Digital Marketing News 04/26/2022 – 05/02/2022

Search

DuckDuckGo Rejects Claims it Removed Piracy Websites

DuckDuckGo pushes back on the news circulating that pirate sites were quietly removed.

Recent reports suggested that search engine DuckDuckGo removed results related to piracy sites such as YouTube-dl and The Pirate Bay. 

However, company CEO Gabriel Weinberg has hit back, blaming the problem on an issue with its "site:" operator search commands (such as site:thepiratebay), which he says few customers actually use.

https://twitter.com/yegg/status/1515635886855233537 In a statement to The Verge, DuckDuckGo said, "After looking into this, our records indicate that YouTube-dl and The Pirate Bay were never removed from our search results when you searched for them directly by name or URL, which the vast majority of people do (it's rare for people to use site operators or query operators in general)." 

"We are having issues with our site: operator, and not just for these sites," said DuckDuckGo's Allison Goodman. "Some of the other sites routinely change domain names and have spotty availability, and so naturally come in and out of the index but should be available as of now."

Social

2022 Report Shows Best Posting Times for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Sprout Social's 2022 annual report shares some guidance on posting time and publishing cadence on social media channels

There's no perfect formula for all businesses to post on any social app. The best time to post is based on your unique audience and their activity within each app. But if you're planning out your strategy, this annual report from Sprout Social can provide some guidance to help you find the right time.

Based on usage insights from 30,000+ customers of Sprout Social, below are the insights. Note that time frames are recorded in Central Time (CST), but the relative insights are likely to translate to your local time zone as well).

Best time to post on social media overall:

• Best times to post on social media overall: Tuesdays through Thursdays at 9 am or 10 am.

• Best days to post on social media: Tuesdays through Thursdays

• Worst days to post on social media: Sundays

• Best times to post on Facebook:  Mondays through Fridays at 3 am, Tuesdays at 10 am and noon

• Best days to post on Facebook:  Tuesdays through Fridays

• Worst days to post on Facebook:  Saturdays

Facebook continues to be the most used platform by marketers worldwide but there's an interesting shift in when there's the most engagement in 2022. It now appears early morning hours are now more engaging than the previous mid-mornings.

• Best times to post on Instagram:  Mondays at 11 am, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 am to 1 pm, and Thursdays and Fridays 10 am and 11 am.

• Best days to post on Instagram:  Tuesdays and Wednesdays

• Worst days to post on Instagram:  Sundays

Sprout Social says that Mondays at 11 am, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 am to 1 pm, and Thursdays and Fridays between 10 am and 11 am are the best times to post on Instagram.

• Best times to post on Twitter:  Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 9 am.

• Best days to post on Twitter:  Tuesdays and Wednesdays

• Worst days to post on Twitter:  Sundays

Twitter has been the platform of choice for conversations and real-time updates. Compared to last year, Twitter engagement has shifted significantly, becoming more concentrated on mid-mornings and mid-days during the week. 

• Best times to post on LinkedIn: Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon

• Best days to post on LinkedIn: Wednesdays and Thursdays

• Worst days to post on LinkedIn: Saturdays and Sundays

As a professional-focused platform, LinkedIn engagement times remain consistent to the US workweek. High engagement hours focus more on mid-day and don't extend past US workday hours.

These are data from thousands of usage insights, but no one formula works in each and every business and industry.

Social

Instagram Launches Live Test of Pinned Posts on User Profiles

Pinning posts on a user's Instagram profile is now in the testing phase.

Posted by user Salman Memon, some Instagram users are now able to select a 'Pin to Your Profile' option on their IG posts, which enables you to then dock your chosen updates to the top of your post grid on your profile display.

Unlike your Story highlights, this new pinned post option lets users easily see your product highlights, special offers, or best-performing posts as soon as they view your profile.

Instagram hasn't provided a timeline for a full rollout of these new options, but Instagram chief Adam Mosseri has noted that they are in the testing phase, which could see them coming to your profile shortly.

Social

Facebook Adds Music Clips in Comments

Inserting music into Facebook comments to add more context to your replies.

Social media expert Matt Navarra posted that some users have a new pop-up in the app alerting them about the new feature where you can add music clips to your post replies.

https://twitter.com/MattNavarra/status/1517587194432610306 The process is powered by the same system as the music sticker in Stories, enabling you to search for tracks by tapping on the music note icon at the right of the comment panel.

We have yet to predict if this new feature will become popular, but it's good to see the effort to add something new every so often to drive more engagement for users.

Social

Instagram Updates to Put More Focus on Original Content

Instagram announces updates in the ranking algorithm to put more focus on original work.

Instagram chief Adam Mosseri announced these changes, along with other new updates.

https://twitter.com/mosseri/status/1516811952235769860 As per Mosseri, "If you create something from scratch, you should get more credit than if you are resharing something that you found from someone else. [As such] we're going to do more to try and value original content more, particularly compared to reposted content."

Content edited outside of Instagram then uploaded to the app, won't be penalized under this change. As per Mosseri: "The idea is if you made it, it's original. It's okay if you edited it outside of Instagram and then bring it in via the gallery." As you may recall, Instagram announced last year that content re-shared from other apps which included visible watermarks would be downranked. 

Posting history is a factor. Mosseri notes that content aggregators are the focus of this update, and Instagram will be able to refer to an account's posting history as one way of determining this. "If the account is an aggregator, we'll more likely be able to detect that it's not original." So if you're re-posting a lot of stuff from other accounts, you'll likely see a reach decline.

Moserri also admits that Instagram can't know for sure if content is original or not. "We build classifiers to predict how *likely* something is to be original, but that's not knowing. We look at things like who's in the video, and if we've seen the video before."

This new update aims to reduce the dominance of aggregator sites and give more credit to original creators. For brands, this could have implications for User-Generated Content (UGC) when re-using customer posts on their own profiles. 

What you can do next

• Use Sprout Social's guide in planning, but use your own social media accounts' insights to determine if these guidelines work for your target audience.

• Watch out for the rollout of the new pinned post feature on Instagram and start planning what posts you can feature on your account.

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