include images, reviews, pricing and a booking link and are shown to users based on their search terms, location and other related details. And, the eco-certified badge for hotel listings is available to hotels that are certified for high standards of sustainability by certain independent organizations, like EarthCheck and Green Key. 

Why we care. As the world gradually moves away from the pandemic, these offerings could help travel and leisure businesses bounce back from over a year and a half of disruption.

Ticketing booking links in search results may help attract reservations or sales for ticket sellers with competitive prices. The new Things to do ad format is another tool that attractions operators can use to reach travelers that have shown an interest in a particular destination and can be a nice supplement to organic marketing efforts. And, the eco-certified badge for hotel listings may distinguish business profiles in the search results, which can be a unique selling point for environmentally conscious travelers.

While Google’s competitors in the travel sector may release (or already have) similar features available, these offerings strengthen Google as a travel platform by leveraging the company’s ecosystem of services and products, making it easier for users to plan their trips in one place.

Read more here.

New Roku app on the way for Shopify SMBs  

Roku has announced a new Shopify app that will enable merchants to buy, build and measure campaigns across the Roku streaming platform. The Roku app will become available ahead of the 2021 holiday season, according to the company.

As the first streaming platform available to Shopify merchants, the app is set to open up SMBs to affordable TV campaigns. It’ll allow business owners to set up, monitor and execute campaigns on their own, based on the parameters of their ad budget. Advertisers download the Roku app from the Shopify App Store, pick their audience and ad budget, and set timing and duration. From there, they upload their creative and have a campaign ready to go. Roku reaches tens of millions of U.S. households.

In recent years, Roku has been a preferred streaming ad platform for many direct-to-consumer brands. TV streaming spend in Roku’s OneView Ad Platform nearly tripled year-over-year in Q2 2021.

Why we care. A low barrier to entry means that there are a lot of opportunities on streaming for advertisers, which may be especially advantageous ahead of the holiday shopping season. On an OTT platform like Roku, for instance, viewers can watch premium services like Disney+, or ad-supported free services like Pluto TV, which includes over 100+ channels. With so much inventory, SMBs with smaller budgets can run ads in front of families in their living rooms. The easy app experience further enables the democratization of streaming advertising, and will increase the slice of the overall TV pie that OTT/CTV has been building.

Read more here.

Questioning LSAs for lawyers and Google explains a use case for self-referential canonicals

Self-referential canonicals help clean up small SEO mistakes. “Since you don’t know how people link to your pages, a self-referential one helps to clean up small mistakes. For example, if a link goes to b.html?utm=cheese, then usually the server just shows b.html, and a self-referential canonical link element there would then encourage search engines to just use ‘b.html’ instead of ‘b.html?utm=cheese’,” Google’s John Mueller said, explaining a possible use case for self-referential canonicals.

The legality of LSAs for lawyers. An opinion piece was published in the NC State Bar Journal challenging local service ads (LSAs) by lawyers. The reasons seem sound enough: Contacting a lawyer via an LSA means that your communications may be recorded by a third party, lawyers have an obligation to warn prospective clients that their communications may not be private and the communications might be inadvertently disclosed. Tip of the hat to David Kyle for bringing this to our attention.

Update: “Reviews on independent sites.” Last week, we shared that local SEOs spotted text like “200+ reviews on independent sites” on GMB profiles. I asked Google, and a spokesperson told me, “We strive to surface relevant information that helps people make decisions. As part of that, we’re running an experiment to showcase how many customer reviews local services businesses have.” I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see if this ever gets an official rollout.

What We’re Reading: Facebook: Sorry, not sorry

The bad press continues for Facebook: An article by Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel for the New York Times has detailed the social media network’s new strategy to bolster its image. Code-named “Project Amplify,” the plan includes issuing fewer apologies, reducing outsiders’ access to internal data and distancing Mark Zuckerberg from scandals (to recast him as more of an innovator).

Historically, Facebook confronted privacy, misinformation and hate speech controversies on its platform by issuing public apologies. Zuckerberg, himself, even took personal responsibility for Russian interference on the site during the 2016 election. However, these apologies haven’t redeemed the platform. Now, “They’re realizing that no one else is going to come to their defense, so they need to do it and say it themselves,” said Katie Harbath, a former Facebook public policy director.

The company is now using the News Feed, the most valuable place on its site, to promote pro-Facebook content, according to the NYT. In April, the team behind CrowdTangle, Facebook’s tool that provides data on the engagement and the popularity of posts, was told that it would be broken up. And, I suppose Zuckerberg’s Independence Day electric surfboard post is part of his new, unapologetic image.

