It was a big month in Digital Marketing in December with Meta’s crypto advertisement eligibility on Facebook, Twitter’s auto-captions feature on videos, Instagram’s parental control feature, and new travel experiences on Bing. And of course, we can’t forget Microsoft Bing’s integration with Shopify.
ICYMI, here’s what happened in digital marketing in December.
- Twitter Bans Sharing Photos Of Private Individuals Without Their Consent
- Meta Expands Crypto Advertisement Eligibility On Facebook
- Facebook Adds New Trend Insights In Creator Studio
- Messenger Adds New Group AR Effects
- Shop Live On Instagram At Our Holiday Pop-up
- Microsoft Bing Now Lets You Search Local Stores
- Instagram To Introduce Parental Control Features Next Year
- Microsoft Bing Launches Ethical Shopping Hub
- Pinterest Shares Trend Predictions For 2022
- Facebook Launches ‘Professional Profiles’ To Help More Creators Maximize Their Presence
- Facebook New AI System To Help Tackle Harmful Content
- New Marketing With Purpose Business Attributes Showcase Brand Values
- WhatsApp Starts Testing Currency Payments With Meta’s Novi Wallet
- New Explore Experience On Twitter
- Facebook Announces New Comment Moderation And Support Features
- Meta Introduces New “Year In Review” Feature For Facebook And Instagram
- Pinterest Adds Option To Reply To A Comment With An Idea Pin
- Twitter Adds Auto Captions Feature To Make Videos More Accessible
- Adobe Announces Free Creative Cloud Express
- Microsoft Announces New Travel Experiences On Bing
- Meta Partners With Popular Mobile Apps For New End-Of-Year Stories Collaborations
- AT&T To Sell Advertising Marketplace, Xandr To Microsoft, Gearing Up For A ‘Post-Cookie World’
- Microsoft Bing’s New Integration With Shopify Is Now Available For Users
Twitter Bans Sharing Photos Of Private Individuals Without Their Consent
Twitter announced an update to its private information policy that bars users from sharing what it has described as “private media.”
In a blog post from the tech company, the Twitter Safety team said that it would no longer permit users to share private photos or videos unless consent has been given by those featured.
Meta Expands Crypto Advertisement Eligibility On Facebook
Social media and metaverse marketplace Meta has expanded eligibility requirements for running cryptocurrency advertisements on Facebook, giving companies more leeway to market digital asset product offerings.
As per Meta:
“Starting today, we’re updating our eligibility criteria for running ads about cryptocurrency on our platform by expanding the number of regulatory licenses we accept from three to 27. We are also making the list of eligible licenses publicly available on our policy page.”
This means many more applications for running cryptocurrency ads will be accepted. The changes are reflected in section 10 of Facebook’s updated advertising policy titled, “Cryptocurrency Products and Services.”
Facebook Adds New Trend Insights In Creator Studio
Facebook Creator Studio has added an ‘Inspiration Hub’ feature, which highlights trending content and hashtags within categories related to your business Page. This could be hugely valuable in learning what Facebook users are responding to, and what people within your target market are engaging within the app.
The Hub also includes insights into trending hashtags, within your chosen timeframe, which may further assist in tapping into trending discussions.
Messenger Adds New Group AR Effects
Messenger is rolling out some new features for the holidays, including influencer-inspired group AR effects, fresh Soundmoji options, and a new test of bill-splitting within group chat threads.
Messenger is also launching a new test of Split Payments, which will enable users to more easily share the cost of bills and expenses. The payments can then be facilitated directly in the app, via Facebook Pay, making it easier to manage bill-splitting arrangements in an automated and transparent way.
Shop Live On Instagram At Our Holiday Pop-up
Instagram has announced a new series of celebrity-lead shopping live streams, as it continues to expand its eCommerce horizons, and ideally, evolve user behavior in the app.
The platform will be hosting a series of live holiday shopping events on Instagram featuring Nia Sioux, Lisa Rinna, and more. You’ll find exclusive offers and a curated selection of gifts for you and your special ones.
Microsoft Bing Now Lets You Search Local Stores
Microsoft Bing announced that shoppers can now search Bing and Bing Local for store stock availability and choose to buy online and pick up in-store.
Shoppers can use Bing and Bing Local to find if items are in stock, locations of stores, store hours, reviews for those stores, and more. Microsoft said shoppers can quickly find items they need nearby and local merchants benefit from these features by getting their products in front of customers. These local merchants can let shoppers know what their product focus is and become go-to options for their specialty products, Microsoft said.
