As we approach the end of 2019, it’s a great time to revisit our digital marketing updates. Let us have a look at it.

Social Media
Facebook

• In February, we witnessed the brand completing 15-years of its existence with 2.7 billion users on the platform.
• In March, users were introduced to a series of ranking updates & algorithm changes on Facebook.
• The platform updated video ranking to prioritize original Facebook videos that people seek out and aimed to help the video creators.
  Facebook India launched the Thumbstoppers in partnership with creative agencies with the aim to redefine short-form mobile video creativity in the country.
• In August 2019, Facebook announced new tools, features, and some restrictions too
• Facebook opened the Instagram AR Filter tool for users that allowed them to enhance the effect-building tool.
  The platform launched two new ad solutions – Movie Reminder Ads and Movie Showtime Ads, to aid movie marketers and help people find the movies they like.
• In December 2019, Facebook introduced reporting tools to improve campaign measurement.

Instagram
January 2019

The year started with the announcement of Facebook Inc to integrate Messenger, Whatsapp, and Instagram on technical grounds.
The feature of Facebook memories replicated on the sister brand with Instagram users waking up to the new update of ‘memories’.

March 2019

Instagram Music now available in India. Facebook partnered with major music labels in India like Yash Raj Films, Zee Music Company, and T-Series Music to incorporate their music in Instagram Stories in the country.

May 2019

Instagram started to support IGTV in landscape mode.

July 2019

Instagram introduced new features to fight online bullying.
Further, into the month, the platform tested a new Story Camera UI, the feature making it increasingly look similar to Snapchat.
The platform incorporated more interactive features in its stories with the ‘poll sticker feature’.

October 2019

Instagram launched ‘Thread’– a camera-first messaging app for the users.
Another relevant update for the month was the removal of the ‘following tab‘ from the platform.

December 2019

Instagram puts age verification and improves messaging privacy
The platform launched a profile shop link for stories.

Twitter

• January 2019, the year started with the developers testing Twitter speech bubbles, status updates, and more. The initiatives were aimed at making the platform more ‘conversational’.
• Twitter redesigned the desktop interface with added features like emoji button, quick keyboard shortcuts, upgraded trends, and advanced search.
• Twitter announced the expansion of its political ads policy and transparency approach to include India, Australia, and all European Union member states.
  In-line with the impending elections in the coming months, Twitter listed out actions to protect the integrity of conversations around the event.
• In another new update and with a piece of good news for the Tweeples, Twitter allowed the users to retweet with GIFs, photos or videos on the platform from this month.
  Twitter tested carousel ads for App Install campaigns.
  The platform recorded 396 million Tweets for #LokSabhaElections2019
• #INDvPAK became the most Tweeted about ODI on the platform.
• Twitter allowed users to rearrange photos while tweeting through drag-and-drop.
• Twitter banned political advertising globally.
• Twitter Brand Surveys tool launched.
• Twitter Lists got two new features adding shareability and more customizations.

LinkedIn

• LinkedIn redesigns campaign manager to include 3 new objectives such as Brand Awareness, Website Conversion, Job Applicants and Optimization of ‘Click-Pricing’ in-sync with the Campaign objectives
• LinkedIn releases Facebook like Reactions
• LinkedIn launches new features to connect job seekers with relevant companies such as
  Improved Job Alerts – Land your dream job, tell company recruiters you’re interested
  Visual Dashboard – Making it easier to find your way in
  Relevant Hashtags – Keep up with the companies you care about
  Improved Company Pages – New company insights

Youtube

• YouTube for Android is rolling out Voice Search
• India is now YouTube’s largest and fastest-growing audience in the world
• Google announced that it would soon add shopping features to YouTube by bringing shoppable ads and through creators.
• YouTube is changing the way viewers see YouTube subscriber counts such as not showing in full numbers but in short numbers.
• YouTube notifications interface to be more user-friendly such as All, Personalised and None
• YouTube Kids to get its own website
• YouTube creates more revenue streams such as Super Chat, Super Stickers, Channel Memberships, Merch Shelf, Leaning Playlists, and Youtube Giving
• YouTube Studio to help deal with copyright claims
• Youtube updated Terms of Service in December in which they can ban channel if not profitable to the company

Now we shift to SEO

On October 25, Google introduced the BERT algorithm to search. BERT is an open-sourced technique for natural language understanding that Google says will improve the search engine’s understanding of queries — particularly longer spoken or written queries

Crawling, Indexing and Ranking

• Mobile-first from now on
• The bots go evergreen
• No longer directives
• Inferred headings

Google Assistant
The Google Assistant has grown into many capabilities were provided with padded support especially by moving speech processing from the cloud directly to devices, which delivers answers up to 10 times faster.

Local search
For local business owners, Google My Business included more updates for entrepreneurs, such as namely bulk review management, a new screening program called Google Screened and searchable short names.

The rise of visual search
Google Lens got a wide exhibit of highlight augmentations this year, including live interpretations, the capacity to sweep and research menu things and “style thoughts” that influence its picture acknowledgement abilities for e-commerce.

PPC

• RSAs or Responsive Search Ads use machine learning to match the best ad variation with each search using data from ad performance segmented by the query. To get this data, you need to delve into the scripts and Ads API reports.
• Video content on YouTube to enhance lightbox ads
• Google Ads’ added new ‘affinity audiences’ provide new options for ad targeting like new audience and affinity audiences
• Search partner clicks convert at a lower rate than core search but cost less too
• Stuffing your ad copy is a big mistake

Check out our Top Digital Marketing Trends to Follow in 2020.