JSB Talks Digital is a weekly digital marketing and social media podcast hosted by author, strategist, consultant, speaker and trainer Joanne Sweeney-Burke. Each Friday Joanne shares her digital marketing and social media insights from her work as CEO of Digital Training Institute. 

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I’ve just returned from London having spent four days at the Google Digital Academy and it inspired me to think about the role of Google in Digital Marketing.

Coming up in the podcast:

• In social media news:
  • LinkedIn introduces native video finally;
  • YouTube is getting rid of its built-in video editing feature; and
  • Facebook releases new report on video consumption behaviours on Facebook and Instagram
• I interview Digital Marketing Strategist and ex-Googler Christina Brauer
• In shout-outs: Three Google updates you need to know about
• In Ask JSB Michelle wants to know if we should bother with Google+
• In JSB’s column – how to integrate Google into your digital marketing strategy – from start to finish
• Find out what Google tool saved my working week.

Listen to this week’s podcast:

Social Media News

LinkedIn introduces native video

It’s about time really! Native video comes to LinkedIn – well not to all of us as of yet, but we will have it soon.

Isn’t this the one feature that you have been waiting for from the professional social network?

The ability to record and post native videos directly from the LinkedIn mobile app was rolled out to some users since last week.

I intend to use it to do highlights from events, provide my community with an exclusive interview that I’m publishing on my podcast or vlog or a business update.

LinkedIn videos can be viewed on desktop and mobile, we will have access to analytics including views, likes as well as where viewers work and their job titles.

The feature is being beta tested now with a select number of users before rolling out to the full LinkedIn community.

YouTube is getting rid of its built-in video editing feature

YouTube has announced that it will shut down its built-in Video Editor feature on September 20^th.

However, the site’s Enhancements feature will remain in Video Manager, so we will still be able to tweak our uploads with blur effects, filters, and trimming directly on the page.

The video-editing tool has been around since 2010 but according to Mashable, as few as 0.1 percent of all creators use it.

YouTube’s photo slideshow creation tool will also bite the dust on the same date.

Read the full announcement

Facebook releases new report on video consumption behaviors on Facebook and Instagram

Facebook has released a fascinating report giving us marketers insights into how video has changed the social media landscape. It says that mobile video viewers seek convenience, community and relevance.

Interestingly, their research also showed that people associate mobile video with positive emotions and report feeling happy when watching video on Facebook or Instagram.

Facebook says they have two theories as to why mobile video feels more emotionally engaging than TV.

• Firstly, viewing content on a more personal device — a device that has practically become an extension of our bodies — creates a stronger emotional connection.
• Secondly, seeing video at a shorter distance might reduce distractions and feel more immersive, thus eliciting heightened emotions.
• Over the last year on a global scale, daily watch time for Facebook Live broadcasts has quadrupled.
• Time spent watching video on Instagram has increased by 80%.
• And this growth seems likely to continue: 45% of people surveyed in the US and Canada told us they expect to consume even more video on their smartphones in the future.
• We are already aware that Cisco predicts that by 2020, up to 80% of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video.

So what does this mean for marketers?

Facebook says we must:

• Create for how people consume
• Give them something to talk about
• Establish relevance

Interview | Christina Brauer

In today’s show I’m joined by Christina Brauer. Christina is a London-based digital marketing expert working with companies across Europe. Christina began her career in Google as an Account Strategist where she advised companies from diverse industries and scale on incorporating Google’s ad products in their marketing strategy. 

She then proceeded to work in the thriving Berlin startup scene. She worked in high growth startups like fab.com, Auctionata and JUNIQE where she applied her deep knowledge of Paid Search, Google Display and Youtube to drive performance and acquired experience and skills across channels like Facebook Advertising, Display Marketing, RTA, SEO and Affiliate Marketing.

After being Head of Online Marketing at German Art Shop JUNIQE for 2.5 years, where she grew the business 10-fold she moved to London, to work as an independent consultant and trainer.

Some of her ongoing projects include working as a trainer for both Microsoft and Google and championing a performance marketing culture at ZDF Digital, a daughter company of the German public TV station ZDF.

Connect with Christina on LinkedIn

Be sure to tune in to listen to our conversation.

Ask JSB

Ask JSB brings the voices of my listeners onto the show. So you now have an opportunity to ask me a question, have it aired on the podcast and I will respond.

If you want to hear your voice on JSB Talks Digital simply log on to www.digitaltraining.ie/askjsb and you might find yourself and your question on air!

Today’s question on Google is from Michelle Duffy Rudden, founder of Breffni Digital and co-director of IrishBiz Party.

Should we bother with Google+?

Tune in to the podcast to hear my answer to Michelle’s question.

Shout-Outs: 3 Google updates you need to know about

In this weeks’ show I’m sharing three new super Google updates!

Google Analytics adds voice-based navigation

So first the new Google Analytics update! I’m super excited about this one!

Google has added voice-based navigation to Google Analytics. ‘Wow’, I hear you screech!

Yes indeed. So if you want to know

What’s the trend of mobile versus desktop traffic for the past month or how many conversions did we get on our ebook page or even what was the highest performing page this week you can simple ask the question!

No more pulling together customized reports at the last minute in a sweat before a client or management meeting!

Instead, you just type in your query in or speak it out loud.

Apparently this new feature is part of a bigger piece of work Google is working on called Analytics Intelligence, which aims to give customers a better understanding of their Google Analytics data.

Google News Feed

Google is getting a news feed!

Yes! Users will soon see a personalised Facebook-style news feed on Google.com –showing us content we may be interested in before we search.

