2015 has been a long year and the new year is upon us. Today we look back at some of the major events, 100 to be exact that have changed the way we use digital marketing for better or worse.
In the IT world, technology changes fast and more crucially as a business owner, you need to stay up to date if you want to be ahead of your competition.
Without further ado, let us examine some of the major announcements and updates to have come from some of the biggest IT and digital marketing firms in the world.
Facebook Updates that impacted digital marketing in 2015
Facebook Introduces New Page Plugin Features for Messages and Events:
Facebook has now introduced two new features for the Facebook Page plugin: messages and events. These new features allow people to easily message your business without leaving your website.
Facebook Introduces Live Video and Collages:
This new product from Facebook lets you show the people what you’re seeing in real time whether you’re visiting a new place, or just want to share information opening up new business possibilities.
Facebook Marketing Partners Enables More Matching Capabilities With Custom Audiences: Facebook has enabled Marketing Partners and marketers that leverage the Ads API to match on multiple data types at once to increase the coverage and accuracy for data file Custom Audiences.
Facebook launches 360 degress videos:
This new feature from Facebook allows people to experience videos and bring stories to life in a completely new way.
Facebook introduces autoplay of videos in your newsfeed : Probably the biggest thing to give YouTube competition, the introduction of autoplaying videos in your news feeds allow for new ways to share videos.
Facebook Launches Two New Tools to Improve Local Marketing:
Facebook has made enhancements to their Local awareness ads and Customer Insights to help local businesses improve their advertising and ROI.
Facebook Introduces the Notify App :
Facebook have introduced Notify App that delivers timely information about all the news you care about opening up new advert possibilities.
Facebook Tests Upcoming Facial Recognition Feature:
This new feature from Facebook messenger allows you to share images in a new way. It scans images that you have taken and can recognize the faces of people in those images. It will then notify you to send the pictures to the people in the photograph.
Facebook Introduces Music Stories:
Facebook has introduced a new way to discover music and podcasts alike by partnering with Apple and Spotify. People can easily sample music and link directly to iTunes.
Facebook Offers New Video Experiences:
Facebook has started offering new video experiences by supporting more formats and adding new tools for publishers including video matching technology and updates to page insights.
Facebook Slowly Rolls Out Reactions:
Facebook has introduced Reactions, an extension of the Like button that gives people more ways to share their reaction to a post in a quick and easy way.
Facebook Opens Lead Ads to All Advertisers:
Lead ads is a new platform from Facebook that that gives people a quick and privacy-safe way to sign up to receive information from businesses, like newsletters, quotes and offers.
Facebook Establishes New Audience Network Performance Metric:
Facebook has introduced Advertiser Outcome Score (AOS) for Audience Network, a measurement system that evaluates publisher’s ad placements by their ability to drive outcomes for advertisers, such as app installs, purchases, or registrations.
Facebook Introduces New Tools and Resources for Broadcasters:
Facebook has introduced a host of new tools and resources to help broadcasters more deeply engage fans around the programming that matters most to them and the content they love to share with friends.
Facebook Introduces Signal for Facebook and Instagram:
Facebook has introduced Signal, a free discovery and curation tool for journalists who want to source, gather, and embed newsworthy content from Facebook and Instagram, across news, culture, entertainment, sports, and more all in one place.
Facebook Updates Video Rights Management Tools:
Facebook has been exploring ways to enhance its rights management tools to better empower creators to control how their videos are shared on Facebook.
Facebook Adds New, High-Performing Ad Formats in the Audience Network:
Facebook introduced a significant expansion of ad types and formats available in the Audience Network. The goal is even better outcomes for you, your advertisers, and the people that use your app.
Facebook Enables New Ways for People and Businesses to Connect
Facebook introduced several new communication features for Pages, including more ways for customers to send private messages to businesses and new tools for Page admins to manage and respond to messages.