I imagine users won’t react favorably to Facebook’s “Sorry, not sorry, but here’s more pro-Facebook content in your feed” approach. In addition, the company recently warned that Apple’s privacy changes will have a bigger impact on its revenue in Q3. So, investors are bracing for the news, advertisers are being impacted to a greater extent than they might’ve anticipated and users probably won’t be elated by the content of the NYT article. The company still owns WhatsApp and Instagram, but if it cannot turn the swelling tides, its flagship product may lose relevance.

The post Google rolls out new products for travel and leisure businesses; Thursday’s daily brief appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Search Engine Land’s daily brief features daily insights, news, tips, and essential bits of wisdom for today’s search marketer. If you would like to read this before the rest of the internet does, sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox daily.

Good morning, Marketers, autumn officially starts on Wednesday (if you’re in the northern hemisphere).

But, in my neighborhood, the fall and Halloween decorations started popping up over the weekend, which reminded me that many marketers are in the midst of preparing for the holiday shopping season.

Last Thanksgiving, online sales increased 20% YoY, hitting a record consumer spend of over $5 billion. And, nearly half of those transactions happened on smartphones, which was another record. Though we wished the pandemic would’ve receded by now, it’s still around and consumers may now be even more accustomed to e-commerce or hybrid shopping options.

I haven’t done any of my holiday shopping yet (and I expect many others, as well), so there’s still time to promote your goods and hopefully tap into the most profitable time of year for merchants. If you’re looking for ways to increase the organic visibility of your products, here are a few resources to bookmark and share with your team:

• Holiday shopping SEO: Last-minute tips and techniques for e-commerce sites
• Google announces new deals sections, promotional tools and expanded reporting ahead of the holiday shopping season
• FAQ: All about Google Shopping and Surfaces across Google

George Nguyen,
Editor

Google explains why it made the title change to the search results

For the past few weeks, Google told us it was using the designated HTML title tag 80% of the time. But, on Friday, the company said it is using as-is title tags 87% of the time, a seven-point increase: “Title elements are now used around 87% of the time, rather than around 80% before,” Google wrote.

The company listed the following as common reasons why it won’t use your HTML title tag:

• Empty or half-empty titles (”        | Site Name”)
• Obsolete titles (“2020 admissions criteria – University of Awesome”)
• Inaccurate titles (“Giant stuffed animals, teddy bears, polar bears – Site Name”)
• Micro-boilerplate titles (“My so-called amazing TV show,” where the same title is used for multiple pages about different seasons)

The SEO community is still mixed on this: Some are optimistic that Google will improve in this area, while others are asking for an option to opt out. If you noticed changes to your click-through rate from the Google search results, it may be related to these changes. Hopefully, the changes are positive since it is a win-win for Google to provide titles that its searchers want to click on. If not, Google said it will keep making improvements. It’s critical that SEOs continue to provide feedback on the adjustments to the title tag system, as well as any changes that play out in real-time.

Read more here.

Instagram is testing ‘Map Search’ in Australia and New Zealand

Instagram has launched “Map Search” as a test for its users in Australia and New Zealand, according to SocialMediaToday. This new feature enables users to discover businesses and other locations of interest via the in-app map (shown above), which can be accessed via the map icon in the Discovery tab. Selecting a location on the map shows users a business’ information, public posts tagged at that location and the associated Instagram account for that business (if applicable).

Why we care. If this feature rolls out more widely and hits the right notes with users, it could help local businesses connect with more potential customers, many of which are likely to be nearby and looking for places to visit, shop or dine at. This may also mean that local business owners will have to pay more attention to curating their presence on the platform.

Instagram has steadily added more e-commerce support over the years. One would hope that e-commerce support would be integrated into map listings, offering even more flexibility for local businesses.

Accessibility that won’t ding your SEO, independent reviews mentioned in GMB profiles and considerations for starting your own agency

“I don’t see a problem.” Google’s John Mueller says the search engine doesn’t take issue with hidden text if it’s for accessibility, “partially because the accessibility elements usually aren’t the keywords you’re trying to rank for,” adding that, “If they were the only mention of your main keywords on your pages, that would be trickier.”

“Reviews on independent sites” seen on GMB profiles. There have been more and more reports of GMB profiles that include text like “200+ reviews on independent sites.” Tip of the hat to Joy Hawkins, who first brought this to our attention. We’ve reached out to Google to see if it’s willing to provide any details.

