Influencer marketing is on the rise and here is all you need to know about it

Social media plays a huge role in the overall branding of a company no matter how big or small. Whenever a social media influencer is chosen to endorse a new product, their review of it reaches hundreds of fans. Then, when those fans see that video or post of their favorite content creator checking out a new product and giving their review they instantly are attracted to it and most likely buy or consider buying this product, with the mentality that it makes them more like their favorite content creator.

A new report on the state of Business to Business and influencer marketing shared quite a lot of insights on business opportunities coming in the second half of this year and beyond that also. According to the report, Influencer marketing has been going in the right direction for most marketing people.

A new study from Lee Odden’s TopRank Marketing blog found that 86% of Business to Business (aka businesses that use other businesses as their middle man) have been successful with influencer marketing. By using influencer marketing most brands have started boosting their brand awareness and with its reputation as well. All this has led to sales increasing if not by a tremendous amount but increasing all the same.

Almost a third of businesses have said that their revenues have gone up ever since they got their products marketed by a social media influencer and 85% of people have the belief that the interest rates one has to pay while working with influencers will increase in the upcoming year because of Inflation, rising housing prices and much more.

The report answers the questions many people have about influencer marketing and also gives some solid advice on what are the factors to consider when picking an influencer to market your brand, so let’s dive in.

First things first, we need to know what B2B marketing is and how it involves Influencers. This specific type of marketing starts as a one-time deal but after checking the outcomes of this deal, most marketers are thinking of making it into a long-term deal based on the result and the performance of that specific influencer. The study surveyed marketing professionals and experts on their experience with Influencer Marketing and here are the results:-

• 86% of respondents said that it was either remotely or very successful for their company,

• 72% said that it helped them increase their brand’s reputation,

• 70% said that it helped in increasing awareness about their brand,

• 56% said that it helped them with creating new leads,

• 33% said that it was a direct source of revenue for their company.

Now arises the question of finding an influencer trustworthy enough to become a B2B partner with them. In this case, you need to see beyond basic things like followers and reach, according to the report.

According to professionals, when thinking of going into Influencer Marketing, you need to look above vain qualities like followers/subscribers and start thinking about relevance because audience size does not matter as much as audience relevance

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Google Is Attempting To Add Larger Favicons And Website Text To Its Search Results, Testing These Features Out Across Smartphones

Google is currently testing out larger favicons and site names for Search results and Discover on mobile phones.

So, let’s talk about favicons: they’re essentially small graphics that depict a website, and show up on a browser tab. For example, if you go to the Instagram website via a desktop, the tab harboring it will display the platform’s trademark camera icon. Favicons are just a little bit of visual flavor that allows someone to identify a website at first glance without taking a look at the relevant names and all. They can also (occasionally) help separate phishing websites from their real-life alternatives, as the former lack favicons sometimes. However, with cybercriminals having become exceedingly efficient at their work, this is no longer always the case. In a nutshell, stay safe kids, and don’t hand off private information to strangers.

Favicons aren’t just limited to desktops nowadays: Google has added them to the Chrome version of smartphones for quite a while now. They’re not only a part of tabs but also accompany websites that are displayed on Search results and Google Discovery recommendations. The latter two, however, are not given any such treatment for Google desktop. The platform attempted to rectify this a while back and added favicons to desktop Search results; however, the result ended up making each result look more like an advertisement since Ads are also announced with a similar favicon. Google ultimately scrapped the idea and decided to further consider both need and placement.

Now, Google’s on a mission to make favicons more visible on the one platform where they were well received: mobile smartphones. The tech company has already started testing these out, accompanying larger favicons with larger text for website names on Search results as well on a limited number of Android phones. While more visible, the extra largeness might prove to be a detriment, as smartphone resolutions are increasingly sharp nowadays, and the favicons will only end up looking pixelated.

H/T: 9to5google
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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

DuckDuckGo Responds To Its Major Backlash With The Launch Of Microsoft Blockers

DuckDuckGo is trying everything in its power to try and diffuse the situation that first began in June of this year. In case you’re not aware, a number of researchers saw how the company's browser on smartphones had given Microsoft the green signal to track users.

As shocking as that may sound, it was the truth. And seeing a firm of this stature allowing trackers to operate definitely had DuckDuckGo receiving negative publicity. Remember, researchers also noted how trackers by Facebook and tech giant Google had been blocked by the company, leaving so many questions on people’s minds.

Thanks to a blog post that was published this week, the firm’s CEO tried hard to clear the air and any form of confusion regarding the matter and how the company wished to backtrack and improve its position today.

The blog post highlighted some changes that the firm was busy making that would assist in redeeming itself. And this included a special mention of how it was now blocking all types of third parties from tracking user data scripts and would also be prevented from entering all apps seen across the browser.

This included both iOS and Android as well as any type of browser extensions like Firefox, Opera, Safari, Edge, and Chrome too.

DuckDuckGo is labeling the bold move as 3rd-Party Tracker Loading Protection that would go on blocking specified tracking scripts across various apps and firms and even third-party sites with no exceptions made whatsoever.