It will display news stories, features, videos and music chosen on the basis of our previous searches.

If interested in any of the content displayed we will also be able to click the “follow” button on search results to add topics of interest to our feed.

So, what do you think? Will you use Google like you use Facebook? I’d love your thoughts!

Google rolls out SOS alert feature for Search and Maps

Google has added a new SOS alerts feature to Search and Maps to provide live users with live updates about emergency situations.

They have teamed up with a number of partners including the Red Cross, who are working on the front line of relief efforts to provide the alerts.

During a crisis, internet users may see an SOS alert at the top of search results when searching for the incident or location.

They’ll also see maps, top stories and-when available-authoritative local information such as emergency phone numbers, websites, and translations of useful phrases.

Depending on how close they are to an affected area, users may also get a notification on their mobile device that directs them to such information.

Those outside of the crisis area will also see things like news stories and ways to donate to those in need.

Google will push notifications to those in the area that points them to this information as well.

Yossi Matias, a vice-President of Engineering with Google told Time Magazine:

“This is really about how to address people’s needs during a crisis in terms of giving them basic information. What’s going on, where is it, what should I be doing?”

Google already has a number of services available for responding to crises, including Google Person Finder, Google Crisis Map and Google Public Alerts.

JSB’s Column | Integrating Google into your Digital Marketing Strategy

In today’s column, I share my insights into how to integrate Google into your digital marketing strategy from beginning to end.

So I’m going to take you through a typical day at Digital Training Institute to show you how I integrate Google tools into my working life and those of my clients.

How I integrate Google Tools

• Google My Business – I am moving office next week and the most important thing for me to do is to register my new address on my Google My Business account. Don’t miss this vital opportunity to have your own Google Pin on Google Maps and help direct customers to your door.
• Google+ –I’ve already mentioned in Ask JSB why Google
  + is so important and how I use it every day to share blog posts, podcasts and vlogs onto the platform for better search optimization.
• Search Console –Search Console is a collection of Google tools that helps us make sure our website is working the way it should.
• Google Keyword Planner – the best tool to conduct keyword research so that you produce content relevant to your audience but also ensuring you get your pay-per-click campaigns right! It will show you search volumes per location and the competition rating if paying for AdWords.
• Google Trends – find out what’s trending near you or near a client’s business and add context to your digital marketing. This tool shows you how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. 
• Google Analytics & Tag Manager: Analytics and Tag Manager are tools that work together to track how people are interacting with your company’s websites and are cornerstones to any digital marketing strategy or campaign. 
• Google 360 Suite – this is a is a data management platform (DMP) which provides more in-depth analytical data which companies can use to track ROI and marketing activities.
• There are six products in the suite; Analytics 360, Tag Manager 360, Optimize360, 360 attribution, Audience Center 360, and Data Studio 360.
• Google AdWords – An AdWords account is where we manage ad campaigns for us and our clients.
• Google Search – there’s not a day that goes by that we don’t do a Google search!
• YouTube – owned by Google and the world’s second largest search engine after Google, YouTube is the place to host your videos or vlogs, not to mention the SEO value and the opportunity to leverage their 1.3 billion daily users. 
• Page Speed Insights – you need to know how fast your website pages are loading – use Google’s Page speed insights.
• Mobile Friendly Test – don’t forget the mobile friendly test too! I’ll come to that later in the show!
• Alerts – I receive my daily alerts for mentions of JSB and Digital Training Institute at 6pm ensuring I never miss an online mention that I may need to respond to. 

Finally, it wouldn’t be a complete JSB list of tools without adding in Maps. Yes, you know why! Because I can’t leave the house, the office or a building without getting lost! But I have to admit, sometimes I even get lost with Google Maps. My fault not Google’s! 

Finally finally, keep up with Google’s algorithm changes.

Moz is a super resource to staying up to date with Google Algorithm changes.

See a list of 2017 updates

Google Blog

Are you subscribed to the Google Blog? It’s aptly named: The Keyword!

Google also writes about the improvements and changes to their products as well as latest news from the company. You can also search by topic from Ads to Doodles, Education, Entrepreneurship to Inside Google and Machine Learning.

So never miss a thing from the mothership, log onto their blog at https://www.blog.google.

You can of course also follow them on social media. Just like JSB they are everywhere on social – Google+, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

Social Media Tool of the Week: Google’s Mobile Web Speed Test

The tool that saved my working week this week is Google’s mobile web speed test. We are right in the middle of giving our website a face-lift so this involves UX and development work.

Did you know that you have just seconds to keep the attention of a website visitor before they will jump away to another site or app.

Research shows that nearly half of web users expect a site to load in two seconds or less, and they tend to abandon a site that isn’t loaded within three seconds.

Yes, the ideal website speed should be two seconds. So, it’s important for the user experience.

However, Google has indicated site speed (and as a result, page speed) is one of the signals used by its algorithm to rank pages.

As a footnote: page speed is also important to user experience. Pages with a longer load time tend to have higher bounce rates and lower average time on page. Longer load times have also been shown to negatively affect conversions.

So why not use Google’s free tool and test your website’s speed on mobile.

I love feedback

I’d love to know what you think about this episode. So please get in touch by commenting below or tweet me @tweetsbyJSB or send me a snap to jsbsnaps.

Listen: JSB Talks Digital | Episode #57

I would like to thank Eoghan Murphy aka The Galway Gamer for producing my podcast series and to Flirt FM on the campus of NUI, Galway where I am based for the use of their studio.