Last Week in Digital Marketing: More Changes Coming from Facebook and Google

Once again, we saw changes coming from Facebook and Google this past week. Keeping up with these changes will help keep your digital marketing campaigns performing efficiently and effectively.

Images and Videos Will Now be Covered in Facebook’s Fact-Checking

As you probably know, Facebook’s recent strides towards transparency and authenticity have also included fact-checking content being published to the platform. However, until now, this fact-checking did not extended out to videos and images. Now, this is changing.

As Facebook’s fact-checking approach extends to images and videos, there are three main categories that are considered false content:

• Fabricated or manipulated
• Out of context
• Text or audio claim

Through Facebook’s twenty-seven fact-checking partners, content will be checked using a machine learning model using “engagement signals” to identify any corruption.

Takeaway: When creating and publishing content to Facebook, stay honest, accurate, and refrain from speaking out of context. Follow these simple rules and your content should be unaffected by this update!

GDPR and Facebook Messenger Marketing

When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect in May, it had a major impact on email marketing. But what about Facebook Messenger marketing?

The basic standards that the GDPR demands your communications must follow are also concepts you should be following within the Facebook Messenger marketing platform:

• Consensual – consumers must opt-in
• Secure – you must keep all personally identifiable information safe
• Removable – if a consumer wants their data to be removed, you must oblige

Facebook has a set of rules that marketers must follow:

• Get User Opt-In
• Follow Facebook Messenger’s 24+1 Rule
• Utilize Subscription Messaging
• Always Let Folks Know How to Unsubscribe by Typing ‘Stop’ Any Time

Takeaway: When utilizing Facebook Messenger marketing, take great care in following these rules to keep your business compliant. By following these standards you can take advantage of the high engagement rates, the ability to offer customized content, and everything else that Facebook Messenger marketing has to offer.

Google’s Tip to Have Your Content Indexed Quickly

Last week, John Mueller tweeted out a tip for those who would like to have their content indexed quickly:

“If your site produces new / updated content frequently & you want it indexed quickly, you need that content in the HTML.”

This is due to Google’s two-pass indexing system. On the first pass, Google will only look at HTML. The second pass is when Google will look at the entire site. Unfortunately, there isn’t a set amount of time for when this second pass will take place, so it could really delay the time frame on your website being indexed entirely.

This especially has a huge impact for websites featuring a lot of client-side JavaScript for rendering. On the first pass, details could be missed. This means it could be weeks until your content is fully indexed on Google.

Takeaway: Building your web page in HTML or HTML5 is the way to go to ensure Googlebot can index your content quickly and efficiently.

Alyssa Costin is a Social Media Specialist on the LeadBuilder® inbound marketing team. She is a UCF grad with a passion for social media and a demonstrated history of working in the marketing and advertising industry.

Image via iStock