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. How to end infodemics
A heavyweight contribution at #1 this week is an important report out, aimed at stopping the proliferation of false or manipulated information online – mainly on social media.
The report, How to end infodemics, was published by the Forum on Information and Democracy and is based on more than 100 contributions from international experts. It offers 250 recommendations across 12 main themes on how to rein in a phenomenon that threatens democracies and human rights across the world.
Some of the main recommendations include allowing a select group of moderators to access technology and algorithms – not something that is going to be popular amongst the companies themselves. It is also suggested that platforms spend a minimum percentage of their income to improve the quality of their content review; conflicts of interests of platforms should be prohibited; sites should implement ways to limit the virality of misleading content; and sanctions for non-compliance could include large fines.
These are all recommendations at this stage but could be rolled out as part of the Digital Services Act. Although this is currently EU law, which strictly speaking we won’t have to adhere to post-Brexit, we are likely to adopt much of the legislation in order to harmonise with Europe, given that platforms and tech operate across borders.
2. Page experience to be used as a ranking factor
Back in May, Google announced that page experience would be included in its ranking factors and this week, the search engine confirmed that this will roll out from May 2021.
So what is page experience?
It’s a set of signals that measures how users perceive the experience of interacting with a particular page.
It includes Core Web Vitals (Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), First Input Delay (FID) and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), as well as the existing search signals of mobile-friendliness, HTTPS and intrusive interstitial guidelines. The combination of all of the above is what Google is calling ‘page experience’.
If that all sounds hideously techy, the layman’s version is that from May, Google will assess each page based on how quickly it downloads, how quickly it becomes interactive, and whether the page jumps about when you’re trying to use it (how annoying is that?), plus the factors that we already know about.
3. New LinkedIn guides
LinkedIn has launched a series of guides specifically aimed at giving businesses support in maximising their presence on the platform.
These three guides cover:
The guides are really informative and fairly visual which should mean you can pick up some tips without having to commit to a War & Peace style tome. The guides are good on measurement and evaluation too, so you can prove what you’re doing is working.
4. Community Based Marketing guide from Guild
You’ve probably heard of Account Based Marketing (a strategic approach to marketing where particularly lucrative business prospects are targeted), well this week, Guild is advocating that a community based approach is the next big thing.
The independent messaging platform claims that 2020 has created ‘Perfect Storm’ conditions for B2B communities to flourish – these catalysts include an increase in the ‘passion economy’ (micro-businesses with professional experts at the helm); a less hierarchical way of working in larger corporates; the impact of Coronavirus; and the fact that traditional marketing tactics are rising in cost but dwindling in their effectiveness.
Ashley Friedlein, CEO and Founder, said: “Community in B2B is back in fashion. When almost every B2B marketer follows the same playbook, it’s time to develop a new play. And many are betting that a Community Based Marketing (CBM) strategy will be that play, so marketers need to be armed with the tools to make it a success.”
Guild’s shiny new guide offers both a retrospective view on how B2B communities have evolved, where we are now and how to make CBM a success.
5. Leonardo di Caprio’s 46th birthday
As the Brexit noose tightens and it’s hard to find anything non-COVID to report, the news that it was Leonardo de Caprio’s 46th birthday may have gone unnoticed – especially given it’s a fairly unremarkable milestone.
However, men’s lifestyle magazine Esquire used its Twitter feed to invite followers to share their favourite di Caprio meme and the followers didn’t disappoint. As one tweet said, ‘No actor has ever contributed to the world of memes like di Caprio.’ Enjoy.
— Esquire UK (@EsquireUK) November 11, 2020
— Esquire UK (@EsquireUK) November 11, 2020
— Esquire UK (@EsquireUK) November 11, 2020
