1. Pinterest Launches New ‘TV Studio’ App - Pinterest continues to expand its video capabilities, discreetly releasing the 'Pinterest TV Studio' app on both the Apple and Google Play stores earlier this week, albeit it is now only available to a limited number of users. With multiple camera capability, greater editing tools, and more, this program is meant to help live-stream creators improve their broadcasting setups.

2. TikTok Pulse - A New Option For Brands- TikTok Pulse is a new contextual advertising option, which means that your adverts will appear in the top 4% of all videos on the platform.

Your advertising can appear next to content in a user's For You stream, for example.

It gives you the ability to engage with the groups that are most relevant to you by allowing you to choose the category where your adverts appear. Currently, TikTok will offer 12 categories of Pulse for brands to choose where to show their content. Some of the categories included (but not all encompassing) are:

TikTok will apply an in-house inventory filter to ensure that your adverts appear next to high-quality content. They make certain that the content displayed is authenticated and of the greatest brand suitability on the site.

You'll be able to assess that impact in several ways, including through third-party verification. You’ll have access to these tools for post campaign measurement.

Source: https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-us/tiktok-pulse-is-bringing-brands-closer-to-community-and-entertainment 

  
3. Google Ends Support For Some Image and Video Sitemap Extensions - Google has announced that certain image and video sitemap extensions will be phased out. After assessing the value of the tags, Google decided to phase out the use of these sitemap extensions. After August 6, 2022, the deprecated tags and attributes will no longer be valid. In addition, the documentation for the deprecated tags and attributes has been removed. If publishers opt to leave the discontinued tags in their sitemaps, there will be no penalty or negative consequences.

These are the discontinued tags and attributes: 

Read the Official Notice of Image and Video Sitemap Deprecations here.

4. What Is The Reason For Core Web Vitals Scores Flux? - Google's John Mueller explains why fundamental web vitals scores fluctuate despite the fact that online pages remain unchanged. There are two types of core web vitals scores, according to John:

a. Field Data - These are the primary web vitals scores that are collected from real-world visitors to a website. The goal of Field Data is to display the real-world user experience of actual site users.

b.Lab Data - These are the main web vitals scores that a simulated visit generates. A Google Lighthouse bot will visit the page being tested, and an algorithm will simulate the visit as if it were made on a mobile phone with a slow internet connection.

And Google uses Field data for the core web vitals score.

According to John Mueller, there are a slew of other elements that influence the basic web vitals scores, and many of them are out of our control.

Google's Web.dev website provides an explanation of why field data is always changing and not necessarily consistent from month to month.

Source: https://youtu.be/p9CTwNA66V0 

5. Google Answers If Meta Description Matters For Rankings - The question of whether a meta description can be used to impact search rankings was answered by Google's John Mueller.

John Mueller answered:

“So the meta description is primarily used as a snippet in the search results page. And that’s not something that we would use for ranking. But obviously, having a good snippet on a search results page, that can make it more interesting for people to actually visit your page when they see your page ranking in the search results.”

Source: https://youtu.be/p9CTwNA66V0?t=1607 

6. Meta Updates Reels Monetization Options to Better Incentivize Creators - YouTube already has its Partner Program, which serves as a complement to Shorts, as well as its Shorts Fund, and TikTok just took its first steps toward a revenue share program for top creators. And now, Meta is sweetening the deal for Reels with an update to its Reels Play Bonus program, which will restructure its payouts process, as well as a new 'Challenges' option for Facebook Reels, which will give you more possibilities to make money from your short movies.

Meta hasn't given a detailed explanation of how its calculations will change, but the upgrade appears to be targeted at rewarding smaller-scale entrepreneurs rather than the huge players who take up all of the money.

For example, if someone has a million followers, reaching whatever engagement requirement set for Reels incentives will be considerably easier for them, which disadvantages rising stars and those wanting to establish themselves in the field. By taking into account unpredictability and possibly compensating producers based on some form of engagement per viewer ratio, the program could become more egalitarian and encouraging.

In addition, Meta is launching "Challenges" on Facebook, which is "a new incentive that lets Reels Play bonus program creators uncover new methods to earn up to $4,000 in a given month."

While creator funding programs sounds awesome, they are not scalable. Thus Meta announced that:

7. Meta Is Adding New Ad Formats And Tools For Small Businesses - During National Small Business Week, Meta added new lead generation and content sharing options for small businesses. Over 70% of people want to be able to engage with businesses in the same way they communicate with friends and family: through messaging, according to Meta. Meta is using this new data to create Facebook and Instagram advertising that can be created directly from the WhatsApp Business app. The mailbox receives the second messaging update. By combining all messaging systems into one inbox, Meta is simplifying business communications. It will also include WhatsApp messages in the future. The most recent messaging update allows you to deliver promotional message adverts straight through the Meta Business Suite to clients who have opted into communication.

Meta is also introducing a slew of new tools to assist businesses in capturing and managing leads on the platform. Quote Requests on Instagram, Lead Filtering with Instant Forms, Creative Flexibility, Gated Content, and Partner Integrations are some of the features available. 

On Instagram, the Quote Request is presently being tested with a few businesses. It basically lets businesses to put a "Get Quote" button to their Instagram profile as well as stickers to their Instagram Stories. 

Lead screening will be available to businesses in the near future. This will be accomplished by going over the answers to a multiple-choice question. 

Meta is also putting its Instant Form to the test in order to improve personalisation. Selected firms can experiment with adding pictures and content to their Instant Forms, providing more visual information to consumers.

Companies will soon be allowed to access gated content. SMBs can provide resources to leads when they fill out the Lead Ad form by providing gated content. This allows the user to stay on the platform without leaving it.

While all of these elements are currently in testing, Meta is having a conference called Conversations on May 19th to further discuss them. You'll be able to get additional information on the above tools and services once you've registered.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/business/news/introducing-new-ads-and-messaging-tools-for-small-businesses 

8.  LinkedIn Updates Their Content Ranking Algorithm - LinkedIn now allows users to filter out stuff that they aren't interested in. Individual postings can be marked as "I don't want to see this," and content from specific authors can be minimized. Users will also be able to control how much political content appears in their news feed. It will try to prioritize quality postings and activities over comments or actions that members will not find beneficial.

LinkedIn’s feed will now show more of:

LinkedIn’s feed will show less of:

Source: https://blog.linkedin.com/2022/may/5/keeping-your-feed-relevant-and-productive