B2B Marketing News: B2B User Reviews, Instagram’s New Branded Reels, Writing To Reward, & Google’s Refined Smart Bidding

Instagram turns influencer branded content on its head, giving advertisers greater control
Instagram has rolled out features that will give digital marketers new branded content options for its Instagram Reels and Live products, the Facebook-owned social media platform recently announced. AdAge

Write to Reward Your Reader
The Harvard Business Review takes a look at the role and power of rewarding your reader in writing, an element that applies especially well for the material content marketers write. Harvard Business Review

Google Ads’ Smart Bidding Enhances Predictions & Insights
Google has launched updated features to its Google Ads offering, with new smart bidding to offer more relevant predictions and new insights, the search giant recently announced. Search Engine Journal

Only A Tiny Fraction of Ad Spending is Allocated to Media Focused on African Americans
The top 20 advertisers increased advertising spending by 15.6 percent between 2011 and 2019, yet only a small portion of overall ad spend has been focused on this demographic, according to recently-released survey data. MarketingCharts

Instagram’s Testing a new FAQ Option for Direct Interactions with Business Accounts
Instagram has conducted tests for a more interactive frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) offering, a new feature that would give brands a new way to reach customers on Instagram, the social media platform recently announced. