Google Celebrates 2015 With The Top YouTube Videos of The Year

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YouTube Logo

2015 is coming to a close, and Google has begun their end-of-the-year celebrations by highlighting the most popular videos of the year. The past year has been an especially big one for YouTube, which has been celebrating its 10th birthday all year long.

It has also been the first year that YouTube has seen true competition. Facebook’s video platform has given the service a run for its money, by giving videos a wider platform and more prominent place in news feeds.

Despite this challenge, YouTube continues to be one of the largest platforms in the world, and is still synonymous with internet video. The past year, the service has helped drive a dance craze that swept the nation, become the new home of Super Bowl ads, and helped promote equality with these videos:

Google’s Top Trending Videos of 2015

1. Silento- Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae) #WatchMeDanceOn by Tianne King

2. Clash of Clans: Revenge (Official Super Bowl TV Commercial) by Clash of Clans

3. Crazy Plastic Ball PRANK!! by RomanAtwood

4. Love Has No Labels | Diversity & Inclusion | Ad Council by Ad Council

5. Lip Sync Battle with Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart and Jimmy Fallon by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvRypx1lbR4

6. Justin Bieber Carpool Karaoke by The Late Late Show with James Corden

7. 6ft Man in 6ft Giant Water Balloon – 4K – The Slow Mo Guys by The Slow Mo Guys

8. Golden boy Calum Scott hits the right note | Audition Week 1 | Britain’s Got Talent 2015 by Britain’s Got Talent

9. Dover Police DashCam Confessional (Shake it Off) by Dover Police

10. Mean Tweets – President Obama Edition by Jimmy Kimmel Live

To help reminisce about 2015, YouTube also gathered over 150 YouTube creators for the latest installation of YouTube’s annual Rewind video, showcasing everything from dance prodigies, TV personalities, and even an insane plastic ball fight.

YouTube is certain to be a huge part of all of our lives for the years to come and these videos show the wide variety of videos you can find across the site. If you have a video you want seen in 2016, especially business related videos, YouTube is the place to look.

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AdWords Doubles Amount of Info In Stuctured Snippets

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AdWords In Store Visits

Since launching in spring, Google AdWords’ structured snippet extensions have shown themselves to be a powerful tool in the AdWords arsenal.

Structured snippets add an extra line of information with your text ads which specifically highlight important information for searchers. When implemented well, this can boost click-through rates for ads.

Now, Google has made these structured snippets even more visible in the search results by doubling the amount of information that can accompany text ads.

To do this, advertisers can select two predefined “Headers” which act as structured snippets. Then, those headers can be customized with two unique sets of values. Depending on the search results, these snippets have the potential to be displayed at the same time.

Google does say that each structured snippet extension is treated as its own ad auction, and like other ad extensions, may not always appear together.

You can boost the chances of having both extensions display at the same time by being thorough and providing as much information as you can. With more information, the ad auction is better able to select the highest quality combination of extensions. Not only does this improve your chances of having both snippets show at the same time, it also increases your overall ad performance.

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Cyber Monday Breaks E-Commerce Record For Most Online Sales

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While Black Friday sales are in a slump, a new king of the holiday shopping season is rising. The results Cyber Monday are coming in and estimates suggest this year broke e-commerce sales records for the biggest day of online sales in US history.

According to Adobe, online sales hit over $3 billion dollars on Cyber Monday. Their report says 200 million visits to 4,500 retail websites generated $3.06 billion, rising 16 percent from last year.

Approximately 26 percent of those sales came from mobile devices, accounting for $799 million in sales. The majority of those sales ($575 million) came from Apple iOS devices. In comparison, Android devices drove just $219 million in mobile sales.

ChannelAdvisor and Custora have found similar results in their analysis of Cyber Monday sales.

ChannelAdvisor says Cyber Monday sales leaped 18 percent year over year on a same-store-sales basis. They found mobile devices accounted for 43 percent of traffic, however their results also found consumers are still relying on desktops to make the final purchase. Their analysis says 24 percent of sales came from smartphones.

Custora’s findings estimate e-commerce revenue climbed 16.2 percent from last year, with tablets and phones driving 26.9 percent of all Cyber Monday sales.

The notable increase in Cyber Monday sales may be due to bigger discounts than expected, with an average discount of 21.5 percent.

