As it has always been, digital marketing is constantly evolving, with new changes appearing every month, new trends, improvements, evolution of artificial intelligence and algorithms. A new year means new trends and updates. We propose you to discover digital marketing news took place in this first month of 2022: 

Digital Marketing News from January 2022

1.Search Marketing Updates

• Page Experience Will Become a Ranking Factor on Desktop

Starting in February 2022, and continuing through March, Google will add  page experience ranking signals to desktop search.

This ranking will be based on the same page experience signals already used for mobile last year.

They also plan to help site owners through a Search Console report to understand how their desktop pages are performing in terms of page experience.

google search central said through its twitter account that : 

“To support the upcoming rollout of page experience ranking to desktop, Search Console now has a dedicated desktop section in its Page Experience report to help site owners understand Google’s ‘good page experience’ criteria.”

• Google introduces its new system to stop advertising cookies

On 26 January, Google presented its future system for putting an end to advertising cookies, which are files that make it possible to track Internet users, analyse their behaviour and record their browsing history in order to send them targeted advertising.

An internal cookie is useful for operating the site you are visiting, and only that site, whereas the third-party cookie can be read on several sites at the same time, making it easy to track the Internet user, i.e. to follow his or her browsing on the Internet.

How does it work?

The new system, which is still in development, provides for the Internet user to have control over his advertising profile through the Chrome browser.

Internet users would therefore have control settings allowing them to see shared themes, delete those they don’t like and disable the feature completely

Google Chrome would identify themes that represent the user’s interests based on their browsing history. These themes would then be stored on the device used and not on Google’s servers to generate targeted advertising “for only three weeks before they are removed,” Google said. This system should be deployed by the end of 2022.

The advertising industry is concerned 

Google’s move to eliminate cookies may affect the advertising market and will disrupt the business model of the digital press. Read more on our previous blog post digital marketing without 3rd party cookies

• A new offer on GooglePlay to find great deals : 

Google will help you save money by highlighting promotions : 

Google Play Store is currently divided into four separate tabs: Games, Apps, Movies & TV and Books. It will now be divided into 5 parts with the inclusion of a promotional offers tab.

“This week we’re launching ‘Offers’ – a new tab in the Google Play Store to help you discover great deals on games and apps for travel, shopping, media and entertainment, sports and more,” Google  said in its blog.

You will find different forms of deals on the application :

• Sales on games and in-game items
• Rewards and bundled offers
• Discounts on movies and books
• Try something new

• 2.Marketing Tech Updates

• WordPress 5.9 Josephine is here: what’s new in the CMS

As you can see on our previous blog from December 2021 about WordPress 5.9, on 25 January, the world’s most popular open source CMS got a major update with the release of WordPress 5.9

This new version will bring advanced design tools to create custom layouts for your theme, and format them to your preferences.

• What has been improved in WorldPress 5.9?

By using one of these new themes like the new default theme The Twenty Twenty-Two, you will no longer need the customisation tool, you will be able to modify your site with ready-to-use tools and a fluid and dynamic interface.

New adjustments will make your editorial experience more effective :

• Better control tools for blocks : features new typography tools, flexible layout controls, and finer control of details 
• The power of compositions :  an almost full screen view that allows you to see every detail.
• A redesign of the list view : simple controls let you expand and collapse sections as you build your site
• A better Gallery block : Treat every image in a Gallery Block the same way you would treat it in the Image Block

Each new version of WordPress brings new features, performance improvements and interface enhancements.

• Your Android phone as your car key

With Android 12, Google will turn your smartphone into a car key :

As you can see on the google blog , It is now possible to use certain Samsung Galaxy or Google Pixel phones to lock, unlock and start certain BMW vehicles from your phone using the digital car key.

You can even remotely share your digital car key with a friend.

Those who own car models with NFC technology will be able to unlock their car by pressing their phone on the door. 

By the end of the year these features will be available on even more Android phones and vehicles. It also claims that you will be able to unlock or lock your car without taking out your phone.

Many major car brands are equipping their cars with wireless Android Auto, with the Fast Pair system currently available on some BMW and Ford models.

The digital car key is currently available on nearly 150 million cars worldwide.

Following this announcement, Apple took the initiative last year to add a digital car key to their iPhone or Apple Watch.

• AI Builder allows you to extract sentiment from text

Ai Builder which is a Microsoft Power Platform, is an easy way for companies to aggregate customer feedback that can come from different sources, emails, forums, twitter etc. 

Intelligent automation can be used here, it can automatically extract sentiment from multiple sources and process customer feedback more easily.

The company can track in real time what its customers think about its products and brand. 

It can therefore:

• Set up focus groups with customers.
• Conduct user studies when the list of queries is well defined.
• If the negative feedback comes from a specific product, the company can improve it

3.Social Media Updates

• Instagram launches paid subscriptions for creators in the U.S. 

Good news for Instagram influencers, as it is mentioned on the business instagram blog the app is currently testing paid subscriptions in the US.

Creators will be able to offer exclusive content, including Lives and Stories, in exchange for a fee from their community. The price of the subscription can be freely set by each creator.

Subscriptions on Instagram will work in the same way as Super Follows on Twitter. 

Super Follows offers the possibility to charge subscribers a certain amount per month ranging from $2.99 to $9.99 in exchange for bonus content.

Instagram creators will also be able to charge their fans for exclusive content.

Concerning the prices, Instagram offers creators a choice of eight different price points, ranging from 0.99$ to 99.99$ per month.

Subscribers will have different offers according to their preferences :

• Subscriber Lives
• Subscriber Stories
• Subscriber Badges

Instagram says it will not take a commission from creators’ subscription revenue until at least 2023. The platform says its main goal here is to help creators earn a living.

• TikTok tests its own version of the Retweet with a new ‘Repost’ button 

TikTok is constantly trying to add new content and features. The latest : a video reposting feature that is currently being tested.

The purpose is to repost a video without adding your own contribution, like a retweet on Twitter. After you share it, all the likes and comments will go to the person who created the video, but contrary to a Retweet on Twitter, the republished video will not show up on your own TikTok profile, it only sends the video to your friends’ For You streams.

TikTok has confirmed that the button is currently being publicly tested with a small number of users.

• Are Facebook and Instagram about to create a marketplace for NFTs

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is reportedly about to enter the NFT market. This is a logical strategy for the group’s social networks and a further step towards the metaverse. 

According to the Financial Times, Mark Zuckerberg’s group intends to allow Facebook and Instagram users to create, buy and sell NFTs.

Instagram is reportedly testing a feature to display its NFT collections on the social network profile.

The NFT sector has grown so exponentially in 2021 that it has become certain that it will still be a very powerful sector in 2022 and this is why Meta should get its two main social networks, Facebook and Instagram, on board.

Indeed, more and more brands are launching NFT collections not only as digital art/assets, but also to create and develop vibrant brand communities.