December is the busiest month for B2C e-commerce and retail and the Quietiest for B2B, but that doesn’t stop platform updates coming in thick and fast. Here’s everything you missed in December.
Pinterest Predicts 2025 Trends
Every year, Pinterest releases their big expectations for the year ahead based on data from Pinterest users. This year, Pinterest Predicts is back. Big hitters include Cherry red being a big colour, which is a stark contrast from Pantone’s brown prediction. Other trends point towards a very whimsical year with Sea Witchery, Castlecore and Doll themed design looking to make a big splash. Look for what to expect in 2025 with Pinterest Predicts
Spotify and Over-AI
Spotify Wrapped is a highly anticipated event in the calendar of music lovers. Previous years have taken the internet by storm. Some even go as far as referring to the annual recap as a “mental health barometre”, as the songs show how upbeat or wallowing the user’s music is. This year however, Spotify users were a bit underwhelmed with the offering.
With the news that 1600 Spotify staff members have been laid off, some believed the data analysis was done mostly by AI, which gave some very strange predictions. The usual storytelling, which included top genres, what city your music tastes matched to and other interest data points, needed that human touch to look through the data and find trends that would go viral. This oversight dampened the launch and left some users unhappy. A lesson learned? Or perhaps this will drive people to get AI to be more human?
Google Core December Updates
Because of course Google would roll out an update during the biggest shopping season! They like to make our jobs hard!
Google’s December Core Update started to roll out on the 12th of December and took just under a week to completely roll out. This was only a few days after the November Core Update completed. According to Search Engine Journal, the update appears to have benefitted some e-commerce sites. There is little information (as usual) about what is actually in the update, but usually, the core updates are around the Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T) metrics and Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) Metrics
If your site is seeing a decline in rankings, review the problem pages against E-E-A-T and YMYL to see if there are any immediate problems. Update the content and review internal links.
Google Spam Updates
The Google Spam Update rolled out after the December Update was completed. This update tightens the rules around what counts as spam and penalises more sites. This is to combat the rise in thin-content sites, spammy links and malpractice sites in YMYL areas.
If you see any issues or have concerns about your site content, humanise any AI pages, and add well-sourced articles to your website. Take a look at your backlinks and structure an ethical backlink building campaign if needed. Check your website and SEO strategy against the Google Spam Policy
Microsoft Ads Multi-Format Campaigns
Microsoft has simplified its campaign management by rolling out Multi-Format Ad Campaigns. This new campaign format allows you to combine native, display, and video formats into one campaign. It helps streamline campaigns and makes it easier to manage budgets. If you’ve used Meta’s campaign layout, you will feel familiar.
YouTube’s Top Ad Campaigns of 2024
YouTube has pulled together a showcase of the best performing adverts of 2024 on it’s platform. Business can use this to get a better understand of best practices on the app to drive more traffic. Top adverts include Volvo’s EX90 campaign and Urban Decay’s influencer-led Shorts ads.
Instagram Introduces Trial Reels
Reels have been a little formulaic recently. Many creators are so worried about how their followers respond to content that they are worried about trying new things for fear of losing momentum. This is particularly true for content that is out of their niche, for example, a retail brand known for women’s clothing that wants to branch out into men’s lines. Or a gamer who’s known for playing Minecraft but wants to try out other games. Or if you want to try something a little off brand.
Instagram has introduced Trial Reels. These are reels which will be shown to non-followers first, so as not to disrupt what your followers expect from you. If the reel performs well, you can choose to open up the audience to include your followers. This can be done manually or you can automate it to share after 72 hours if it performs well according to Meta’s AI.
Broadcast Channels Updates on Instagram
Broadcasts are one of Instagrams newest features. Broadcasts allowed brands to slide into the DMs of their fans to share updates. These were largely one-way, with brands broadcasting messages, images and polls. Users could interact with polls and respond with emojis.
Broadcasts are getting a community-focused update (after all, this is social media, and broadcasts were relatively unsocial). Brands can now allow followers to reply to messages. You can also get prompts to spark conversations. Plus we’re getting some basic analytics too, so we can finally understand how these channels work. These updates will help brands to foster better relationships with their loyal fans, which are the most profitable for your business.
Resharing on Threads
Threads has added a way of resharing user content while maintaining credits. You can share the image by long pressing on the media or tapping repost. This maintains a credit to the original sharer, which has always been a battle for creators of original media. This isn’t a perfect solution, but it does make sharing a lot easier, and so it should reduce image stealing slightly.
LinkedIn Launches Companies Hub
Companies Hub is a new B2B marketing intelligence dashboard to help plan, post and measure B2B campaigns on the platform. This is an actionable dashboard with key insights to help target companies on the platform. You can see engagement levels from different companies to help create lists. You can also see your media planning in one space.
That’s our quick overview of the most important updates for December 2024! Check back next month for the latest updates, or follow our social media channels for the news in between.