Once a month, Fathom Health provides our clients with the latest digital marketing industry news. Topic categories range from social media and content marketing, SEO and digital strategy, to broader healthcare industry news.
Starting now, we’re making those updates available to all Fathom blog readers. Want to catch up on the latest healthcare digital marketing industry news from October? Keep reading below.
Update 1: Facebook Updates Mobile Profiles
What you should know: Facebook announced new mobile-friendly features for Facebook profiles. The first feature is the evolution of the profile picture — the profile video. Users will be able to film a short, looping video clip that will play will someone visits their profile. Users will also be able to set a temporary profile picture for a set amount of time. After the scheduled time is up, users’ profile picture will automatically revert back to the one they had previously. This update also includes some improvements to the mobile profile layout, which allows users to better present information about themselves.
Why should you care? This recent update is another example of why brands need to incorporate mobile and video into their marketing strategy if they aren’t already. Brands may also benefit from the improved layout. The new design introduces a customizable space at the top of the profile – with this information being more visible, users are likely to keep it updated, allowing brands to more accurately target users with ads.
Further reading: http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/09/improving-mobile-profiles/
Update 2: Long-Form Content Growing More Important
What you should know: A while back, there was a lot of buzz around long-form content, sometimes called “evergreen content,” but this buzz eventually tapered off and lost steam. Now, studies are reconfirming that long-form content on the internet not only gets read, but also ranks and converts well.
Why should you care? Adding this type of content to your site can make you look like more of an expert, because it stands to reasons that if you are knowledgeable on a subject, you have more to say about it. Solid expertise increases your likelihood of engagement and sharing, as well as search rank. You will be viewed as an authority by search engines and audience members, which can translate to better brand awareness.
What can you do with this information? In order to create meaningful long-form content, it is important to identify:
Experts who are available to help contribute to a blog post, guide, white paper, etc.
Simple terms to use within your content. Don’t fill the entire piece with “expert” jargon – make sure to explain things as simply as possible, to foster readability and understanding.
What topics your audience members are most interested in. Is there a question that requires a lot of explanation? Is there a problem you can help your audience solve? Make this content as useful as possible.
It is advised to make each piece of long-form content a minimum of 1,200 words, but 1,500-2,000 is better. It is also important to note that not all content should be long-form, so planning out which pieces to expand upon should become part of your monthly/quarterly content strategy.
Further reading: http://searchengineland.com/seo-user-science-behind-long-form-content-230721
Update 3: Facebook Emojis
What you should know: During Facebook’s testing of Reactions emoji, Facebook determined it will treat them just like a Like when it comes to ranking posts in the News Feed algorithm. The test gives users the ability to react with six emoji to express love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness or anger.
Of course, this simple approach is bound to get more complicated when Facebook rolls the feature out more widely. The sentiments expressed by the emoji are quite nuanced, and Facebook is bound to eventually take those differences into account within its famously complicated algorithm.
Why should you care? This change has the potential to impact reporting metrics on Facebook. For instance, if posts will allow us to determine if the audience is happy, shocked, sad or angry, it can provide insights into the performance of the post and help inform future posts.
Further reading: http://marketingland.com/facebook-explains-how-reactions-emoji-will-influence-news-feed-reach-145850
Update 4: Google adds Dynamic Callout Extensions to AdWords
What you should know: Callout Extensions have been an Ad Extension in AdWords for just over a year now. They give you an additional opportunity to state a unique selling point, feature, or benefit of your product or service. In the past these had to be manually set. Google in now rolling out a Dynamic version of Callouts that will automatically pull information from your website and insert it as a Callout in your text ad if you haven’t manually set them.
Why should you care? Callouts present a great opportunity to state additional unique selling points for your product or service and additional real estate on the results page when your ad shows. We want to be sure we are using the most compelling and relevant Callouts for each ad group in your campaigns so that we are more likely to get clicks and conversions. Google will create Dynamic callouts based on the content on your website. There is obviously a lot that they can miss or get wrong, so it’s important that we set our own Callouts.
What can you do with this information? Make sure that Callouts have been added to your campaigns. If they haven’t, or you aren’t sure, talk to your Account Manager or PPC specialist about Callout extensions.
Further reading: http://searchengineland.com/google-adds-dynamic-callout-extensions-in-adwords-231577
Update 5: Facebook Introduces ‘Advertiser Outcome Score’ for Audience Network Ads
What you should know: Back in May 2014, Facebook introduced its Audience Network advertising option, enabling advertisers to extend their Facebook advertising campaigns beyond Facebook and into affiliated apps via banner, interstitial and native app placements. Now, Facebook’s introducing a new metric to help advertisers better place their ads, and provide more transparency in the ad process, called ‘Advertiser Outcome Score’.
The flip side of this offering it that it gives publishers more motivation to find optimal ad placement options for ad content within their apps. Advertiser Outcome Score will be viewable in the Audience Network dashboard, with the score for each placement based on a scale where “one is the floor and there is no upward limit because as publishers optimize their placements, there is no cap on how well an individual placement can perform”.
Why should you care? As advertising becomes more and more popular, it is important to take advantage of any opportunity to make your ad stand out in order to perform the best.
What can you do with this information? Consider testing different ad options to see which one gets the highest score. Then, move on to formatting all ads in the most successful placement options to gain maximum reach.
Further reading: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/adhutchinson/2015-10-07/facebook-introduces-advertiser-outcome-score-audience
Stay tuned for next month’s Healthcare Digital Marketing Industry Update.
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