📢 Digital Marketing News and Trends from December 2021

Happy New Year, everyone!2021 was for sure an eventful year. With the COVID pandemic still going on and hitting us so hard this last month it's been difficult for all of us. However, a new year is here and we are looking forward to all the good things it will bring to all of us. As we have done every month for the past year, here is the sum up of the most important:

January 03, 2022

Digital Marketing News from December 2021

1. Search Marketing Updates

The mobile search engine solution for a more private experience has announced the release of a desktop version. They claim their solution to be an “everyday browser that respects your privacy” and to be much faster than Google.

  • Cleaner and simpler interface

  • It will keep the “Fire” button from its mobile app

  • Less clutter and offer more privacy than Chrome

  • Faster than Google Chrome

An algorithm update began to roll out late November and Google has confirmed it concluded early December. Through their Google Search Central Twitter account they said:

Our November 2021 local search update has concluded. It began Nov 30 and ran through Dec 8. It involved a rebalancing of various factors we consider in generating local search results.

On Google’s support page you can find a list of the ranking factors and how to improve them:

  • Relevance: how well a local Business Profile matches what someone is searching for.

  • Distance: how far each potential search result is from the location term used in a search.

  • Prominence: how well known a business is keeping in mind that some places are more prominent in the offline world.

If users head to Microsoft Bing right now and search for a product they have been looking for, they will receive results from millions of merchants thanks to the Shopify integration. After selecting a product and clicking on the “buy now” button, they will be instantly redirected to the shopping cart page to continue with their purchase.

2. Marketing Tech Updates

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. And whether your goal is to make a flyer, edit an image, or produce marketing assets, you don’t have to start from scratch — Creative Cloud Express gives you access to thousands of beautiful templates, millions of images from Adobe Stock, thousands of fonts, and many more assets that you can personalize to tell your story. – Adobe Blog

WordPress has delayed the release of the 5.9 version to January 25th 2022. Originally, it was intended to be published in December 2021, but the project fell significantly behind schedule and core contributors raised their concerns about being able to meet deadlines.

On their blog they informed that near the end of original alpha release cycle there were issues related to the new features planed for the 5.9 version:

  • Full Site Editing (FSE), which is a collection of features, such as global styles interface, Navigation Block, block themes, template editors, and site editing flows.

  • The Twenty Twenty-Two (TT2) theme, which depends on these FSE features.

Jotform takes pride in the vast amount of (very specific) widgets they have to cover their users’ needs. This month they are introducing 3 new ones they feel are worth highlighting:

  • Image Gallery

  • WhatsApp Button

  • OpenStreetMap

3. Social Media Updates

Social media platform TikTok is introducing new ways for content creators to get paid with addition of tips and gifts. These new features are part of a suite of new monetization tools called Creator Next.

  • Tips: the new tipping feature allows users to send tips of $5, $10, $15, or custom tip amount to other users to show their appreciation for the content they create. When a user gets a tip, they receive 100% of it. These payments are facilitated by Stripe and users who are eligible to receive them will display a new icon on their profiles.

  • Video Gifts: the new gifting feature allows users to send virtual gifts to other users on specific videos and the recipient can exchange them for money. You might have already seen a new gift box icon displayed on certain videos.

The new captions will be enabled for in-stream videos that are muted, on both iOS and Android, while desktop users will have the option to switch them on and off as they please. The captions are available in 37 languages and will show in the language of the device used to upload the video.

The new “Saved Replays” feature allows users to save the audio from a recorded Clubhouse chat to listen to later. Any user can access the option by clicking the three dots and then tapping the “Save Replay” button.

The app also unveiled a new icon featuring streaming influencer Abraxas Higgins since they consider him a “quintessential Clubhouse success story”:

“A former Wall Street banker turned music marketing strategist turned audio influencer. In addition to being the host of Clubhouse’s beloved morning show 9AM in London, Abraxas is also the most followed person in the UK on Clubhouse and makes more money now from brand partners than he did as an investment strategist.”

Frizbit Updates!