Facebook Introduces a Limited Release of Live Video Streaming:
Facebook rolled out a new way for public figures to share live video from Facebook Mentions, the app that makes it easy for athletes, musicians, politicians and other influencers to talk with their fans and each other.
Facebook Officially Launches Messenger for Business:
Messenger for Business, now available with select U.S. businesses, makes it easy to reach customers wherever they are with timely, relevant push notifications.
Facebook Introduces Video Ads Creative Spotlight
Each month, Facebooks Video Ads Creative Spotlight will highlight and share the best practices for creating video ads on Facebook that grab attention and drive business goals.
Facebook Includes New Videos Tab in Page Insights:
The new Videos tab found in Facebook Page Insights will enable video publishers to more easily determine the overall performance of their videos.
Facebook Implements Author Tags:
By implementing the Author Tag on their website, publishers can make it easy for Facebook readers to start following the author of an article they just read and enjoyed.
Facebook Introduces Moments App
Syncing photos with the Moments app is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didnt take.
Facebook Revamps Tools for Creating and Managing Facebook Ads:
The new Ads Manager and Power Editor simplify and speed up ad creation and optimization. Updated versions of these tools are currently being tested by a small percentage of advertisers, but Facebook plans to gradually expand availability to all advertisers over the coming months.
Facebook Introduces Place Tips for Business Pages:
Place Tips gather useful information about a business or landmark (like posts from the business Page, upcoming events and friends recommendations and check-ins) and show it at the top of News Feed to in-store visitors.
Facebook Rolls Out Facebook Lite:
Facebook Lite is a new version of Facebook for Android that uses less data and works well across all network conditions.
Facebook Now Supports Animated GIFs in the News Feed:
Facebook is rolling out support for animated GIFs in News Feed. This is so you can share more fun, expressive things with your friends on Facebook.
Facebook Carousel Ad Format is Now Available for Mobile:
Given the success of carousel link ads, Facebook is extending the format to mobile app ads as well. Supporting up to 5 images with links, the carousel format is interactive, attention-grabbing and helpful for both direct response and brand awareness marketing
Facebook Introduces Instant Articles:
Facebooks Instant Articles is a fast and interactive experience for reading articles in News Feed. nstant Articles load as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles, so you get to the stories you want to read instantly.
Facebook Adds Call Now Button to Local Awareness Ads:
By adding a Call Now button, customers can call you right from your ad in the News Feed. Adverts can be created directly from your Page, in just a few minutes. And by adding a “Call Now” button, customers can call you directly from your advert in News Feed.
Facebook Introduces Native Ad Tools:
Facebook is offering new native-focused tools to help publishers more easily implement native ad formats: native ad templates, native ad management tools and horizontal scrolling for native ads.
Facebook Messenger Introduces Video Calling:
Now you can have face-to-face conversations with your friends and the people you care about, via Messenger. You can quickly start a video call from any conversation with just one tap. If you’re messaging with someone and realize that words just aren’t enough, you can simply choose the video icon in the top right corner of the screen and start a video call right from within an existing Messenger conversation.
Facebook Adds Domain Insights:
Understand the value Facebook is driving to your website, even if you have not implemented Facebook platform features such as social plugins.
Facebook Introduces Riff, a Creative Tool to Make Videos With Friends:
Anyone can start by creating a video. All you have to do is give it a topic, then your friends can view it and choose to add their own clips on that topic. Once a friend adds a clip to your video, your friends friends will also be shown the video in Riff and will be able to add to it allowing for huge potential for people to create amazing videos
Facebook Introduces Topic Data: Topic data shows marketers what audiences are saying on Facebook about events, brands, subjects and activities, all in a way that keeps personal information private. Marketers use the information from topic data to make better decisions about how they market on Facebook and other channels, and build product road maps.
Facebook Removes Inactive Accounts From Page Likes: Facebook is updating the way Page likes are counted by removing memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts from Pages like counts. This is to enable businesses to understand what their audiences care about.
