Bob’s Weekly Reading Picks
2019.7.7 volume 26
Content
1.The Instagram Engagement Report 2019
2.11 of the Best Ecommerce Stats from 2019
3.All Links are Not Created Equal: 20 New Graphics on Google’s Valuation of Links
4.Gizmodo: Generating Scalable Revenue through Powerful Audience Engagement
5.Social Media Video Specs 2019: Your Complete Guide With Helpful Optimisation Tips
6. SEO Basics: A Noob‐Friendly 5‐Step Guide to SEO Success
7.盘点:2019年上半年跨境电商资本角逐大戏轮番上演!
1.The Instagram Engagement Report 2019
2. 11 of the Best Ecommerce Stats from 2019
3. All Links are Not Created Equal: 20 New Graphics on Google’s Valuation of Links
- Links From Popular Pages Cast More Powerful Votes
- Links “Inside” Unique Main Content Pass More Value than Boilerplate Links
- Links Higher Up in the Main Content Cast More Powerful Votes
- Links With Relevant Anchor Text May Pass More Value
- Links from Unique Domains Matter More than Links from Previously Linking Sites
- External Links are More Influential than Internal Links
- Links from Sites Closer to a Trusted Seed Set May Pass More Value
- Links From Topically Relevant Pages May Cast More Powerful Votes
- Links From Fresh Pages Can Pass More Value Than Links From Stale Pages
- The Rate of Link Growth Can Signal Freshness
- Google Devalues Spam and Low-Quality Links
- Link Echos: The Influence Of A Link May Persist Even After It Disappears
- Sites Linking Out to Authoritative Content May Count More Than Those That Do Not
- Pages That Link To Spam May Devalue The Other Links They Host
- Nofollowed Links Aren’t Followed, But May Have Value In Some Cases
- ManyJavaScript Links Pass Value, But Only If Google Renders Them
- If A Page Links To The Same URL More Than Once, The First Link Has Priority
- Robots.txt and Meta Robots May Impact How and Whether Links Are Seen
- Disavowed Links Don’t Pass Value (Typically)
- Unlinked Mentions May Associate Data or Authority With A Website
4. Gizmodo: Generating Scalable Revenue through Powerful Audience Engagement
“Commerce Editor”, someone independent of both Editorial and Advertising.
Our Commerce segments were originally editorial franchises:
- Deals (discounts or promotions)
- Gear (reviews or recommendations)
- Co-Op (audience votes on the best products in any given category)
There’s always been an advertising and editorial tension
There was a point in 2015 where affiliate revenue grew to the point where it covered the entire budget of editorial.
What’s next for Gizmodo?
We’ve just launched The Inventory, our new home for qualitative commerce content including reviews, roundups, gift guides, and travel and credit card coverage. This blows open the opportunity for us to do everything from video and interviews to events.
We also launched the first Facebook Deals bot.
Additionally, we launched a Facebook Deals group.
What’s the size of the Gizmodo user base? And, how do you acquire new audiences?
All of our commerce content is hosted on commerce specific sites and then shared to our 16 blogs. Our CMS allows for easy sharing of content across our network.
How much real estate to give Commerce Content is the biggest tug of war at publishers seeing success in this space right now.
You mentioned the deals focus. Some brands, for various reasons, may be sensitive to discounts or deals. Yet, they still want to work with you. How do you manage that?
We’re going to serve the readers. This isn’t advertising.
There’s no stretching what we do to facilitate working with a brand, but with our push beyond deals, there are a lot more opportunity to work with us on things like video, podcasts, events, etc.
What else should brands be cognizant of when working with Gizmodo and its audience?
Retailers need to be prepared to be competitive with commission rates, run publisher-exclusive discounts, provide product for review, and understand they have no influence on content (at least in our case).
5. Social Media Video Specs 2019: Your Complete Guide With Helpful Optimisation Tips
Regular Facebook Feed Video:
Recommended size: 1280 by 720 pixels
Minimum width: 600 pixels
Supported aspect ratios: 16:9 (horizontal), 9:16 (full portrait), 2:3 (vertical), 4:5 (vertical), square (1:1)
Recommended specs: Videos should also utilise H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128kbps+. Your videos can be as long as 240 minutes, as large as 4GB large, and have a maximum frame rate of 30fps.
Facebook In-Stream Video Ads
Recommended size: 1280 by 720 pixels
Minimum size, landscape video: 600 by 315 pixels (1.9:1 aspect ratio)
Minimum size, square video: 600 by 600 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio)
Recommended specs: .MP4 or .MOV format, maximum file size 4GB, maximum length 120 min, maximum frame rate 30fps
Instagram in-feed video and video ads
Square video: 600 by 600 pixels (1:1 aspect ratio)
Horizontal video: 600 by 315 pixels (1.9:1 aspect ratio)
Vertical video: 600 by 750 pixels (4:5 aspect ratio)
Recommended specs: .MP4 or .MOV format. See the complete list of file formats. The maximum file size is 4GB, maximum length 60 seconds, maximum frame rate 30fps.Your video should not exceed 4GB in size, must be within ratio limits, have H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128kbps+.
