Hump Day Headlines: Facebook Security and Secure URLs

By Art Unlimited.

We're also going to talk about Google and their new optimization tool, as well as events and how to leverage those for your business or organization.

Hello, welcome to today's edition of Hump Day Headlines! We’re excited to be here and share with you some changes within the industry, but we’re also going to bring in a little something different: we're going to talk about education. The topics today are Facebook and secure URLs.

You can either watch the video or read the transcript below. Plan to join us live each Wednesday on Facebook.

Facebook Cracks Down on Security

So, the first topic, Facebook. They have just said that as of October 6th, they're going to mandate that SSL Certificate are instituted on all URLs that have a link within a post. So basically, what that means is your URL is going to have to start with HTTPS in order to be included within any type of post within Facebook.

And I think that's really reflective of what we've been seeing Google doing, and how they’ve been saying, "This is an algorithm signal that this site is not secure," on countless platforms.

And after Google rolled out and said "We're going to show a gray screen if you don't have an SSL certificate in place to users, so they enter at their own risk,” Facebook's is taking it a step further and they're saying, "Hey, we're not even going to include a link that is not secure.” So that's, I think, a really bold move but a wise one.

Art Unlimited clients are ahead of the curve on this; they are all under the HTTPS umbrella. If your website is not, make sure to check on that and contact your website development or marketing team if you're not an Art Unlimited client. They are becoming harder and harder to come by and it is a big, big deal for your marketing overall.

Optimizing Your Google AdWords Score

Now, another thing that has rolled out in the past three to four weeks is Google AdWords is rolling out their new optimization score. It’s in beta form, it hasn't released to all accounts yet, and it is not available in the AdWords Express account. So, if you're not using the main Google AdWords tool, you won’t see it, in fact. You might not see it even in your normal AdWords account.

But it is rolling out throughout all AdWords’ accounts and it's giving helpful tips and tricks and actionable items to improve the optimization of your AdWords account, and make sure those ads are more visible to viewers. Now we are seeing this in multiple accounts on the Art Unlimited side, and we're taking those action items seriously, and making sure they're implemented to confirm that all of the AdWords accounts under our master umbrella are optimized and running efficiently. That'll make huge changes for our clients and we're excited about that.

Getting Your Marketing Ready for Anything

So, we were talking about how, you know, many times businesses and organizations will have events; maybe they're part of events, there are events within the community, and there are just natural events (such as natural disasters) that influence the lives we live and the businesses that we run or organizations we're part of.

And we have found that many times we don't capitalize on those events to the fullest opportunity. And in order to do that, you need to be very responsive; you need to engage with your marketing team and make sure that you're leveraging digital marketing because what if traditional marketing isn't a thing while that event is happening?

For instance, the hurricanes that we're seeing roll through. Right now, many people will be on their phones and looking for information about products or services that they feel the natural disaster may have impacted for their home or their community. So, you want to make sure that you're in coordination with your marketing community and that you’re advertising to those people as they're displaced, wherever they're going, make sure that your advertising is touching that area.

Oftentimes our advertising is very local, and you may not consider the fact that people will be outside of your local area during an event such as a natural disaster. And they of course have a lot of time to sit on their phones and be looking up information about how to best facilitate their needs as they get home after that disaster.

So, make sure that you're in correspondence and communicating with your marketing team.

Or if you're handling that yourself; make sure to consider that and take it into account when you're setting budgets, locations, and all these other things that your digital marketing so that your digital marketing is on top and providing the information that they need in this time.

It’s been a really hot topic here with the storms rolling through and a lot of our clients needing extra support. And so, if you have questions about that, contact us! Otherwise, thank you so much for joining us today for Hump Day Headlines!

We hope you join next week. Follow us on Facebook; search Art Unlimited, and you can watch our new video live every Wednesday!