We’re back with the highlights and changes happening this week in digital marketing!

Did you notice a drop in your Facebook conversions? No, it’s not you, it’s Facebook.

We’ll get you up to speed and introduce you to a few exciting updates from the world of social media marketing.

  1. Facebook Pixel Outage
  2. Video Polls and AR Ads
  3. Pinterest Lens Update Strengthens Social Selling
  4. 20 Ways to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Blog

Did you catch last week’s episode of Live at the Hive: Digital Marketing from the Trenches?

Our team of marketing experts dive right into these updates and how they should change your social strategy. You can watch the replay right here.

Facebook Confirms Pixel Outage Impacted Results

Facebook is in the spotlight (surprise, surprise) with a Pixel outage from September 16th-17th.

  • Reportedly, the outage has caused some errors with Conversions, Custom Audiences, and Dynamic Ads volume.
  • Most advertisers and marketers have limited access to representatives when things like this happen, so if you’ve filed a dispute you’re probably on a very long wait-list.
  • The reason the outage is public is that Andrew Foxwell shared his message from his Facebook representative.

Be sure to take note of this anomaly for reporting purposes if you noticed any decline in the above areas.

Facebook Invites People and Businesses to Play

Other than the Pixel outage, Facebook gave us two more intriguing advertising updates:

  1. Video polling ads
    • With the success of Instagram’s polling stickers, Facebook is now rolling out this feature into video ads.
    • You will be able to ask questions at specific points during a video and gain valuable insights on things like pain points and products
    • According to Facebook, video poll ads are seeing more brand awareness than normal video ads.
  2. AR Ads
    • People are increasingly using face filter and other AR filters on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram.
    • During testing, 63% of those surveyed said they have used a brand’s AR Experience.
    • Facebook is now rolling out their AR Ads beta testing globally (at last!)
    • This creates another way businesses can interact with their customers while increasing engagement for the dollar.

Pinterest Lens Update Strengthens Social Selling

If you’re in the fashion or home design industry, this update is for you.

  • Pinterest has updated its Lens and Pinterest visual search.
  • It can now identify more than 2.5 billion home and fashion pins.
  • You can also use the lens offline and search for it later.
  • Now shoppable Pins are available through the Lens too, meaning if you see it, you can buy it (both on and offline).
  • These Product Pins bring you right to check out and they can show you similar products from that pin.

This update is big news for marketers who are using Pinterest in their lead generation funnel.

It’s a much-needed link between top-of-funnel content and bottom-line sales

20 Ways to Increase Organic Traffic to Your Latest Blog Post

So many hours are poured into content creation, but who is going to see that post if it’s not optimized? Not promoted? Not repurposed?

The digital training ground Marketer Knows has solved this problem for copywriters and WordPress managers by creating a 20-step checklist for getting more views (and leads) from your blog content. This checklist will help you:

  • Improve your keyword ranking
  • Achieve Rich Snippet features
  • Generate more qualified traffic
  • Reduce bounce rates – Increase number of pages per session – increase average time on page

Read the full walkthrough here and download your own checklist for free.

This week in digital taught us to watch for bug updates, not just fancy new features we can test out. It’s important to stay on the pulse of what these platforms and tools are doing, after all, they do shape our strategies and results.

Want to know what other professionals think about this week’s updates? Watch the latest episode of Live at the Hive: Digital Marketing from the Trenches on Facebook, Periscope, and YouTube!

Missed last week in digital? Catch up here for everything you missed.

And, don’t forget to join the L@TH community for episode reminders and freebies.