Instagram Stories Video Ads
Recommended size: 1080 by 1920 pixels
Minimum size: 600 by 1067 pixels
Supported aspect ratios: 16:9 to 4:5 and 9:16
Recommended specs: .MP4 or .MOV format, maximum length 15 seconds, maximum file size 4GB. See the complete list of file formats
YouTube Video Player Specs
Recommended sizes:
- 426 by 240 pixels (240p)
- 640 by 360 pixels (360p
- 854 by 480 pixels (480p)
- 1280 by 720 pixels (720p)
- 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p)
- 2560 by 1440 pixels (1440p)
- 3840 by 2160 pixels (2160p)
Minimum size: 426 by 240 pixels
Maximum size: 3840 by 2160 pixels
Supported aspect ratios: 16:9 and 4:3
Recommended specs: .MOV, .MPEG4, MP4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP, or WebM, maximum file size 128GB, maximum 12 hours long.
YouTube Video Ads
Skippable video ads: maximum length of 12 hours, skippable after 5 seconds
Unskippable video ads: max length of 15, 20 or 30 seconds
Mid-roll video ads: minimum length of 30 seconds
Bumper video ads: maximum length of 6 seconds
Important: In 2017, YouTube announced it would remove unskippable 30 second ads in 2018. You can, however, use TrueView ads that run to a maximum of 30 seconds.
Tip: Aim to make your ads as compelling as possible by using call to action text and interactive elements.
6. SEO Basics: A Noob‐Friendly 5‐Step Guide to SEO Success
Step 1: Learn what your customers are actually searching for
a) Figure out the most popular way people search for your business
b) Understand other ways people may be searching for the same thing
c) Delve deeper into the more granular searches your customers are making
d) Find popular and engaging topics in your field
e) Expand your keyword list by looking literally anywhere else
f) Understand the metrics behind the keywords you’re targeting
Step 2: Create pages optimized for search
a) Create content that aligns with ‘search intent’
-
Navigational
-
Informational
-
Transactional
b) Use short, descriptive URLs
c) Create compelling meta titles and descriptions
d) Use headers and subheaders to create a logical structure
e) Optimize your images
f) Set up Schema
Step 3: Make sure your website is accessible to both search engines and humans
a) Make sure your website loads fas
b) Make sure your website is mobile‐friendly
c) Install an SSL certificate
d) Create a sitemap
e) Upload a robots.txt file
f) Internally link between relevant posts and pages
Step 4: Build backlinks from other websites
a) Swipe links from inferior content
b) Broken link building
c) Guest blogging
Step 5: Tracking your SEO success
a) Measure organic traffic
b) Track your rankings
7. 盘点:2019年上半年跨境电商资本角逐大戏轮番上演!
上市与退市
1、3月,中信公告表示,传音控股拟在科创板上市。
2、3月,社交电商平台云集向美国SEC提交上市招股书,代码为YJ。
3、亚马逊供应商东莞市奥海科技股份有限公司,3月有消息称,正准备在A股上市。
4、4月,跨境大卖“安克创新”拟冲刺创业板IPO。
5、4月,非洲电商巨头Jumia上市。
6、5月,据路透社引知情人士透露,阿里巴巴正考虑在香港二次上市,筹资至多200亿美元。
7、6月,跨境电商知名品牌Anker供应商的深圳耳机制造企业豪恩声学,正筹备在创业板上市。
8、时尚电商Zalora母公司拟上市,或将筹资3亿欧元继续投入电商业务。
9、深圳市傲基电子商务股份有限公司自2019年4月16日起在全国中小企业股份转让系统终止挂牌。
10、6月,杭州跨境电商企业安致股份计划退出新三板。
11、印度最大电商Flipkart拟赴美上市,欲筹资50亿美元。
收购和并购
2019年上半年,跨境电商行业时不时传来收购、并购的消息。其中包括:
1、2月,WorldFirst与蚂蚁金服完成所有权变更,WorldFirst成为蚂蚁金服集团全资子公司。
2、3月,总部位于德国的物流服务提供商Rhenus收购了加拿大国际物流公司Rodair。
3、3月18日,美国金融科技服务运营商FIS宣布将以350亿美元收购电子支付服务运营商Worldpay。
4、中东电商平台Noon已于4月完成了对迪拜时尚电商平台Sivvi的收购。
5、5月,起步股份拟购买泽汇科技88.5714%股权,估值15.9亿。
6、5月,Shopify收购批发采购平台Handshake
7、6月,华凯创意拟通过发行股份及支付现金的方式购买深圳市易佰网络科技有限公司90%股权并募集配套资金。
8、印尼电商巨头Tokopedia在6月收购了本土婚纱电商平台Bridestory及其旗下的儿童活动平台Parentstory。
跨境电商企业投资与融资
回看上半年,跨境电商行业在资本市场的融资事件也是持续不断:
1、跨境金融科技公司启赟金融(iPayLinks)于今年年初完成数亿元B1轮融资。
2、继2018年9月完成数亿人民币C轮融资,跨境支付公司PingPong于2019年上半年完成新一轮融资。
3、福建纵腾网络有限公司于3月6日宣布完成B轮7亿元人民币融资。
4、3月,顺丰控股以400万美元投资缅甸物流公司KOSPA Limited,抢占东南亚市场。
5、3月26日,全球跨境支付平台 Airwallex宣布获得1亿美元C轮融资。
6、中东电商平台Awok.com 4月8日宣布完成自创立以来的第一轮外部融资,金额达3000万美元。
7、6月,中东母婴电商Sprii宣布获得850万美元A轮融资。
8、继2019年3月初,宣布完成B轮融资之后,6月29日,纵腾集团再获B+轮融资。