Instagram To Introduce Parental Control Features Next Year
Instagram has announced that it is rolling out new tools aimed at increasing the safety of its teenage users.
Here’s what Instagram revealed about them in a blog post:
‘Take A Break’: this is the main tool launching today. It will show reminders to take a break from the app in a teen user’s Instagram feed.
Bulk delete personal content: in January 2022, Instagram will roll out a bulk delete tool that allows any user to quickly delete content they’ve posted over the years, including comments.
Ending the ability of strangers to tag or mention teens: Instagram says this feature will roll out in early 2022 and it will stop users a teen does not follow on Instagram from tagging or mentioning the teen in posts or comments.
Nudging teens away from dwelling on certain topics: finally, Instagram says it is working on tools that will “nudge people towards other topics if they’ve been dwelling on one topic for a while.”
Microsoft Bing Launches Ethical Shopping Hub
Microsoft Bing has launched its Ethical Shopping hub, which enables users to shop eco-friendly, upcycled or fair-trade fashion.
Bing’s new Ethical Shopping hub, currently accessible in the UK only, provides consumers with categories like eco-friendly, upcycled, or fair-trade fashion. Shoppers can also select to browse by ethical fashion brands or products, trending, and featured items, or even grab the latest headlines about informed fashion choices and other planet-friendly news topics, all on one convenient page.
Pinterest Shares Trend Predictions For 2022
The visual discovery engine and social media company just released its annual report, detailing the biggest “not-yet-trending” trends to watch out for in 2022.
The company said in a blog post, “Pinterest Predicts isn’t your typical roundup of what was trending—it’s a not-yet-trending report of what is to come.” Pinterest has highlighted 35 trends which it says are not trending yet, but will be in the near future.
Facebook Launches ‘Professional Profiles’ To Help More Creators Maximize Their Presence
Facebook is making a push to facilitate more opportunities for creators in its app, with new ‘Professional Mode for Profiles’ to welcome new creators in, and updates for Creator Pages.
The main addition is Professional Mode, which provides an alternative platform for emerging creators to glean audience insights, and connect. Professional mode will open up access to post, audience and profile insights, as well as give easy access to monetization features – all in one place.
Facebook New AI System To Help Tackle Harmful Content
Facebook deployed a new AI technology that speeds up its ability to identify and remove harmful content. Facebook’s new AI technology can adapt more easily to take action on new or evolving types of harmful content faster.
The Facebook announcement stated:
“Harmful content continues to evolve rapidly — whether fueled by current events or by people looking for new ways to evade our systems — and it’s crucial for AI systems to evolve alongside it.
But it typically takes several months to collect and label thousands, if not millions, of examples necessary to train each individual AI system to spot a new type of content.
…This new AI system uses a method called “few-shot learning,” in which models start with a general understanding of many different topics and then use much fewer — or sometimes zero — labeled examples to learn new tasks.”
New Marketing With Purpose Business Attributes Showcase Brand Values
Marketing with Purpose helps show support for diversity and inclusion. Microsoft Advertising has added 4 new business attributes and extended its availability to European markets.
The four new attributes are:
- Asian-owned
- Latin-owned
- Women-owned
- Diabetic-friendly
These inclusive business attributes are text additions that can be added to search ads. Including these attributes enables you to quickly communicate and showcase the mutual values between your brand and your customers that help build trust, brand love, and loyalty through inclusivity.
Whatsapp Starts Testing Currency Payments With Meta’s Novi Wallet
Novi, the cryptocurrency wallet of Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), has started allowing some users to send and receive money through its messaging app WhatsApp.
Meta Platforms, formerly Facebook, has been working on the wallet app for several months, while scaling back its global plans for rolling out a digital currency called Diem on regulatory concerns.
New Explore Experience On Twitter
Twitter launched a new test of a reformatted Explore tab, which displays tweets in a full-screen (Tiktok-like), vertical scrolling format. Available in certain countries for some of you who use Twitter in English on Android and iOS.
*checks Explore tab*
If it’s looking different, then you’re in our latest test: a new Explore experience to help you discover the best content that’s trending. Available in certain countries for some of you who use Twitter in English on Android and iOS. pic.twitter.com/PGQwMT8r8B
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 8, 2021
Facebook Announces New Comment Moderation And Support Features
As part of its broader push to win over more creators, Facebook has announced a new set of updates to help creators maximize their use of its platform including new controls to easily moderate comments, live chat support tests to troubleshoot account issues, and a webinar series on how to stay safe on Facebook.
