Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Ali.
1. Google restricts political ads
Google has taken the middle ground, somewhere between Facebook and Twitter, when it comes to banning political advertising.
In the UK, we already have a restriction in place that disallows political parties or campaigns targeting people based on their political leanings, but this is to be rolled out worldwide and may, of course, have big ramifications for the presidential elections across the pond next year. Advertisers will still be able to reach people based on age, gender, location and other regular demographics.
The firm is also looking into how it deals with false claims in political advertising such as ads that deliberately mislead people about the date of the election or suggesting that a candidate has died.
2. Guest blogging – is it really worth it?
For a really great article on guest blogging, head over to Luca Tagliaferro’s blog for a little bit of research and a whole lot of insight.
Guest blogging is tough, and especially tough if you want to do it on any worthy sites. This blog post particularly chimed with us here, as it neatly summarised what we also preach i.e. results should be looked at in the round – building links and generating traffic are part of it but also creating authority and leadership are important in judging success too.
Some of the most noteworthy parts of the research include:
- 94% of guest blogging authors found guest blogging useful or very useful.
- 19 out of 20 guest authors saw link building as an added bonus and not the sole reason to guest blog.
- 39% went in to guest blogging to brand build or improve reputation vs. 81% who said they achieved this in reality.
For me what’s particularly interesting, and I’ve never seen it summed up in this way before, is the number of unexpected or surprising outcomes of guest blogging. Being offered a speaker opportunity, a partnership, a new contract, an opportunity to be included in other editorials etc. are all difficult to put a monetary value on but they are all potential outcomes of good guest blogging that we’ve experienced here too.
Guest blogging, outreach, content marketing, inbound marketing, whatever your preferred term, is where PR and SEO really hold hands. Yes, there are some atrociously-poor ways of measuring PR but the SEO community can also learn from some of the softer measures that its PR friend has to offer.
3. Facebook boobs
Medical tattoo artist, Vicky Martin, lead a protest outside Facebook HQ, to demonstrate against the company’s policies on nudity. Her company was recently suspended from the platform for violating guidelines.
Some of the campaigners believe that banning female nipples is sexist whilst others simply believe Facebook should not be imposing its views on the world.
Martin’s particular issue was that her business, which tattoos nipples on to women who have undergone a mastectomy, was suspended, and when she tried to challenge the company, she was ignored.
Facebook has since apologised and changed its policy to allow the images of nipples in the case of ‘health-related issues’.
The world’s attention was drawn to the protest because campaigners took a giant inflatable breast with them. Just goes to show that even in today’s digital world, offline guerilla tactics shouldn’t be overlooked.
4. Instagram causing debt in young adults
We’ve known for some time that the pressure to live out a perfect life via social media isn’t good for our mental health but new research from BBC Radio 5 Live and HuffPost UK now also shows that it isn’t good for our bank balance either.
A third of 20 to 29 year olds say that social media posts by influencers made them spend money they otherwise would not have wanted to spend, and 39 per cent said that adverts on social media caused them to buy things they otherwise would not have done.
Even when influences are legal, decent, honest and truthful as the ASA rules set out, seeing a fashion blogger in a different outfit every day or a travel blogger, ‘researching’ a new hotel every weekend, still puts an inordinate amount of pressure on every day folks with every day bank balances.
5. Christmas explosions
There should be a better phrase to describe what’s actually happening here but apparently, Christmas explosions are a thing and a good thing at that.
The videos show someone throwing a bomb (actually a bauble but filmed having the hook removed so it resembles a hand grenade) in to a room. Soon after there is a big bang, the camera appears to wobble and what follows is an amazing transformation of a normal sitting room into a veritable Christmas wonderland.
Watching a couple of videos is quite sweet but then you soon realise they all have Insta-worthy houses and there’s not even the slightest trace of any tatty, school-made decorations or multiple fairy light bulbs that need replacing. All that fun is to come, people.
A thread of Christmas explosion videos from TikTok bc they’re my favorite: pic.twitter.com/EzpTgEIEKL
— Christmas Countdown (@ChristmasCIaus) November 21, 2019