SEO & Social Media Trends This Week: Bing Local Ads & LinkedIn Collaborative Articles

In this newsletter, we cover March 2023 SEO trends and social media marketing updates, including How to use collaborative articles on LinkedIn, Paid Local Ads for Bing Search, Facebook Generative AI features, and content reposting lessons.

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In this Newsletter:

• How to Use LinkedIn Collaborative Articles
• TIPS: Repurpose Content QUICKLY
• YouTube Reverses Stance
• Meta Support looks to AI
• New Local Search Tool
• Bionic Reading Trends Again

Another LinkedIn Update - Collaborative Articles

LinkedIn has introduced collaborative articles as a new way for professionals to tap into the collective knowledge of the community. These articles cover a range of professional topics and are developed with AI-powered conversation starters by LinkedIn's editorial team. Experts within the LinkedIn community are then invited to contribute their own insights and experiences to make the article complete.?

Collaborative articles can be viewed through LinkedIn Feed, notifications, and communications, as well as on skill pages. Users can interact with collaborative articles by sharing, reacting, and saving them. They can also rate the overall quality of the article and report contributions that violate LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies.?

While LinkedIn invites select experts to contribute, others can engage with the articles by liking or reacting to them.?

Those who are invited to contribute can earn a Community Top Voice badge if they are considered to be one of the most insightful contributors for a particular skill.

My Takeaway: This is a major SEO strategy play on Microsoft's part. Rather than pit AI and Creators against each other, they are continually rolling out features that bring together the efficiency of AI and the expertise of real people with first-hand experience.

When the feature fully launches, LinkedIn has stated they will list all collaborative article pages here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/showcase/linkedin-skill-pages/posts/?

More from Collaborative articles | LinkedIn Help

How I Re-Purpose Content (Contributing to A Collaborative Article)

While recording the video for this newsletter, I demonstrated how to contribute to a collaborative article using this Social Media Skills article.

I wanted to expand on those tips here:

1. Log posts so they are easy to grab and re-use.? I use a simple Google Sheets to quickly note the copy, creative (such as a link to the Canva Project), and hashtags for every post I publish.
2. Name your files well. If I want to post a meme, I can search my drive for "meme" and have a new post to schedule in seconds.
3. Write your long-form content well. This makes it easy to turn into social posts, like carousels of key takeaways or process infographics. And, it also means your long-form content is better :P Win-win, right?
4. Have templated thumbnails, CTAs, and hashtag sets for content that isn't evergreen.? Social media is a great place to react to what's trending NOW, and having the nuts and bolts templated makes it simple to turn your thoughts and reactions into timely content.
5. Export video without unlicensed audio. Instead of creating a video through each platform, use a video editor to edit your shots and export a final version, but don't use any music you don't have the rights to at this step! All three platforms have extensive libraries of commercial music for you to add to your videos while you are uploading them. The best time to add music as during each upload, but you'll save so much time by doing your edits in one dedicated app (Like InShot or Capcut!)

YouTube Reverses Stance

YouTube announced it would be relaxing the profanity rules it rolled out in November 2022. The update to its policy now allows moderate and strong profanity to be used without risking demonetization. The original policy flagged any video that used rude language in the first several seconds as ineligible for advertising, but the new policy allows some swearing, as long as it is moderate. Strong profanity in the opening seconds could still result in a video only receiving "limited ads." The update goes into effect on March 7th and should make it easier for most YouTubers to continue to monetize their videos without changing their content or style

How do you feel about companies that change their policies? Is it flexibility or does it create uncertainty??

Facebook taps into generative AI as it cuts jobs

Meta is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities across its platforms, including WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Unveiling their LLaMa language learning model last month, Meta says they’re committed to creating new AI tools to support both users and advertisers.

These features include AI chat experiences, AI image filters, multi-modal experiences, and more. The aim is to offer users a more personalized experience and new ways to express themselves while allowing creators to produce better content faster and earn more income through Facebook and Instagram monetization programs.

Meta claims that investments in AI and machine learning have paid off so far, resulting in advertisers seeing over 20% more conversions than the previous year, but it still needs to improve monetization efficiency. Despite the AI focus, Meta has confirmed that it remains committed to its vision for the Metaverse. Meta employees aren’t so sure.?

If you missed it, you can check out the generative AI tool Make-A-Video launched by Meta at the end of 2022, and sign up to gain access to future releases from their LLaMa research.

Local Search Ads come to Bing:

Microsoft has introduced Local Search Ads for Bing, which enables businesses to gain increased visibility in search engine results and to promote their products and services to potential customers in the nearby area. By activating location extensions and creating an account with Microsoft Advertising, businesses can add important information such as their location, contact number, and hours of operation to help customers find their location and make a purchase. The feature also includes Call Extensions, which provides a tap-to-call function on mobile devices for instant contact with businesses.

Bionic Reading Trends Again!

While browsing Twitter yesterday, I saw a viral tweet about Bionic Reading, which I first heard about last year and then completely forgot about.

Takeaway: This is why you can - and SHOULD - repost good content! People forget things exist once they are out of sight, out of mind.

Anyway, here's how Bionic Reading works:?

Try it yourself! Turn any text into bionic text with this easy web converter: Bionic Reading?

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I've had a great week and hope you find these updates interesting - How about you? What are you up to?

-Brand Hacking Katt