Another notable report from HookLogic says the average order value among advertisers on its platform hit $134 on Cyber Monday, just below the $137 AOV seen on Black Friday. Interestingly, carts had fewer items on Cyber Monday, which suggests consumers waited for the online sales to make their purchase.

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Google Star Wars Easter Egg Recreates Iconic Opening Crawl

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As the premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens grows closer, Google is getting in on the excitement. The company recently announced its new #ChooseYourSide campaign, and indicated it was planning a number of Star Wars Easter eggs ahead of the film’s release on December 18.

Well, you don’t have to wait for the Easter eggs to start popping up. The first surprise for Star Wars fans who use Chrome has already been found.

Just Google the famous first line from the original 1977 Star Wars movie (“a long time ago in a galaxy far far away”), and you will be treated to a page in the style of the series iconic opening crawl. Instead of an summary of intergalactic politics and jedi-related events however, the scrawl shows search results over a Star Wars-themed background.

You can find out more about the #ChooseYourSide campaign over at Marketing Land. Fans will have to keep waiting for the film’s release, but keep your eyes peeled for more exciting Easter eggs in the meantime.

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Facebook and Instagram Launch New Holiday Shopping Ad-Targeting Segment

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If you’re looking to boost your share of holiday customers at the last moment, Facebook and Instagram have a new feature that will be of interest to you.

The companies are rolling out a new ad-targeting segment aimed at helping brands focus in on shoppers who are engaged with content related to holiday shopping, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The ad segments, which will run from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, act like any other ad format on their advertising networks.

Facebook says it will compile this audience by watching for holiday-related keywords in posts that people publish, like, comment on, and share. From there, the audience is aggregated and anonymized, like all Facebook ad-segments.

The holiday ad segment is available now within Facebook self-service ad dashboards, in the “Behaviors” section under the “Seasonal and Events” category.

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Google Shares Search Quality Rating Guidelines For The First Time

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For the first time, Google has released the full version of their Search Quality Rating Guidelines, a document used by Google Search Quality Rates to help determine how to rate the search results they are testing.

The document has become public in the past, through several leaks. Just this week, the October version was leaked. The search engine also released an abridged version in 2013, but now the company has decided to officially release the entire 160-page version previously only available to Search Quality Raters.

Google’s Mimi Underwood said that “ratings from evaluators do not determine individual site rankings, but are used help us understand our experiments.” She added, “The evaluators base their ratings on guidelines we give them; the guidelines reflect what Google thinks search users want.”

As expected, Underwood also implied the document will be updated over time, “as search, and how people use it, changes.”

You can download the full Search Quality Rating Guidelines here.

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Bing Launches Its New Mobile-Friendly Tool For Testing Websites

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Like Google, Bing has been increasingly focused on delivering a mobile-friendly version of the web to its growing number of mobile users. Now, Bing has released a tool to help webmasters ensure their site meets the search engine’s standards for mobile-friendliness.

Specifically, the tool reviews your site based on the following criteria to decide if your site is mobile-friendly:

  • Viewport and Zoom control configuration
  • Width of page content
  • Readability of text on the page
  • Spacing of links and other elements on the page
  • Use of incompatible plug-ins

The tool will also notify webmasters if any of the above criteria were inaccessible or blocked, so you can remedy the problem.

MobileFriendly

Like the tool Google offered shortly before it released its “Mobile-Friendly Algorithm”, Bing’s tool delivers an overall verdict as to whether you site would be considered mobile-friendly by the search engine.

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It will also explain what issues it detects and explain why your page fails, if that is the case.

Both Bing and Google’s tools reportedly detect essentially the same things, with little difference between the ultimate results. However, Bing’s tool is significantly faster and easier to use.

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Pinterest’s Buyable Pins Arrive On Android

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PinterestAfter months of anticipation, Pinterest’s Buyable Pins have finally come to Android. The long-awaited e-commerce feature was launched for iPhone and iPad users back in July, but the service only started rolling out for Android users last week.

The company also announced that it is launching “The Pinterest Shop,” which is a curated collection of Buyable Pins and products from retailers.