Meta Introduces New “Year In Review” Feature For Facebook And Instagram
Meta has rolled out a “Year in Review” feature for both Facebook and Instagram. Facebook users can share a personalised “Year Together” card, which displays the friends, feeling, people, and places that mattered most to them in 2021.
These new features are designed by Meta for Instagram and Facebook and they will provide users with a snapshot of their activity throughout 2021.
Pinterest Adds Option To Reply To A Comment With An Idea Pin
Pinterest has announced that users can reply to Pin comments with an Idea Pin video, providing similar functionality.
If you want to add a visual element to your Pin comment reply, you can tap on the three dots menu next to any comment, which will give you an option to ‘Reply with new Idea Pin’.
Twitter Adds Auto Captions Feature To Make Videos More Accessible
Twitter is rolling out auto-generated captions on videos. This feature will make videos more accessible for deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Auto captions will be available on web, iOS and Android in over 30 languages, including English, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Thai, Chinese, Hindi and many more.
Where are video captions when you need them? They’re here now automatically on videos uploaded starting today.
Android & iOS: auto-captions will show on muted Tweet videos; keep them on when unmuted via your device’s accessibility settings
Web: use the “CC” button to turn on/off pic.twitter.com/IHJAI31IvX— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) December 14, 2021
However, there’s one significant catch with the automatic captions: they’ll only appear on new videos uploaded to Twitter. Old videos that don’t have captions still won’t have them.
Adobe Announces Free Creative Cloud Express
Adobe released a free suite of tools with the core functions of Photoshop and other tools. Adobe designed the Creative Cloud Express so that anyone can use it, even people with no experience.
“Creative Cloud Express draws on our decades of experience working with the creative community. It makes the core technology in our industry-leading products like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro available with just a few clicks — and with no learning curve.”
The suite is available on the web, in Microsoft stores and on apps for iOS and Android.
Microsoft Announces New Travel Experiences On Bing
Microsoft recently announced new travel experiences on Bing. These new features will help you save time and money on travel planning. When you search for a location on Microsoft Bing, you will be presented with a page in a visually rich format like the above. When you click the Travel Guide link, you will be presented with a one-stop page where you can find information on the location and itineraries to flights and hotels and more.
Microsoft Bing has partnered with top industry players to bring you competitive rates for booking flights and hotels. You also have offered packages of bundled hotel and flight experiences.
Meta Partners With Popular Mobile Apps For New End-Of-Year Stories Collaborations
Meta announced a new series of partnerships with several popular mobile apps enabling users to share recap and celebratory-style creations directly to Facebook and Instagram Stories, providing another way to create unique, engaging Stories content for the holidays.
The partner apps for the project are:
- B612 and Snow, two leading global photo and video apps, are helping people transport themselves to the best NYE 2021 party around.
- Anghami, a music streaming app, is enabling people to look back on the music they loved in 2021. What songs were their favorite?
- Kwai, a short form video app, is encouraging people to celebrate creativity by compiling and personalizing a special Year in Review 2021 video.
- WeSing, a social karaoke singing app, is helping people remember the songs they’ve listened to and performed.
- Likee, a video creation and sharing app, is helping people remember all the cool videos they made, fans they’ve gained and creators they’ve found.
AT&T To Sell Advertising Marketplace, Xandr To Microsoft, Gearing Up For A ‘Post-Cookie World’
Microsoft reached a deal to acquire AT&T’s advertising technology division, Xandr, seeking to strengthen its own advertising business as the industry shifts away from online tracking technologies.
The company said in a blog post, “As the digital landscape evolves in a post-cookie world, Microsoft and Xandr together will help shape the digital ad marketplace of the future. One that respects consumer privacy preferences, understands publishers’ relationships with consumers and helps advertisers meet their goals.”
Microsoft Bing’s New Integration With Shopify Is Now Available For Users
The Microsoft Bing and Shopify integration that was previously announced in October is now live in the Bing Shopping and Bing Search results.
Shopify products are now listed in the Shopping tab on Microsoft Bing. Also, customers can easily check out these products quickly and securely by clicking the “Buy Now” link to reach the shopping cart page directly.
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