1. Meta Lists 4 Ranking Signals For Video On Facebook - In a blog post, Meta has shared four top signals its algorithm uses to determine which videos receive wide distribution on Facebook.

2. Originality - “Facebook’s video ecosystem values original content and encourages intentional and loyal consumption. We want videos on our platform to be authentic, enduring, and entertaining, which can turn casual viewers into passionate fans.”

3. Audience retention -“Retention is one of the indicators of how well the content was received by the audience – a slow and gradual decline in the audience retention graph can show that the topic and structure of the video match well with what your audience wants to see, while an early drop off may mean that the content isn’t what the viewer expected.”
4. Audience loyalty - “When people regularly come back to view an account’s videos, we take it as a strong, positive signal for distribution. This is especially true when we see that people actively search for your content or seek it out on video-first destinations like Facebook Watch or directly on your account.”
5. Engagement - “We prioritize content that sparks conversations and meaningful interactions between real people.”

Meta says you should avoid doing these things if you want your videos to be seen by a broad audience:

• Engagement bait - Urging people to interact with content, such as writing captions like, “like this post if you agree!”
• Watch bait - Intentionally withholding information to get viewers to watch to the end.

• Click bait - Luring viewers to click on a link for information intentionally omitted from the video.

• Regional Trend Insights Now Available To TikTok Advertisers - TikTok has announced that it’s added a heap more data to its ‘TikTok insights’ tool, which provides a range of snapshots and notes on key market trends, which you can filter down to specific info for your campaigns. This can be a helpful resource for mapping out an optimal TikTok marketing approach.

The best part is that you can download the data as cards for use in presentations, or just in your own planning.

1. Twitter Launched New Workshop Series To Maximize Your Twitter Business Presence - Twitter has announced a new series of free ‘Twitter Flight School’ workshops, which will provide in-depth, expert insights into how to set up your business for success in the app. The sessions will be run by Twitter Product Marketing Manager Morgan Cornelius. The new workshops will focus on two areas:

2. How to Establish Your Business on Twitter - will look at how to make best use of Twitter’s more recent business additions, including Professional Profiles, Shops, etc.

3. Get Holiday Ready on Twitter - will look more specifically at holiday marketing trends in the app, and how you can tap into them to maximize your Christmas sales push.

4. YouTube Now Allowing Sport Betting Ads On Mastheads - YouTube is now allowing sports betting ads to serve on the masthead as long as the ads comply with the related gambling and games policy. You can read the announcement from Google here. Google’s guidelines for advertising sports and gambling can also be found here.

5. Google’s “Helpful Content” Rollout Completed - Google has confirmed that the helpful content update rollout has been completed. The update took 15 days to roll out, starting on August 25, 2022 and ending on September 9, 2022. Google has posted it completed today, September 9th.

As a reminder, Google’s helpful content update is a sitewide signal. It targets websites that have a relatively high amount of unsatisfying or unhelpful content, where the content is written for search engines first. “Helpful Content” has been covered in-depth in episode#122/123/124 of #TWIMshow including what to do if you were hit by this algorithm.

1. Google Shares Best Practices For Creating Quality Meta Descriptions - Google updates documentation on search snippets to include examples of both good and bad meta descriptions. Search snippets are the summaries and descriptions shown in the search results for sites that rank. The data used to generate the search snippet traditionally comes from the meta description and, sometimes, the content itself.Google listed four categories of good and bad meta description examples. They are:

2. Instead of listing keywords, Describe the business, not the webpage . Explain what the shop sells and details like opening hours and location.

3. Instead of using same description on every news article or blog posts, use a snippet from the article or post.
4. Summarize the page.
5. Instead of being too short (broad and vague), make it specific and detailed.

You can read Google’s updated guidance here

1. Google To Automatically Upgrade Smart Shopping Ads To Performance Max - Google has reminded us once again that Smart Shopping campaigns will be sunsetted and any new campaigns created in Merchant Center will be Performance Max.

Read the FAQs from Google and the announcement about Merchant Center upgrades here https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/12280808.

1. Google Ads Revamps Examples Of Invalid Traffic & Activities - Google has updated their Invalid Traffic site. Invalid Traffic is “any activity that doesn’t come from a real user with genuine interest. It can include accidental clicks caused by intrusive ad implementations, fraudulent clicking by competing advertisers, advertising botnets and more.” Google provides 12 examples of Invalid Traffic but adds that this is not an exhaustive list.

Invalid traffic affects everyone in the Google Ads ecosystem. Advertisers who consistently see increased clicks, lower CTR, or suspect that their ads are being clicked by bots or competitors may see their ad spend decrease. as Google works to stop the fraud and lessen the costs to account holders.

If you suspect that your account is being affected by invalid clicks, impressions, or other traffic, then Google’s team of specialists can investigate it for you. To open a support ticket, follow the step-by-step guide.

1. Google Will Reject Ads With Poor Landing Page Experience - A change to Google’s destination requirements policy states if an ad leads to a page that doesn’t comply with the better ad standards, Google will disapprove the ad.

If you’re running Google Ads, this new policy means you must be extra careful about the pages people land on. Google doesn’t want advertisers sending people to pages that contain intrusive or annoying ad experiences. Your landing pages may be complying with the better ads standards already, especially if they’re optimized for Google’s page experience update. If you’re unsure whether your landing pages meet the standards, Google will inform you in the Ad Experience Report. Ads that do not comply with the better ads standards are as follows:

• Pop-up ads
• Autoplaying video ads with sound
• Ads that block visitors from seeing the main content
• Prestitial and postitial ads with countdowns
• Large sticky ads that stay on a page as the visitor scrolls
• Ad density greater than 30%
• Flashing animated ads

A good rule of thumb — if an ad interrupts a visitor’s browsing experience, it’s almost certainly against the better ads standards. Google is giving advertisers until October to comply with a new policy, or their ads will be disapproved.

You can read the announcement here or read about the better ad standard here.