Gabriel Weinberg took out a moment to further highlight how the firm had been limited in terms of applying for protection against third parties that were linked with Microsoft. This had to do with a discrepancy in the policy linked to the company’s use of Bing which assisted in providing search results.

For now, after much backlash, the company says it has since then ditched the clauses outlined and is glad to reveal that it has introduced blockers for Microsoft as well. DuckDuckGo boldly affirms that they are not bound and will not be bound to such endeavors ever again.

Meanwhile, a separate email shared with media outlet TechRadar revealed how the firm feels the issue was not such a huge deal as much as it was blown way out of proportion.

The firm’s CEO mentioned that data scripts from Microsoft were never a part of their search engine or any of the applications that are affiliated with them, that don’t track users. Instead, it’s these web pages that end up adding such scripts to gain their own benefits. And in the end, the company is forced to deal with the aftermath, despite being never informed in the first place of what’s going on.

DuckDuckGo also refuted all claims that speak about how it had allowed Microsoft’s third parties to read data scripts and carry out tracking attempts through them was definitely not accurate.

The company concluded by mentioning that even before this update was generated, DuckDuckGo was already busy blocking most Microsoft parties from reading and loading users’ scripts.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

TikTok Partners Up With Ticketmaster For An In-App Feature To Buy Tickets For Happening Events

TikTok has recently collaborated with Ticketmaster to help give users an exclusive and innovative means through which they can discover the most happening events and also purchase tickets along the way.

The partnership brings forward an in-app functionality that we’re sure fans of the popular video app are going to love, not only for being unique but for also adding convenience to their lives.

Now, the app says you don’t need to buy tickets from the event venue directly. Instead, just resort to your TikTok account and make the purchase on the app itself. How’s that for extra convenience?

Creators will also adore the feature of getting on board with a relevant search that helps them find all the happening events in a place near to them, thanks to Ticketmaster. This way, users can even incorporate a link to their desired destination on their video too.

For now, Ticketmaster says the new venture is only available to a handful of selected content creators on the app but it surely does plan on moving forward with more users in due time.

If you are eligible, then you will get the chance to pick a new option called ‘Add Link’ which would be visible to you after you tap into the new option by Ticketmaster on the app. This is just before publishing your video content.

Once shared, users will get a chance to see the link to the event that’s displayed across the video’s bottom left-hand corner. Now, those who view the video will be given an opportunity to press on the link and buy tickets through the app’s browser, if they’re willing to do so.

Ticketmaster mentioned recently how it hopes the new feature would encourage more fans across these platforms to come forward and buy tickets conveniently. It also hopes the move would assist in reaching target audiences that use social media apps the most and according to them, TikTok fans are first in line.

Not only is the project unique, but it’s also never been done before as it helps event organizers and apps to work seamlessly together. And believe it or not, we’re already seeing leading celebs, artists, and influencers sign up to avail of the great opportunity.

After all, what could be better than having your own mini-app that revolves around ticketing? Common names worth a mention include OneRepublic, WWE, Demi Lovato, and Usher. But that’s just the beginning, Ticketmaster confirmed.

News about the unique partnership comes to us just a few months after Ticketmaster revealed how it would be giving Snapchat users the chance to explore happening events near them through the app.

This functionality would work by matching user accounts with relative events that they could possibly be interested in, depending on various preferences.

For instance, if you’ve signed up for something, you can see if your friends are similar in the same thing and vice versa. Once you agree, you get redirected to the webpage of Ticketmaster and are allowed to buy your tickets.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Instagram Will Continue To Focus On Full-Screen Content With Upcoming Tests For Ultra-Tall Images

It might seem to many that Meta’s march to copy TikTok’s algorithms may have slowed down by quite an extent but we’d like to inform you that it’s not stopped by any means.

While Instagram may have listened to many people crying out loud to stop focusing on copying TikTok, more news reports from the company are clearly hinting how they’re yet to shift focus from full-screen content.

Now, Instagram will soon be launching tests for ultra-tall images that can well align with its full-screen reels. So if you were breathing a sigh of relief that the controversial redesign isn’t happening, well, this is definitely a rude awakening.

The news comes to us thanks to the platform’s CEO Adam Mosseri who revealed during a recent session of Ask Me Anything that Instagram is going to soon carry out a test for the extra-tall 9:16 images.

The testing phase will begin by next week or perhaps after that but it’s definitely happening, the CEO confirmed today.

Mosseri added that the app was making the most of tall videos without users having access to tall images. So what not introduce the latter so both aspects are given equal importance, right? After all, Instagram was first renowned for its pictures, after which the craze for videos and Reels came.

On average, Instagram is producing images in the 4:5 ratio whenever vertical pictures are displayed across the app and cropped accurately. Now, the change would allow for more support regarding images that fall in the 9:16 ratio, which are not only much taller but slimmer too.

This way, the image would end up filling up your entire screen while you continue scrolling through Instagram’s news feed.

