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Today's News:

SEO • Welcome to “Tiktok Engine Optimization”

ADS • TikTok Video Shopping Ads

SEARCH • Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks

SOCIAL APPS • BeReal in Danger of Closing?

AI • YouTube Requiring More AI Disclosure

WTF • LinkedIn Wants to Be… a Gaming Platform?!

GBPs • You Can Now Request A Secondary Appeal

SEO • Welcome to “Tiktok Engine Optimization”

TikTok continues to try to capture some of Google’s glory, positioning itself as a place to search for content. And if you’re willing to do a little research with its new tool, your brand could get a little extra money for the effort.

To this end, TikTok has added a new Search Insights tool to let brands and creators track down what people are searching for.

This past January, Adobe published a study that found 40% of Americans use TikTok for search, and 10% of Gen-Z users were more likely to use TikTok than Google. Even Google executives, themselves, have said they’re worried about losing ground to TikTok.

ADS • TikTok Video Shopping Ads

TikTok has made some changes to its video shopping ads.

First, they say they’ve made creating a campaign with Shopify data has been made a little easier, and you can launch your first Video Shopping Ad campaign using pre-populated campaign settings directly within Shopify.

They’ve also made those ads discoverable from the search tab, rather than hoping people come across them from their For You feed.

And you can now run your Shop Ads product cards in the newly launched Shop tab — this had been in the past only available on the For You Page.

SEARCH • Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks

If SEO tools like Semrush and SimilarWeb can be believed, Google is showing fewer sitelinks within the search results page — perhaps by as much as 20% fewer.

Sitelinks are those sub-pages that Google shows under a main listing. If people search for your store, it would show your store, but also links on your site it thinks are relevant — like Return Policies and Best Sellers and Contact Us.

SimilarWeb shows that those sitelinks went from appearing about 63% of the time to about 41%:

Semrush said its tool saw a drop from 68% to about 58%:

This is not a huge deal, to be honest — these sitelinks were automatically placed there by Google, so we didn’t really have a tonne of control over them anyway.

But given that it might not be showing as many, you might see a drop in organic traffic.

SOCIAL APPS • BeReal in Danger of Closing?

BeReal — the once-popular Instagram clone that promised a more authentic experience — might soon be on its last legs.

Business Insider is reporting that the company is running out of funds and investor interest.

The app is said to have about 25 million daily active users.

AI • YouTube Requiring More AI Disclosure

More disclosure requirements coming for those who use AI in their content.

YouTube today said you will have to disclose when your videos use AI to make realistic-looking content. They’ll be updating their Creator Studio shortly to make that a little easier to do.

WTF • LinkedIn Wants to Be… a Gaming Platform?!

One of my frustrations with technology as a whole is that sites and apps and platforms aren’t happy enough to just let good things be good. They’re always adding features nobody asked for — which, to me, seemed more like an exercise in keeping top software engineers on the team than giving users what they’ve asked for.

Last week, LinkedIn too fell into this trap by confirming it now wants to be a gaming platform and that it’s working on a handful of dumb little games.

Leaked screenshots shows four games in testing — one of which looks sort of like Minesweeper; another seems to be a trivia game.

A LinkedIn p.r. person said they believe the games will “unlock a bit of fun, deepen relationships, and hopefully spark the opportunity for conversations.”

Please. Stop.

As one social media commenter said:

LinkedIn does have some solid backbench talent to draw on — it’s owned by Microsoft, which also runs one of the biggest gaming businesses.

GBPs • You Can Now Request A Secondary Appeal

Google says if you’re denied by the Google Business Profiles appeals tool, you can now “request an additional review to a denied request.”

This came not in the form of an announcement, per se, but rather as an update to a help document, so it’s not clear if this is a new thing or if they’re just catching up on documentation — but I’m pretty sure this is indeed new.

Now if you were denied by the GBP Appeals tool, you can request a second review! support.google.com/business/answe…@rustybrick

— Sherry Bonelli (@sherrybonelli)
Mar 15, 2024

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