With Buyable Pins, Pinterest users are able to purchase items from retailers with just a few clicks and never have to leave the social bookmarking platform. It is a great time for Pinterest to be rolling out Buyable Pins to Android users, as the holiday season is starting to kick into gear.

Pinterest has reportedly been pleased with the success of Buyable Pins. The company said the number of Buyable Pins on the network had more than doubled to 60 million and that the feature was largely bringing in new customers.

Last month, the company expanded access to the service to three more major e-commerce platforms: Bigcommerce, Magento, and IBM commerce. These platforms are joining launch partners Shopify and Demandware.

The company says it plans to eventually allow businesses to promote Buyable Pins, but currently it is focused on featuring them organically in the home feed, category feeds, search results, recommendations, and Pin boards. It will also be promoting Buyable Pins in The Pinterest Shop, which the company describes as “a destination where you’ll find on trend collections of Buyable Pins and retailer shops, handpicked by us.”

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Why Are Retailers Ignoring Their Customers On Social Media?

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Businesses are increasingly using Facebook to advertise their business to one of the largest audiences in the world, but a new survey suggests many businesses are forgetting social media is a two-way street.

According to a Sprout Social study, the majority of retailers are ignoring their customers’ requests on social media, a finding which is very troubling considering consumers are turning to social media to seek customer service and find information about businesses.

The statistics from the Sprout Social Q4 2015 index say retailers failed to respond to over 80 percent of consumer questions and requests on social media over the last year. Perhaps surprisingly, retailers were least likely to respond during the holiday shopping season. Throughout Q4 of 2014, only 16.35 percent of customer queries to retailers received any form of response.

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It is understandable that retailers are swamped during the holiday season, and may not have the extra man-power to closely watch social media. However, totally ignoring your customers on Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms can create a tidal wave of unhappy customers and lost potential buyers.

Retailers saw a 21-percent increase in inbound social media messages in the last quarter of 2014, but the majority of those went unanswered.

“Social media is an integral part of consumers’ daily lives and a critical communication channel for brands to engage in conversation with their customers during the holidays,” Sprout Social CMO Scott Brandt said in a release. “Whether answering a product question or confirming a customer’s gift order, brands have an opportunity to positively influence awareness, customer loyalty, positive sentiment and seasonal sales through social media engagement.”

One problem appears to be that retailers aren’t paying attention to where their customers are trying to reach them. In the past, Twitter has been the primary social media platform for customer service related questions and requests. However, Sprout Social’s study suggests a shift is occurring as more shoppers rely on Facebook to contact brands.

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It appears retailers haven’t picked up on the shift though, because the new statistics show retailers sent out 114 percent more messages on Twitter in the last six months.

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“It’s worth taking a deeper look at customer service on Facebook since it is generally where people are seeking answers from retailers,” said Brandt. “Bottom line: You should be able to improve your response rates and times if you understand where people are reaching out to your brand in the greatest numbers.”

For more interesting findings from the study, download the full Spout Social Index for free here.

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Schedule Your Holiday Hours On Google My Business In Advance

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Google Christmas

Source: Current360

With Halloween in the rear-view mirror we have officially entered the holiday season, and Google is rolling out new features to help businesses prepare. Google My Business announced it is launching a new feature that allows businesses to set their holiday hours in advance, so shoppers will always know when you are open.

In the past, businesses had to manually update their hours manually if they changed their hours for the holiday season, and when the season is over you had to go back in and change the hours back.

Now, if you know ahead of time when you will start running your holiday hours, you can schedule your Google My Business page to automatically update your opening hours when the time comes. Google will also tell shoppers if what they are seeing are special holiday hours.

If your closing hours are flexible, there is also a new option to have a message displayed saying “hours may differ.”

The feature will stick around, so if you have regular special hours for other events or holidays you can also set those up ahead of time.

How to Schedule Special Hours on Google My Business

  • Log in to your Google My Business account and select the location the hours will apply to.
  • On the “Location details” page, scroll down until you see the “Special hours section” and click the link.
  • Select the date when the hours will begin and enter the opening and closing times for that day.
  • Click the box next to “Closed” if your business will be closed on a specific day. You can also set your hours to 12:00am-12:00pm if you are open 24 hours.
  • Click “Add another” to add more special hours for the location.

For more information on the features or setting up your special holiday hours ahead of time, check out Google’s help center article.

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