JB’s Digital Update 8th August 2023

Despite those dire warnings from Google about Universal Analytics stopping dead on June 30th, it seems that I’m not alone in having multiple properties still processing data and showing nice, shiny, easy-to-read graphs and data tables with useful information in them. Although, I did find that there are more and more “Resource Unavailable” messages being displayed once you step outside the default reporting view. Will it continue? Probably for a little while longer. It’d be even more fabulous if it continued for another year or so, but I doubt we’ll get that. 

 

GA4 on the other hand has released a new Audiences report which apparently lets you identify which of your Audiences are the most beneficial based on 5 relatively constrained metrics. The pre-supposes you have set up audiences beyond the default all users, or purchasers and you can wrangle GA4s incredibly unfriendly user interface into delivery useful and actionable information. 

 

Want to get your Analytics and Digital Marketing ship-shape? Come and talk to me. 

X is almost joining the land of the normal this week, with the launch of a new program for content creators giving them a share of ad revenue on their content views. Sounds great! But then you realise X has had its ad-revenue slashed and at one point it was limiting user’s content views. Which is just a fab way to do business. *eyeroll*

 

That world-famous privacy-led social network TikTok is also working out how to squeeze more money out of users without violating their privacy by introducing an ad marketplace where user information can be collated to get a better understanding of a user (to target ads more effectively) without actually making the information readable to other parties in the transaction. Kind of like a meeting point of walled gardens. If it takes off, it will be of interest to a number of ad networks. 

 

Meta on the other hand is looking to squeeze more dollars / improve the user experience by using AI Chatbots to get more information out of users, so they can also learn more and target their ads better. The details are a bit flim-flammy currently but seems to be along the lines of “AI, good! Chatbots, great!”, so who really knows. They are making more and more AI noise since the Great Pivot away from the Metaverse.

 

Social media, social ads, content strategy can all be confusing what-nots. Come and talk to me to see through the mist.

Google Business has had a couple of moments of love pushed its way this week with the ability for profile owners to view their profiles as customers added in, and Google also set to start trialling AI t help profile owners write their business profile descriptions. 

 

So that’s a bit of good news for people who don’t know how to run an incognito browser and those who haven’t already used Chat GPT or similar to rewrite those snippets. 

 

Local SEO can be fun and games. Chat to me about playing along.  

Google’s AI Generative Search Experience (GSE for short) is developing. There’s a scandalous rumour that Google listened to the wails of affected webmasters and content creators and actually put links into the resulting answer panels rather than some sort of obscure footnote reference. 

 

Now, I’m not convinced Google has listened. Over the last few years it has moved further and further away from sending any traffic off the SERP pages, why change the habit of a lifetime? It’s possible this is a validation move to show where they pilfered the answer from and prevent a user from re-searching, or it could be to remind the user they should click on (ad) links, or it could indeed be Google re-offering crumbs of traffic for lifting content it didn’t create and publishing it on their search results. Think of the exposure! 

 

AI & SEO is all the rage. Chat to me about both. 

YouTube has released some navel-gazing on the current state of video consumption, audiences and what-not. And interesting reading it makes too, with three big takeaways.

 

Firstly, 40% of the younger Gen Zs think of themselves as video content creators of some sort, whether it be creating video, memes, or just commenting. That’s quite a staggering number, even if few of them are doing it for a living most see it as a “thing” they do. Cor. 

 

Secondly, having more formats (long-form, short-form, podcasts, live streams etc) gives these creators more opportunity to break through. No longer is it down to blogging, wordsmithery, and the whims of a search engine (or at least, not just Google anymore). This is brilliant. I’m all for multi-format content. I’ve told clients for years to produce multiple forms of each piece of content. Occasionally I’m listened to. 

 

The final thing is that audiences are starting to like / love AI (apparently) as more creators use it. I’m pretty sure this is a chicken and egg situation. If AI saturates creation and production processes as it is able to do, then guess what… if you like the content, you like AI. I think this is puffery. Parts of AI, like AI narration, drives people bonkers; other parts like magic image clean up are loved to bits; and everything in between. 

 

Want to talk content strategy and video creation? I’m all ears. Contact me.