Digital marketing and social media, they never stand still. Algorithm tweaks, software changes, policy updates… staying on top of it all is almost a full-time job.
That’s why we’re introducing our Woven Download, a regular digital dispatch from the frontiers of the social media, software and digital wild west.
First up, Facebook business pages, TikTok and the importance of author authority.
Facebook making page locations transparent
In a bid to win back trust having been caught out by the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook have been busy making their business practices more transparent. If you want to promote your politics, for example, you now need to provide your identity, location and who sponsored the post. (This BBC article explains further.)
Continuing this trend, Facebook are now making page locations transparent. So, if you have your page managed by someone in another country, or you’re doing the managing on another business’s behalf, you need to be aware that it’s the location of whoever’s managing the page that will be visible to Facebook users, not the business itself.
Which, at first glance, might not seem like such a big deal. But it might have implications for the authenticity of some pages. For example, if you run a surfing business on Australia’s Gold Coast and like to talk about all the best places to catch some waves, people might start to question the validity of your content if they see it’s being managed from the Scottish surfing capital of… Aberdeen.
If you feel this change may affect your page’s authenticity, there are a few ways to get around it.
- Be honest and proud about who manages your page. Put it in your about us page, explain how both parties have a great relationship dedicated to bringing their viewers the best content possible.
- Create video content that actively shows the business owner’s location. If people are seeing authenticvlogs, IGTV posts and live social feeds of the areas they’re interested in, they won’t mind where the content was posted up to Facebook.
- Outreach to local influencers. If you’re worried about your page’s authenticity being adversely affected, reach out to local influencers as part of your content marketing strategy to reaffirm to your followers that, even though the page is managed elsewhere, the content is still true to the area it’s representing.
TikTok
Is that the sound of time ticking down for social media favs like Instagram and Snapchat? Probably not, but TikTok, the news social sensation on the block, is picking up a serious head of steam.
If you’ve not heard of it, China-based app, TikTok, (aka Douyin in China) is a short-video app that lets you watch, create, edit and filter your own based vids, lasting up to 15 seconds. Having merged with lip-syncing app, Musical.ly, TikTok’s videos are often music-centric, and allows users to crank out some karaoke or soundtrack their videos to all kinds of musical styles. Essentially, then, it’s like Vine, but with a 15-second time limit and with music. Simple, right?
And it’s pretty popular, too. It’s one of the most-downloaded apps of 2018, is available in over 30 languages and has over 500 million active monthly users. Which means it’s no surprise that all kinds of brands, from luxury fashionistas, Michael Kors, to biscuit barons, Oreo, have utilised TikTok for their marketing campaigns.
Check out six successful TikTok campaigns here.
The importance of author authority
Google’s search quality rating guidelines (Google’s way of ensuring high-quality search results) were updated last year, and one of the most important effects was on the relevance of author authority. To help improve your site’s domain authority and help it rank better on SERPs, Google asks its quality-raters to consider not just the quality of the website, but of the content creators, too.
The obvious implication here is the maintenance of a well-written and comprehensive ‘about us’ page. However, this change also extends to the credibility of the authors of your blog posts and webs pages. Google’s quality-raters are encouraged to investigate content creators’ credentials (say that three times fast…) by looking for biographical information about the creator that was not written by themselves – i.e. independent sources.
As a website owner or content creator, this means ensuring you do the following:
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- Clearly identify who content authorship
- Write a bio for the author, to be shown on the page or via a link
- Link your content creator to independent sources that can validate their authority
This last one might mean using content creators that are active on social media, that have been interviewed and quoted online, that are renowned thought-leaders in relevant fields and linking bios to social media feeds and personal websites.