SEO Wash-up Monday 29th January

Facebook will bar publishers and creators from using its branded content tagging tool to promote content

Facebook dropped the branded content restrictions two years ago and brought out a branded content tagging system. Marketers pay publishers and creators to publish on their own pages that promotes the marketers business. The number of publishers and creators posting branded content was rising each month last year, according to Facebook.

The branded content policy on Facebook will be rolled out to bar publishers and creators from being paid to post content that they were not involved in creating. The changes will take place sometime in March, Facebook will limit the reach of branded content on Facebook and Instagram that violates the policy and, if publishers or creators continue to violate it, may eventually limit or eliminate their access to Facebook’s monetization tools like the labelling tool used to tag a piece of branded content.

So how would Facebook identify when a piece of branded content violates its updated policy?

Facebook will depend on a system that they have developed which will use various signals to recognize a business relationship between two Pages. It is designed to be able to distinguish between a creator posts that link to an article from an unaffiliated publisher that features a business but not the creator against a link to an article from an unaffiliated publisher that features both the business and the creator. However, pages that are found violating Facebook’s policy will be notified and able to appeal the decision.

Apple to finally release its HomePod smart speaker

Although apple have missed the holiday shopping period, they will finally be releasing their HomePod smart speaker in February. It will first be available in the US, the UK and Australia and at a later date wit will be in France and Germany. As the price is higher and with a very late entrance, they will be an underdog when compared to Amazon and Google.

Reports have proven that there are more than 40 million smart speaker units already in US homes, and the majority of which are Amazon Alexa devices. However, there are roughly 125 million households in the United States of America, so the market is far from finished, and there’s some indication of demand for HomePod.

Apple has no actual lower-end offering and has positioned its HomePod as a premium speaker, which competes with Sonos. Also Apple is using HomePod to promote Apple Music. However, Unlike the Google Home or Alexa, HomePod won’t be able to make calls, but it will function as a high-end speakerphone for iPhones.

Apple is playing up the security and privacy angle to promote HomePod only after ‘Hey Siri’ is recognized locally on the device will any information be sent to Apple servers, encrypted and sent using an anonymous Siri identifier. As some privacy concerns have been raised about the Google Home and Alexa devices that is always listening or recording conversations in the background.