7 things to know before starting a PPC agency. Kirk Williams, owner of ZATO Marketing, shares three reasons why starting an agency in 2022 may be harder than ever, and four reasons why it may be easier than ever.

What We’re Reading: Documents reveal Facebook’s weak response to human traffickers and drug cartels on its platform

“Scores of internal Facebook documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show employees raising alarms about how its platforms are used in some developing countries, where its user base is already huge and expanding,” Justin Sheck, Newley Purnell and Jeff Horwitz wrote, “They also show the company’s response, which in many instances is inadequate or nothing at all.”

Facebook employees have flagged human traffickers operating in the Middle East, luring women into abusive employment situations or sex work. In Ethiopia, armed groups used the platform to incite violence against ethnic minorities. The article goes on to discuss organ selling, pornography, cartels recruiting teens to attend hit-man training camps and more.

“The company took down some offending pages, but took only limited action to try to shut down the activity until Apple Inc. threatened to remove Facebook’s products from the App Store unless it cracked down on the practice,” Sheck, Purnell and Horwitz wrote, explaining that Apple’s threat was in response to a BBC story about maids for sale.

Facebook’s attitude on these issues seems to be that it is “simply the cost of doing business” in those regions, according to Brian Boland, a former Facebook vice president in charge of partnerships with internet providers in Africa and Asia. This claim seems to be substantiated by the documents the WSJ reviewed: “In an internal summary about the episode, a Facebook researcher wrote: ‘Was this issue known to Facebook before BBC enquiry and Apple escalation?’ The next paragraph begins: ‘Yes.’”

The article goes on to explain a few reasons why this has been allowed to happen, language being one of them. If anything, these excuses work to highlight the company’s priorities, which apparently don’t include the safety of its users in those regions.

Why we care. Facebook is suffering in more ways than one: Its reputation has taken hit after hit since 2016 and it only seems to have gotten worse with COVID misinformation last year. In January, the company revealed that it actually lost daily active users in the US in Q3 and Q4 last year, despite a pandemic that forced more people online. Average time spent on Facebook by US users has also been on a steady decline (from 41 seconds in 2017 to 37 seconds in 2021), according to eMarketer.

For brands that rely on Facebook, this may mean that your target audience on the platform is shrinking and that there may be fewer opportunities to reach those individuals. This might get worse before it gets better as more users are following their beliefs and refusing to support companies that are complicit with human rights violations. And, I have to imagine that the users in these regions are associating the social media network with such violations, which may hinder its growth abroad.

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Good morning, Marketers, and are you thinking about 2022 yet?

As we’re inching closer to Q4, it only makes me realize how close we are to next year. Gulp. I saw a post on StreetFight about how digital advertising has seen a robust recovery from the dips of the initial pandemic panic. 

Most industries, including gaming, e-commerce, health and wellness, fintech, travel, and more, are seeing growth (though some slower than others). “Much of this recovery can be attributed to a general shift from the physical to the digital world as a result of global shutdowns,” wrote Jane Handel. 

But it makes me wonder what sort of fluctuations we’ll see in 2022. More people are venturing back out into public places, though often warily, and some have decided to remain mostly digital until pandemic outlooks are less dangerous to them.

How are you prepping for 2022? What predictions do you have? I’d love to know your thoughts, search marketers. Email me at clyden@thirddoormedia.com.

Carolyn Lyden,
Director of Search Content

Facebook is testing a new marketing tool called Ad Strategies

“Ad Strategies uses automation to help you build complete customer pipelines,” according to an email to advertisers. We first saw this in a tweet from Matt Navarra. The idea is to provide an easier-to-use advertising setup that doesn’t require as much effort for advertisers.

In the thread, Navarra shows screenshots of the step-by-step that social media managers would go through to set up Ad Strategies. It’s a five-step process that includes answering questions about your chosen ad strategy including what you’re selling, your sales cycle, whether you want to prioritize sales or leads, and what your budget is. From there, you can set locations, add creative and review the campaign before launch.

Why we care. Facebook has been saying it cares about small businesses for a while now, and this seems to be a step toward demonstrating that. Ad Strategies would make it a lot easier for SMBs to set up social media campaigns. But just like with Google and Microsoft Advertising’s automated tools, there’s potential for humans to lose the control that many advertisers like to maintain. The most common complaint about automation in ad tools is that it prioritizes impressions over conversions, and we’re interested to see if the Facebook Ad Strategies tool follows the same pattern.

