1. Digital Avatars Now Available In TikTok - TikTok’s Avatars, now available via the ‘Effects’ panel in the camera view, enable users to create their own custom character depictions for use across the app. Per Tiktok:

“Choose from an array of hairstyles, accessories, piercings and makeup, to create a TikTok Avatar that reflects your personal look and style. After your Avatar is ready, you can start recording videos. As you gesture and move, your Avatar will mimic your motion.”

2. SEO Tool Yoast Is Adopting IndexNow Protocol - Yoast has reversed position and stated that they will now support Microsoft's open-source IndexNow search engine indexing protocol, which they previously dismissed.

IndexNow is an indexing technology that allows search engines to index websites very instantly. It's an open-source project that helps websites notify search engines when they have new or updated material.

3. Pin Posts on Your Instagram Profile - Instagram has now announced a new feature that allows you to pin posts to your profile, giving you another more way to customize your IG profile's appearance. A new 'Pin to Your Profile' option can be found in the three dots function menu at the upper right of any post.


4. New Way To Announce Your Product On Twitter - Twitter's Product Drops is a new feature that allows brands to alert their followers when a new product is released. This is the first time a social media network has offered such a tool. Followers will notice a "Remind me" button at the bottom of a merchant's tweet when the merchant announces a future launch. To be reminded of the launch date, they'll merely tap that button.

They'll get a notification in the app 15 minutes before and at the time of the drop on the product's debut day. They can shop for the product and (hopefully) get it in time by clicking the notification, which will take them to the merchant's website.

5. LinkedIn Audio Events Now Available To All Creators - LinkedIn is broadening audio-only live events, which were first offered in a beta test in January, to all users with Creator Mode enabled.

LinkedIn's response to the success of apps like Clubhouse and features like Twitter Spaces is audio-only live events.

They were always free to listen to for all LinkedIn members, and now anyone who activates Creator Mode can host their own audio events.

6. Promote Your LinkedIn Events Via Paid Ads - LinkedIn now allows you to amplify your event and increase attendance by boosting it for a fee. Last year, LinkedIn introduced the 'Boost' feature, which offered a simple and quick way to boost organic posts in the app. The function seeks to streamline ad spend, similar to Facebook's Boost approach, by allowing advertisers to leverage on early traction to expand their pitch.


7. LinkedIn Launches New ‘Business Manager’ - LinkedIn has announced a new Business Manager platform, which offers a centralized dashboard for managing 'people, accounts, and Pages,' as well as the marketing activities linked with them. People, Partners, Ad Accounts, and Company Pages, as well as Matched Audiences, are all managed separately on the new platform. It's effectively a stripped-down version of LinkedIn's paid Sales Navigator service, with the goal of getting more firms to sign up for a Sales Navigator membership by luring them with its basic brand management skills.

But even in its most basic version, there are some useful options here, including the ability to manage all of your LinkedIn activity from a one location. Here's where you can learn more about the new Business Manager platform and its features.

8. Google: No Added Benefit For Hosting Your Site On A CDN Unless.. - Is it true that placing a website behind a CDN boosts your ranking? When asked if hosting on a CDN, or content delivery network, has any SEO benefits, Google's John Mueller said the short answer is no; as long as your host is fast, you'll be OK; hosting on a CDN offers no further benefits.

If your crawl activity is slow and you have millions of pages, John Mueller says that speeding up your host or employing a CDN will enhance crawling and indexing, which has an indirect impact on your rankings and SEO.

But, according to John, "it doesn't matter in terms of SEO" if your server is already fast.

9. Google: Stop Chasing SEO Metrics - Over the years, we've seen Googlers downplay, invalidate, and even parody some SEO data. They've done it with both third-party and internal tools. But why do Google employees detest SEO metrics?

On Twitter, Google's John Mueller expressed his dissatisfaction with them, stating that many SEOs regard these SEO metrics as the ultimate SEO aim. Your SEO goals will be accomplished and you will be done whenever you reach a certain DA number, reduce your bad links by Y, or increase your keyword density by Z percent.

John said "The part I struggle with (with our tools too) is the desire to treat them as a goal of their own, or as a checklist." He said he has "nothing against third party metrics like these - and I'm sure they're made by smart, honest, & well-meaning folks." But he added "Simplifying them to a checklist ("fix toxic links") is misdirected work, selling them as such (which imo you don't do) is unfair towards everyone involved.

Instead focus on creating good quality content that answers your customers questions.

10. Google: Stop Putting Your Name In Image Alt Text - The majority of websites leave their image alt text blank. Some people want to save time by having their company name autofill any blank alt text. Google's John Mueller answered by saying that doing so "doesn't make sense" and would be a waste of effort.

By definition, alt text for an image is supposed to convey what the image is - it should describe the image for people who are unable to see it. Unless it is your corporate logo, simply typing in your company name does not describe the image.