Sean Walsh
Sean is a Director at Intelligency heading up our digital marketing and client services operations. Sean has 15+ years experiencing working both in-house and agency with brands including Lloyds, Alstom, Hitachi, Lufthansa, Viaplay, DFDS Seaways and Mercedes-Benz.
TikTok has increased its willingness to partner with brands to make marketing easier, Google has unleashed its first core update in six months, and California is introducing a new bill that social media giants are not happy with. Let’s jump into the news for this week’s Digital Marketing landscape.
Google launch May 2022 Broad Core Update
Google confirmed on the 25th of May 2022 via Twitter that they were launching a new Core Update to Search, called the May 2022 core update.
Google’s core updates are launched and designed to make the search results that a user sees when they’ve got a query more relevant to the searched topic. Core updates usually take 1-2 weeks to complete their roll-out, and it can take even longer to see if your website has been affected by the changes.
Danny Sullivan, who works as a Public Liasion for Search said that changes to site performance in search result rankings are to be expected:
“Core updates are changes we make to improve Search overall and keep pace with the changing nature of the web. While nothing in a core update is specific to any particular site, these updates may produce some noticeable changes to how sites perform…”
-Danny Sullivan
When Google roll out their core updates, they offer the same guidance that was provided in 2019, which can be summarised as the following:
- Expect widely noticeable effects, such as spikes or drops in search rankings.
- Core updates are “broad” in the sense that they don’t target anything specific. Rather, they’re designed to improve Google’s systems overall.
- Pages that drop in rankings aren’t being penalized; they’re being reassessed against other web content that has been published since the last update.
- Focusing on providing the best possible content is the top recommended way to deal with the impact of a core algorithm update.
- Broad core updates happen every few months. Sites might not recover from one update until the next one rolls out.
- Improvements do not guarantee recovery. However, choosing not to implement any improvements will virtually guarantee no recovery.
The last Core Update was rolled out in November 2021 (which you can read about in our blog post about Google Core Updates) and those who have been working on their site since the last update may see noticeable improvements in their performance.
However, those who have sat idly by and not carried out improvements may see their performance drop compared to sites with more relevant content.
As of now, it’s too early to judge the impact of the update, as it needs to be fully rolled out first.
TikTok introduce account management for third-party tools
TikTok is now allowing a business to manage their accounts for the platform with third-party business tools such as Hootsuite, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social.
The initial launch for this includes the following tool integrations: Brandwatch, Dash Hudson, Emplifi, Hootsuite, Khoros, Later, Sprinklr, and Sprout Social.
This is an expansion of TikTok’s Marketing Partner Program which launched in September 2020 and is aimed at making it easier for a business to connect with users on the social media platform.
An easier way to market
The integration with these third-party social media management tools will give businesses a more straightforward way to incorporate a Tik-Tok marketing strategy into their workflow.
TikTok aims to help brands see more positive results on the social media platform by introducing content management, scheduling videos, and publishing content to tools that the brand already uses.
Brands will also be able to use third-party tools to monitor conversations that happen in the comments section of their videos so that they can interact with users and track video metrics in real-time.
Melissa Yang, who is the head of TikTok’s EcoSystem Partnerships had this to say in a press conference:
“At TikTok, we are always looking for ways to make it easier for brands to develop great content that resonates with their communities. We are excited to welcome our new Content Marketing partners into the TikTok Marketing Partner Program, and to be collaborating with some of the most trusted partners in the industry. These partners will provide marketers with simple, effective tools to help them to regularly publish content, gain valuable performance insight, and meaningfully engage with their communities.”
-Melissa Yang
The partnership between TikTok and these third-party companies will allow marketers to optimise social media strategies for TikTok by providing a better understanding of their audience and the type of content they engage with.
A New California bill would allow a parent to sue for their child’s social media addiction
On the 23rd of May 2022, the California State Assembly passed a new bill that would hold social media companies such as Meta responsible for harming a child who has become addicted to their platform.
The proposed law that would apply to social media platforms with at least $100 million in revenue for 2021 would allow a parent to sue for up to $25,000 for violating the law.
Assembly Bill 2408, which is also known as the “Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act,” is a bipartisan bill that aims to protect a child (anyone under the age of 18) from becoming a social media addict; however, this bill does not apply to streaming services or services that only offer an email or text messaging service.
The definition of a social media addict
The definition of an addict, according to the bill, is:
“A preoccupation or obsession with, or withdrawal or difficulty to cease or reduce use of, a social media platform despite the user’s desire to cease or reduce that use (which) causes or contributes to physical, mental, emotional, developmental, or material harms to the user.”
The bill’s co-author Jordan Cunningham, has told the American news site AP News “The era of unfettered social experimentation on children is over and we will protect kids.”
The bill is yet to be passed by the California state senate and signed by the governor to become a law.
What does this mean for social media companies?
In a letter to the lawmakers, Technet, who are a network of senior executives in technology had this to say in response to the proposed bill:
“Social media companies and online web services would have no choice but to cease operations for kids under 18 and would implement stringent age-verification in order to ensure that adolescents did not use their sites.”
Technet and other technology business groups contend that no social media platform no matter how big would be willing to take that risk and liability.