Nominate a search marketer for the Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing

Search marketing has a diversity problem. Older data from the American Marketing Association shows that most marketing leadership is still majority white and male. It’s a topic we’ve covered multiple times at Search Engine Land:

• The onus of diversity should not fall to Black marketers
• What does commitment to diversity look like in an organization?
• How inclusion can lead to diversity in marketing and communications
• The business imperative behind inclusion and diversity

But it’s not one and done. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are ongoing efforts and something we need to commit to every day. This is why we’re excited to announce the second annual Search Engine Land Award for Advancing Diversity and Inclusion in Search Marketing to celebrate those individuals or organizations who are affecting real change. This year’s awards will include a guest judge, last year’s winner Areej AbuAli, a pillar in the SEO community and the founder of Women in Tech SEO.

You may nominate as many organizations or individuals as you feel deserve the recognition. We ask that you highlight specific initiatives conducted by the nominee and that in the nomination form you include the contact of someone who can “second” that nomination.

Nominate a person or organization now.

Consumers think brands should be responsible for removing fake goods from marketplaces

New data from brand protection company Red Points finds that holiday shoppers plan to start early (think now) and these same consumers believe online retailers should “fix it” if they mistakenly buy fake goods. “With a larger pool of online shoppers to prey on, scammers have even more reasons to take advantage of online shoppers and fool them into believing their discounts on fake items are part of legitimate sellers’ sale events,” said the report. 

“In fact, 56% of U.S. consumers acknowledge having been victims of purchasing a fake or counterfeit item online during previous holiday shopping seasons. It takes only minutes for a scammer to set up an illegitimate site, but the ramifications can be long-lasting for the brand they steal from.”

So who should fix it when consumers are tricked into buying fake stuff? 40% say the brand should be primarily responsible for removing fake items from online channels.

Why we care. With supply chain issues still a problem for many retailers, there’s a high chance that fake goods could infiltrate the e-commerce market. This can be a problem or an opportunity for advertisers. If your brand falls prey to scammers taking advantage of an online marketplace, your customers will feel like it’s your fault and your responsibility to fix it. However, if you’re advertising genuine and authentic products, there’s an opportunity to include that in your ad copy to ensure that customers know what they’re getting is real.

On the hunt for something new? Check out the latest jobs in search marketing

Senior Paid Search Specialist @ d50 Media (Boston or USA remote)

• Salary: $95k-105k/year
• Perform daily account management of pay per click accounts on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads
• Manage and optimize display platforms like Verizon Media, GDN, and MSAN

Paid Search Account Manager @ Croud (New York City)

• Salary: $70k-80k/year
• Focus on Google Ads with Search and Shopping, with some focus on YouTube, Discovery and Display 
• Own paid campaign processes from start to finish, including researching, planning, trafficking, troubleshooting, optimizing and reporting

Senior Manager, Content Strategy @ Cox Communications (Atlanta, GA)

• Salary: $125k-140k/yr
• Collaborate on the creative and optimization process for content and website pages working with our product, legal and web production teams to build messaging and imagery that resonate with our customers and drive our digital and company KPI’s
• Lead the strategy and execution for SEO digital content across digital platforms

Organic Search Manager @ GroupM (USA remote)

• Salary: $90k/yr
• Review and analyze competitor sites and understand their organic search approach
• Optimize campaigns accordingly to maximize client investment and to resolve performance issues

Want a chance to include your job listing in the Search Engine Land newsletter? Send along the details here.

What We’re Reading: How to drive the funnel through content marketing and link building

Businesses turn to content marketing because it can be an effective method for building brand awareness and guiding customers through their sales funnel. Yet, many have been unable to capitalize on their content marketing initiatives because they haven’t covered all aspects of the customer journey, didn’t keep track of their assets and wasted resources on duplicate content, failed to create unique content or were simply unsuccessful with their outreach efforts.

In her session at SMX Convert, Eve Sangenito, director at Perficient, shared her comprehensive content strategy to engage potential customers at every point in their journey and generate backlinks for greater discoverability and higher rankings.

Your content should exist to serve your brand by serving your audience — that should always be at the center of your planning and execution. “It isn’t so much about what you want to tell your audience; it’s what you understand they want to learn and what’s going to be helpful for them to learn more about your solutions and/or about your industry as a whole,” Sangenito said, adding “Just knowing where they’re coming from is one of the key elements you should be focused on.” Check out the full session coverage here.

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