Facebook Launches Ads Manager App: Facebook acknowledges that people have to work on the move as people spend less time behind a desktop computer. Whether you want to monitor current ads or create new ones, ads manager app gives marketers more power to manage ads from anywhere.
Facebook Rolls Out Verified Badges for Local Business Pages:
Local business with Facebook pages and physical addresses can now be verified to prove their authenticity.
?Twitter Updates that Impacted Digital Marketing in 2015
This new addition to Twitters analytic tools allows advertisers to quickly understand their brands share of conversations, key audiences, and trends. Real-time views also gives the brand the opportunity to learn, take action, and see the impact of their initiatives on Twitter.
Twitter Introduces Publishing and Storytelling Tools:
Twitter has made it easier to tell stories on their platform by allowing you to use popular tools like TweetDeck, Curator, Spredfast, Dataminr, etc to find and organize the Tweets you want into a single story.
Twitter Rolls Out Twitter Polls:
Twitter has made it possible to include polls in your Tweets making it easier to get important information from your core audience.
Twitter Rolls Out New Conversion Lift Reports for Ad Campaigns:
Twitter has made it easier to monitor the performances of your ad campaigns by allowing you to create a custom data-driven report designed to help you better understand the impact your Twitter Ads campaigns.
With hundreds of millions of tweets every day, Moments brings you the best of what is happening in an instant.
Twitter to Remove Share Counts:
Twitter raised a few eyebrows when they announced that share counts will no longer appear alongside Tweet buttons and third-party direct access to tweet share stats will be curtailed.
Twitter Expands Self-Service Ads Platform:
Twitter have expanded their advertising platform to over 200 countries and territories worldwide to businesses of all sizes.
Twitter to Expand Ad Network Beyond Twitter:
Twitter unveiled significant expansions to its advertising platform, including a new name to better reflect the evolution of the product: Twitter Audience Platform a simple and effective way for advertisers to reach over 700 million people on and off of Twitter.
Twitter Removes 140-Character Limit in Direct Messages:
This change is a big step towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.
Twitters new ads editor is a new tool that enables advertisers to seamlessly create and edit numerous campaigns at once.
Twitter Introduces Event Targeting:
Event targeting helps activate around live moments, quickly and easily discover and plan for these moments, learn more about the participating audiences through valuable insights, and with one click, create a campaign that delivers the right message to just the right users as the event unfolds.
Twitter Releases a Native App for Windows 10:
The new Twitter for Windows 10 is a Universal Windows Application that gives you instant access to top tweets, photos and videos without requiring a login.
Twitter Updates Summary Cards to Display More Link Content:
Twitter users will start seeing more detail about web content while browsing their Twitter feeds on mobile.
Twitter Pushes Ads to Mobile Users With New Button:
Twitters latest push to monetize its service has led to the rollout of a new Twitter Ads button, which is now prominently appearing on user profile pages on both the iOS and Android client applications.
Twitter Tests Curated Product and Place Collections
Twitter is beginning to test new ways for people and brands to create and share Twitter collections of products and places. Youll be able to browse rich collections from influencers you care about and get more information about the products or places you find interesting.
Twitter Introduces a Seamless Video Experience With Autoplay:
Twitter made it easier to enjoy video on Twitter. Now native videos, Vines and GIFs will begin to play back automatically.
Twitter Makes Conversations Easier to Follow
Twitter is grouping conversations together and highlighting some of the most interesting exchanges surrounding a given Tweet.
Twitter Introduces Installed App Category Targeting
A new tool that enables app advertisers to reach users based on the categories of apps they have installed on their device, or in which we think they have interest.
Twitter Unveils Audience Insights Dashboard:
With audience insights, you can easily discover valuable insights about your followers and the people who have engaged with your organic Tweets. You can also identify new, relevant audiences to target for an upcoming campaign.
Twitter Updates Direct Message:
Twitter has changed how direct messaging works so that its even easier for you to communicate one-to-one or with a chosen group of people, anywhere in the world.
