As marketers, one of our biggest challenges is getting in front of our desired target audiences. People are inundated with an overload of information on a regular basis and providing relevant content is critical to capturing their attention. This edition of Weekly Reads covers what key players across the digital landscape are recommending for ways to get in front of and engage with your target audiences.
We Are Social Media: LinkedIn Introduces Lookalike Audiences, Interest Targeting, and Audience Templates
LinkedIn is introducing three new ways to help advertisers reach the right audiences on its platform: lookalike audiences, audience templates, and interest targeting with Microsoft Bing search data. Audience templates are aimed at helping advertisers who are new to LinkedIn ads reach new audiences through predefined B2B audiences to help them get started faster. Lookalike audiences can help you reach high-converting audiences by discovering others that are similar to those who have already shown interest in your business.LinkedIn has also expanded interest targeting it released in January to include a combination of interests and professional topics.
Search
Search Engine Land: Bing Ads Launches New Action Extensions to Highlight Calls-To-Action
Bing Ads launched a brand-new ad extension this Wednesday. This new extension allows you to prominently display one of 70 predefined calls-to-action. You can associate action extensions at the account, campaign or ad group level, with the lowest level taking precedence. You’re limited to 20 action extensions per level. This type of extension is only available within Bing and is not an extension that Google offers currently. This extension has the potential to increase conversions from targeted audiences.
Voice
TechCrunch: Amazon Alexa Launches Its First HIPAA-Compliant Medical Skills
Alexa is moving into healthcare by adding HIPAA-compliant medical skills. These skills allow consumers to ask the virtual assistant for help with things like booking an appointment, accessing hospital post-discharge instructions, checking on the status of a prescription delivery, and more. This is a significant step for Amazon, as it means voice app developers who follow HIPAA guidelines can now create skills for Alexa.
Google+
The Verge: Google Begins Shutting Down Its Failed Google+ Social Network
Google has officially begun the process of shutting down and deleting all consumer accounts on its Google+ social network platform. Google+ is being shut down because it failed to meet the company’s expectations for user growth and mainstream pickup, and it poses a security threat to the company. There were two significant data leaks that could have exposed the information for tens of millions of Google+ users.
On the Blog
Top Skills You’ll Need to Work in Marketing Communications
Data Can Answer Your Big Social Media Questions
Project Highlight
Colorado Department of Human Services | Foster Parent Digital Recruitment Campaign
The Colorado Department of Human Services partnered with our team to address the state’s need for 300 new foster care families. Specifically, they asked for our help addressing that need using existing video content and the infrastructure of their existing CO4Kids.org website.
