Google Shorts | Copy Cats | Face Masks | Education 

Especially now, the digital marketing field is constantly changing. It’s hard to keep up and with information continually changing so, we’re here to keep you in the loop on what’s trending! Check out what we’re keeping On Our Radar for July 2020. 

Google Shorts vs. TikTok

Brian Matson

As the 2nd largest search engine in the world YouTube could bring some freshness to their game and get seriously competitive. Shorts, a new “TikTok-like” feature for YouTube channels could be a gamechanger on the platform. Channels will be allowed to produce short, entertaining content that could be spread through a more social environment. We’ve already seen YouTube adopt Posts for channels. Those function similarly to Facebook posts by providing a more interactive experience with subscribers.

Now with this Stories feature I feel like it could be game on for destination marketing organizations to start to finally take their YouTube strategy more seriously by creating bite-sized content that could be easily produced and distributed throughout their digital ecosystem. I am seriously looking forward to seeing this feature roll out.

Pinterest Copy Cats

Scout Holaday

In the last month, both Google and Facebook have announced new projects that seem to directly challenge Pinterest’s place as the top internet-curation platform. Facebook released more updates to the new “collections” feature, allowing users to publicly share lists of saved posts and other content with friends, while Google announced the launch of an entirely new social platform called “keen”.

Neither of these new ventures introduce anything revolutionary, but each takes a piece of the Pinterest model and says “hey, we can do this better”. For Facebook, it’s the shareability and social aspect inherent in its platform. For Google, it’s the machine learning.

It’s too early to tell if either of these ventures will see much popularity, let alone have any impact on Pinterest. Google has experienced a lot of difficulty in the past with social ventures like Google+. At the same time, not every new Facebook feature integration has seen success.

What is important though, is for social media managers to utilize new features, wherever their audience is. I’ll be keeping a close eye on Keen and it’s user growth, but everyone should be learning about and utilizing Facebook Lists.

Face Covers

As our travel destinations, attractions and dining establishments re-open throughout the country, we all need to be prepared to add one more item to the utility pack that was previously made up of your phone, keys, & wallet.  Welcome to the pack: mask.

Research from health officials and the CDC recommend that a mask or face covering can be helpful in slowing or stopping the spread of COVID-19 and many states have different advisories on their use.  Thanks to our friends at Cnet, there’s a list of each state and its face covering recommendations — along with a great listing of the multiple outlets that sell face covering online.

What’s Your Audience Interested in Right Now?

More than ever, it’s important to know what your audience is looking for and what sorts of pages they’re navigating to once they reach your website. That’s where Google Analytics can come in.

If you head to your Behavior Flow, you’ll be able to see your most visited pages followed by along with what page they go to next. Most often at the moment, we’re seeing “Welcome Back” or Reemerging type pages consistently near the top, so it’s vital you make one and then distribute it!

Also, be sure to check your Site Search. What are users looking for, but can’t find? That’s the sort of insights you can easily find with a few clicks. Right now, we see a lot of users wondering if their favorite events are happening – so be sure to include this info prominently!

Facebook Educates

Online usage and webinars have soared the last few months due to COVID-19 lockdowns. With lockdown, we are given an ample amount of down-time. There are plenty of ways to fill that down time but what happens when thats all completed? Lets turn to education. The best thing you can do is turn to educating yourself and use that information to grow your business or travel organization.

Facebook is introducing a free, 6-week digital marketing education course to businesses across the country starting this week. It’s interesting to see what they have to offer in regards to information they can educate to businesses. The weekly courses will involved; “The Changing World”, “Resilience”, “Reinvention”, “Re-Emergence”, “Customers & Commerce”, and “Community”. The greatest part of these is that they’re free!

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