Twitter Introduces Highlights:
Twitter Highlights is a simple summary of the best Tweets for you, delivered via rich push notification. Highlights are a fast and simple summary of Twitter, lets you catch up quickly on the best stuff that is most relevant to you.
Twitter Publicly Launches Curator
Curator was built to allow media publishers to search, filter and curate Twitter content that can then be displayed on web, mobile and TV. Curator enables publishers to create complex keyword and hashtag queries to easily uncover streams of high quality Tweets.
Google Updates that Impacted Digital Marketing in 2015
Google Introduces New Interactive Ads:
Google have introduced interactive ads to help drive more app installs on mobile platforms because of the diminishing attention spans of mobile users.
Google Features New Way to Save and Sort Online Images:
Google has introduced a new and convenient way to save images from google search and bookmark images directly from your web browser.
Google Rolls Out a New Google+:
Google have made enhancements to Google+ by making two new features Communities and Collections, the main area of focus in the new Google+ update.
Google Launches New About Me Page:
This new tool from Google allows you to edit your personal information that the world sees about you.
Google Play Music Welcomes Podcasts:
Google has now introduced the ability to share podcasts on Google Play Music allowing new users to connect with your podcasts based on how they are feeling, what they are doing and what they are interested in.
Google Introduces Accelerated Mobile Pages Project:
Google are helping web developers make better mobile websites with the accelerated mobile pages project.
Native Gmail Ads Now Available to All Advertisers:
Users of Gmail can now have access to Gmail ads for their own use directly in Adwords.
Google Brings YouTube TrueView Campaigns to AdWords:
With the simplicity of a single interface and a more consistent experience, AdWords makes it easier for you to optimize across campaign types.
Google AdWords Introduces New Way to Create Display Campaigns:
The new setup flow for creating Display campaigns on Google helps you pick the right settings based on your marketing objectives.
Google AdWords Will Roll Out Report Editor:
Over the coming months, Google AdWords will roll out Report Editor, an easy-to-use interface that lets you build custom tables and charts that can be segmented, sorted and filtered to help you find the insights that matter to your business.
Google Separates Google+ From ItsProducts and Services:
Over the coming months, Google plans to move some features that arent essential to an interest-based social experience out of Google+ and eliminate the need for a Google+ profile to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google.
Google Search Now Shows When Local Businesses Are Most Busy:
Now users can avoid the wait and see the busiest times of the week at millions of places and businesses around the world directly from Google Search.
Google Introduces More Powerful Dynamic Search Ads:
Dynamic Search Ads have been enhanced and retooled from the ground up, and [are] now available to all advertisers globally.
Google Tag Manager Fundamentals:
This Analytics Academy course shows how to use tools like Google Analytics and Google AdWords tags to improve your data collection process and advertising strategies.
Google Introduces New AdWords Benchmarks and Key Tools for Marketers:
With these updates to AdWords, Google offers marketer more perspectives from businesses already using the data, information about how the product works and best practices for getting started.
Google Introduces Google Photos:
A new, standalone product that gives you a home for all your photos and videos, helps you organize and bring your moments to life, and lets you share and save what matters.
Google+ Introduces Collections
Google+ Collections is a new way to group your posts by topic. Every collection is a focused set of posts on a particular topic, providing an easy way for you to organize all the things you’re into. Each collection can be shared publicly, privately, or with a custom set of people.
YouTube Releases New Translation Features:
With over 1 billion users, YouTube has introduced some very useful translation tools to help your videos reach even more people.
Other Updates that Impacted Digital Marketing in 2015
LinkedIn Releases Rebuilt LinkedIn Mobile App:
LinkedIn have released a brand new mobile experience designed to enhance you Linkedin experience and build stronger connections.
Instagram Introduces Instagram Partners Program:
Instagram in conjunction with Facebook have launched a partners program to make it easier for advertisers and marketers of any size to find the best-in-class technology partners they need to get great results.
Snapchat Introduces Story Explorer:
Snapchats Story explorer provides a new way of sharing pictures by allowing you to see a particular image from the different perspectives of other people who were around to witness the moment.
