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The Top Three 🏆

The industry’s most important stories today.

🥇 GOOGLE UPDATE SHAKES SEO LANDSCAPE

The December 2024 Google Core Update has triggered widespread volatility in search engine results.

Rolled out over the weekend following the recent November update, this latest change has affected many websites, with users reporting significant ranking drops and disrupted search traffic.

SEO professionals note that this update feels larger in scope than its predecessor, based on tracking tools and community feedback. More

• Tracking platforms like Mozcast and Semrush showed unusually high fluctuations.

• One web site manager said his brand’s site is seeing traffic losses up to 75%.

🥈 INSTAGRAM LEADS CREATOR MARKETING BOOM

The influencer platform CreatorIQ says this year Instagram remained the most active platform for influencer marketing.

But TikTok is quickly coming in behind, with 72% more unique posts, and 63% more creators participating. The CreatorIQ analysis comes from its database of more than 1,200 brands and agencies. More

• The average creator payout reached $4,206 per transaction.

• Creator payouts on CreatorIQ reached $79 million, increasing 47% YoY.

🥉 MARKETERS BRACE FOR TIKTOK BAN

A great piece today in Digiday today covers how American marketers are preparing for a future without TikTok. A federal appeals court has upheld a law requiring TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app by January 19, 2025, or face a ban due to national security concerns.

Today, TikTok filed for an emergency injunction pending a U.S. Supreme Court decision [court filing PDF]

The U.S. House Committee has instructed Apple and Google to prepare for removing TikTok from their app stores.

In response, brands are developing contingency plans to reallocate advertising budgets to platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat. More

• “Backup strategies [marketers] never thought they’d need are now front and center. What once seemed like an extreme contingency is quickly becoming the new reality.”

• “[TikTok reps] been told to keep communicating business as usual,” said one source familiar with the internal dialogue. “If their clients ask about it, they’ve been told to say: ‘we believe we will be able to carry on business as usual.”

Today’s Other News ☑︎

Everything else that matters.

Advertising 📣

DoubleVerify (DV) has launched GenAI Protection, a new tool it says will keep brands’ ads away from low-quality AI-generated content. “DV has identified numerous long-tail websites that leverage GenAI tools to churn out low-quality content, often rife with errors, editorial inconsistencies and plagiarism.” more
🎯 AI is now blocking AI. The singularity has begun.

Spaceback and Roku have partnered to provide free 4k, dynamic ad creative for CTV directly from brands’ social media profiles. It will let businesses create TV ads from stock footage and influencer content. They say this should help smaller companies reach TV audiences. more

Social Media 📱

Snapchat has streamlined its creator monetization process, introducing a unified dashboard that lets creators manage earnings across Stories and Spotlight. The platform also lowered eligibility requirements and added new ways to earn through video content and AR lenses. more
🎯 While it doesn’t get a lot of headlines, Snapchat continues to chug along well within its own young audience niche.

Instagram has rolled out holiday-themed features including new “Add Yours” Stories templates, holiday-themed Reels effects, and seasonal stickers. The new updates are rolling out now and should be available this week in all accounts. more

Instagram is launching a new 2024 Recap template that generates a year-end collage using photos from users' Stories archive. The feature creates personalized highlights from Stories posted throughout the year. more
🎯 Though these seem like consumer updates, marketers can and—depending on your category and brand voice—perhaps should use.

TikTok has launched new education resources for its Shop feature, including step-by-step guides and best practices for sellers. It’s also added a new Account Health Report for sellers, which will give a glance at policy violations and other account-related issues. more

LinkedIn is testing a new feature that lets users pay to boost their personal posts. This will be available for text, image, article, video, and newsletter posts, and is being tested with a small group of Premium Business subscribers in the U.S. more
🎯 Get ready for even more “I didn’t tip my barista, and here’s what it taught me about resilience” posts.

YouTube is testing a new feature that allows creators to leave voice replies to comments on their videos. The audio responses can be up to 60 seconds long and will appear alongside traditional text comments. more
🎯 This seems odd to me. People will have to tap a button to read a transcript of the comments. But will anyone? Doubtful.

YouTube now lets creators choose whether third-party AI companies can train their models using uploaded videos. The default setting is off, but creators can opt in and select specific companies like OpenAI, Meta, and Apple from a predefined list. More.

Commerce 🛒

A report from RBC says PayPal will increase the amount it charges merchants for its “buy now, pay later” service. The rate will move from 3.49% of the transcation (+45¢) to 4.99% of the transaction (+45¢). The change will start Jan. 13. more
🎯 It’s only 1.5% but that cuts even more margin from sellers. Will they just stop using BNPL?

Amazon warehouse workers and delivery drivers face significant safety risks and poor working conditions, according to a U.S. Senate report. The study highlights concerns about injury rates and labor practices. more

Search & SEO 🔍

Google Search Console API users have reported issues with the 24-hour view feature not working correctly. The problem appears to be affecting data retrieval for the most recent day's metrics. more
🎯 This is an API fault, which means if you’re seeing data loss from your third-party tools, this could very well be the cause.

LOL ⌨️

After a court required it to, WordPress removed a checkbox on its login screen making users pledge they had no financial connection to WPEngine (with whom WordPress has been fighting). The checkbox now asks users about pineapple on pizza. more 
🎯 Honestly, are there any adults left there any more?

Marketing Tool of the Day 🔨

Best kept secrets of the digital marketing world¹

UNUM has everything you need to plan, create, schedule, and analyze social media content across channels—all in one convenient place.

• Design and organize social media content across all your brand’s channels

• Auto-post content on the best day and time to achieve maximum engagement

• Schedule social posts across multiple channels in advance

• Track performance, engagement, and audience behavior

Today’s Trivia Question 🧠

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