But we don’t know how the response to the change is going to go as in the previous history with the same experiment received plenty of backlash from known photographers who felt the app was clearly not thinking straight.

They added that forcing images to fit the bigger 9:16 frame was not only awkward but really made the images seem out of place. Also, the new Instagram feed was seen incorporating overlay ingredients to the posts’ bottom portion. This way, the app thought the written text would be much simpler to read.

But the convenience factor really bombarded the photographer’s work and the end result was not a happy one.

Throughout the past few weeks, we’ve seen Mosseri bump heads with the app’s users on the final outlook of Instagram and its redesign. And the Instagram CEO has clearly spoken several times about how tall reels will always look better when compared to tall images.

In other words, the full-screen experience is more suitable for Reels than it is for pictures. Yet, the fact that the app is still willing to enter into the territory with a test that’s rolling out soon is definitely questionable.

Also, Instagram’s own tests have proven that people aren’t loving the overhauled design and it’s causing them to dislike and tune in less. Hence, we’re curious to see how the feedback for this test goes.

H/T: TheVerge

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Is Looking To Revamp Its Search Homepage By Testing New Widgets

For years now, we’ve been accustomed to seeing the Google homepage as one that’s crisp, clean, and as minimalistic as can be.

There’s adequate room to add in your search queries in the space bar and that’s about it. But if you’ve wanted a little more in terms of the homepage’s interface, well, you might be in luck.

Google is carrying out a test that could possibly revamp its search page after years.

The company is experimenting with different rows of widgets that it feels can possibly serve useful purposes. And while nothing is final yet, we’re definitely loving the sounds of it so far.

Dubbed as the ‘new Google.com’, you can soon find apps like weather, your standard news, and a few other cards offering a wide array of features. And by the sounds of it, it’s definitely going to be diverse and innovative.

The move to transform Google’s desktop webpage has begun and the entire ordeal is more or less similar to its Discover endeavor.

Google announced its decision for the test in February, where it highlighted the possibility to introduce a few useful widgets to its homepage. They’ve even spoken about how two users have already written in and talked about seeing it happen live.

So what’s new? Well, for starters, you’ll be seeing a new ‘Meet the new Google’ card pop up on your home screens. This requests users to sign into their accounts and allow for the customization process to begin.

Next, users can press on the ‘make this space yours’ tab which allows for a hello pop-up to enter, followed by ‘what are you interested in’ to arrive next on your screens. This way, you can play around and carry out customization of the various widgets on offer.

Some common and fun selections that you can utilize include cryptocurrency, air quality, weather, news, sports, and stock exchange. What to watch, events happening near you, and more.

For now, as per default settings on the page, these cards are made to appear as small rectangular tiles. This way, you can benefit from seeing a wider view at first glance.

We definitely find the change to be very unique and interesting because Google used to talk about how important it was for homepages to remain basic, to the point, and as minimalistic as can be.

However, we do feel change is necessary and much overdue, as far as Google is concerned. Hence, we could well be seeing a bigger launch soon and we’re excited to see what the final outlook seems like.

You’ll find the new set of cards to pop up at the bottom of the page because Google says it’s not ready to do something too drastic. Moreover, you can even click on Hide if you don’t wish to clutter your page too much as customization is key.

Also, the company says the overall number of cards users get on the page varies depending on their screen size.

H/T: GreenShades

Read next: Google’s Quoted Searches Will Now Appear In Bold So Users Can See The Most Relevant Results
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

LinkedIn Launches New Link Sticker That Helps In Driving External Traffic

LinkedIn says it believes it has found the perfect solution for driving external traffic. And this comes in the form of an innovative link sticker that was rolled out for some users today.

With the new approach, users are given the chance to add the sticker to their images, putting it wherever they like as it arises in different sizes.

Thanks to more insight from leading social media analyst Lindsay Gamble, we got the chance to see more about the venture through her insights. And on first glance, the sticker is quite similar to those provided by Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, you can think of it as adding more referral links to your posts.

We feel the new venture could certainly come in handy in terms of carrying out more trials with the design. And as you’re already aware, the engagement seen across the app continues to increase. Hence, we don’t see why this can’t serve as a valuable tool to help drive more user traffic through LinkedIn's feed.

You can find the sticker option for external links as a tool in the post creation tab. It’s best delineated by the famous icon reserved for chain links.

However, LinkedIn mentioned that at this stage, it’s only applicable for users through the mobile version of the platform and not yet for desktop users. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t interact with the links on the desktop.

In other words, millions of LinkedIn members can tap into the links whenever they see them. And that’s around 850 million platform users in total.

As far as different hues are concerned, well, it’s a little limited in that regard as you can’t change the colors. However, links could be attached to both video content as well as the regular image. And users are also given the chance to get the text customized that comes as a display with the link.

While some might not appreciate the large text attached to the link button, we do feel it can gather for better reach and awareness, while driving more users to interact. We also feel it’s an innovative approach to the usual content seen on the app.

For now, LinkedIn revealed how the feature is getting launched on a gradual basis. Hence, not all users would be having it at the same time, but you’ll definitely get it soon.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World