Pinterest Introduces Visual Search Tool:
This new search tool from Pinterest allows users to search for images even when you dont have the words to describe them.
Skype Introduces a Skype Share Button:
Skype has introduced a share feature in their chat that allows you to share images you come across on the web and have direct discussions about them with your friends or associates.
Videos Can Be Uploaded to Twitter From the Web:
Twitter has now made it easier for users to upload videos from the web and onto your twitter feed.
Instagram Makes Ads Available to Businesses of All Sizes, Everywhere:
Instagram has brought down its barriers and has made their advertising platform open to businesses of all sizes and locations around the world.
LinkedIn Rolls Out a New Messaging Experience:
LinkedIn has introduced a new messaging experience that offers an easier and more lightweight way to have professional conversations with your connections.
Instagram Announces Improvements to Instagram Direct:
Instagram have made improvements to Instagram Direct by including threaded messages and sending content from your feed as a direct message.
Tumblr Announces Improvement to Reblog Comments:
Tumbler have made some improvements in their comments section to make peoples comments more readable.
LinkedIn Introduces Clipping on SlideShare:
You can now clip and save the best slides from presentations across LinkedIn SlideShare to view or share later.
LinkedIn Introduces LinkedIn Lookup
LinkedIn Lookup is a new LinkedIn app that makes professionals more productive and successful by helping them easily find, learn about and contact their coworkers.
Buffer Introduces Buffer for Video:
Facebook introduced several new communication features for Pages, including more ways for customers to send private messages to businesses and new tools for Page admins to manage and respond to messages.
Reddit Updates Comment Policy:
Reddit will now quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor. In addition, Reddit is banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors.
LinkedIn Announces a New Campaign Management Tool for Sponsored Updates and Text Ads:
LinkedIn completely redesigned and rebuilt the LinkedIn Campaign Manager to provide [their] customers more control and visibility over their LinkedIn campaigns.
LinkedIn Adds an Improved Lead Generation Tool to Slideshare:
The new Lead Generation tool on SlideShare enables marketers to identify key consumers of their content and connect with their audience.
Instagram Expands its Advertising Platform to All Companies:
As Instagram continues to build its ad platform, it is focused on three key areas: Expanding ad offerings to include action-oriented formats, enabling more targeting capabilities, and making it easier for businesses large and small to buy ads on Instagram.
LinkedIn Unveils Analytics for Publishing on LinkedIn:
LinkedIn has started to roll out full analytics and statistics on your posts made on its publishing platform. Analytics for publishing on LinkedIn provides insights into who’s reading and engaging with your posts. With this knowledge, you’ll be able to evaluate whether you’re reaching the right audience, which posts are resonating with readers, and more.
WordPress Now Fully Supports Emoji
With this latest update, you can use emoji essentially anywhere within wordpress. WordPress 4.2 adds support for a number of new embed types, such as Tumblr and Kickstarter, which are formatted automatically for inclusion in your posts.
LinkedIn Relaunches Sponsored InMail: The newly revamped Sponsored InMail product is a direct and personalized way for marketers to reach their audience in their LinkedIn inbox across desktop and mobile. It allows marketers to break through the limits of traditional email marketing and drive more leads by delivering highly personalized and relevant content to members when they’re already engaged on LinkedIn.
Instagram Unveils Clickable Carousel Ads: The new carousel ads on Instagram are a new way for brands to share more images with people interested in their posts. Instagram carousel ads give brands more flexibility in telling their stories by allowing people who view their ads to swipe left to see additional images and link to a website of the brand’s choice.
Conclusion
There we have 100 major digital marketing updates, developments and announcements from Facebook, Google and Twitter among others.
Do you know of any major announcements that i may have missed in 2015. Let us know in the comments below.
Image Credits
Featured Image – Research Impact Network
The post 100 Things That Impacted Digital Marketing in 2015 appeared first on .