SODP Dispatch - 31 October 2024

Color complexity in social media posts leads to more engagement, new research shows

By Vamsi Kanuri

If you work in digital marketing, you don’t need to be told a picture’s worth a thousand words. More than half of content marketers say images are crucial for achieving their social media goals, and a staggering 70% of users prefer image-based posts over text, surveys have found.

But which types of visuals work best? While anecdotal evidence abounds, systematic research on this topic is scarce.

PubTech2024: New Panelist Announcement

🛠️ CWV Chrome plugin

Web Vitals is an extension that measures the Core Web Vitals, providing instant feedback on loading, interactivity and layout shift metrics.
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🔍️ Keyword research
CanIRank is a super-detailed keyword difficulty tool. It tells you whether or not YOU can rank for that keyword.
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By Vahe Arabian

🔎 Media monitoring - why it matters

Media monitoring allows publishers to identify upcoming trends, compare their content to their competitors and alert them to any emerging crises. In the information age, being the first to act can secure more viewers as well as help head off potential reputational harm.

News monitoring is crucial for staying updated with relevant topics and brand mentions, protecting a brand’s reputation, and understanding public sentiment.

Media monitoring has a rich history. Emerging in the industrial era as print became more accessible to the general public, artists would monitor the press for mentions. Since then, media monitoring has continued to be a valuable resource for organizations looking to review their image and see how they stack up against their competitors.

Gone are the days of copying, cutting and pasting print articles, with software having now taken over. The process has become automated and streamlined to suit a far more competitive and timely industry.

The continuing media evolution has made software tools essential for news and brand publishers alike. For example, the standardization of the 24-hour news cycle meant that news outlets looking to update around the clock needed information around the clock.

Likewise, the radical shift in the general public’s power to damage brand reputation has necessitated greater media monitoring. Social media spaces have created opportunities for the public to directly communicate with organizations — but that doesn’t mean all interactions are positive. The 2012 #McDStories are a prime example of this.

Media monitoring tools play an important role in mitigating the effects of public relations disasters. They allow publishers and marketers to rapidly react to crisis situations by keeping them informed in an ever-changing environment.

Three types of media monitoring tools to keep in mind

• PR tools: PR media monitoring can provide a heads up to oncoming disasters, with the tools generally focusing on online social spaces.
  

• News monitoring tools: News-gathering tools are generally focused on detecting emerging news trends or events as quickly as possible. A news monitoring tool can track and analyze news mentions across various channels to detect specific information.
  

• General trend analysis: The more general media monitoring tools are usually the cheapest or sometimes just outright free. They generally have limited capabilities, have less automation and tend not to fill any niches.

Google’s next algorithm update is coming soon, but don’t expect to recover lost traffic | Search Engine Land

Google will release a new algorithm update “fairly soon.” However, many of the sites impacted negatively by previous updates should not expect to recover their lost traffic after the next update is released.
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Most U.S. counties have little to no local news sources | Axios

An uptick in newspaper closures this year has left more than half of the nation's 3,143 counties — or 55 million people — with just one or no local news sources where they live. The rapid rise of digital local news sites isn't enough to offset the dramatic rate of newspaper closures.
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Meta Takes Step To Replace Google Index In AI Search | SEJ

Meta is reportedly developing a search engine index for its AI chatbot to reduce reliance on Google for AI-generated summaries of current events. Meta AI appears to be evolving to the next stage of becoming a fully independent AI search engine.
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The Print Magazine Revival of 2024 | Bloomberg

A look at the revival of print magazines as luxury products, albeit not standalone businesses, that are effective for targeting richer, younger audiences. More publishers are discovering that magazines are now a luxury good.
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Google expands AI Overviews to over 100 countries | Search Engine Land

This is up from just several countries earlier this year, including the US, UK, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil. Now you will be able to see AI Overviews in a 100+ countries. Google also said they are extending language support across the board. So if you’re in any country with AI Overviews, you can now get them in any of the currently supported languages.
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Google exempt from Online News Act for 5 years, must pay news outlets $100M | CTVNews

Google agreed last year to pay Canadian news publishers $100 million a year in order to be exempt from the law, which compels tech companies to enter into agreements with news publishers.
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