In a nutshell

Following a successful market trial in France, the US, Brazil and other locations, LinkedIn has launched Stories globally, giving profile owners (whether individuals or companies) the opportunity to publish photos and short videos via the mobile app. Story posts will be customisable – with page owners able to incorporate text and work stickers – and only viewable for 24 hours.

What does it mean?

This more casual and immediate way of sharing news, insights and highlights allows individuals and brands to engage with their audiences in an authentic, visual and creative way.  
Here are a few ways you can easily incorporate LinkedIn Stories into your marketing strategy:

• Feature professional tips to educate your followers

• Highlight your brand’s achievements such as award wins

• Share real-time updates like workshops or team lunch snippets

• Host a corporate Q&A to engage with your prospective and current consumers

• Feature latest brands news and announcements like new hires or product launches

• Share customer testimonials to entice users to try your product.

In a nutshell

Google Analytics 4, the most recent update which has been driven by major shifts in consumer behaviour and privacy, includes automatic alerts for significant trends in data. The new analytics also gives users giving a better understanding of the customer lifecycle through customer-centric measurement, instead of measurement split across device or platform.

What does it mean?

Our data consultant, Laura Careless, told us Google Analytics 4 is “pretty exciting, as it solidifies the commitment to customer-centric analysis that we've been banging on about for years.”
“It's been designed to be robust and future-facing, and looks like it's ready to solve problems we don't even know about yet. There are some really nice user interface improvements too, both in reporting and functionality, which will make it easier to gather rich insights.”

In a nutshell

Snapchat began testing a new ad option called ‘First Commercial’ in April 2020, which meant advertisers were guaranteed to be the first advert shown to users watching content on the Discover tab. This has now been made available to all advertisers in the US and UK.

What does it mean?

“If your goal is to drive maximum exposure for your product or service, and to increase awareness of your brand, the First Commercial video takeover may be the right solution for you” says Sandra Frankowska, our paid social strategist. “This product guarantees that your ad will be the first one a user sees when opening the Discover tab in the Snapchat app – when attention is at its highest. This a huge engagement opportunity for advertisers.”

In a nutshell

Google has announced a range of new updates for search. The main focus? Helping searchers find exactly what they’re looking for, as quickly as possible.
Here are a few key improvements:

Spelling. According to Google, one in 10 queries are misspelled daily. The platform has made spelling prediction improvements to help users gather better search result matches.
Identifying passages of text. For a while, Google has highlighted specific text matches in featured snippets within some search queries. Now, this will be made more widely available, allowing users to locate specific information onsite.
Key moments in video. Using a new AI-driven approach, Google is now able to understand and identify key moments in a video, allowing users to navigate them easily.

What does it mean?

Our SEO manager, Yanni Papaioannou, explains that “Google expanding its AI technologies and integrating it in search results to answer queries faster might not have an immediate impact in how search optimisation is applied. However, this a necessary reminder that content should be relevant and useful to meet users’ needs instead of produced to fill a gap around a specific keyword without enough context and value.”

In a nutshell

Everyone’s favourite naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, joined Instagram on September 24th, and in just four hours and forty-four minutes, he reached one million followers, beating Jennifer Aniston’s previous record. Sir David, whose career in TV and radio spans seven decades, is using Instagram’s visual platform to create awareness for his new film about the monumental scale of humanity's impact on nature. And it’s working; his first post, an IGTV video, already has 18 million views.

What does it mean?

Strategy director, Maria Bain, sees this as another example of the importance of interest over demographic profiling. “Sir David may not fall within the most common demographic for Instagram, but the young people he's urging to help save the planet do. It’s the perfect platform to engage audiences who are in the right environment to be reached and encouraged to share content. This goes to show how digital marketing needs to move away from demographic profiling, and into affinity interest, behaviour and audience needs territory.”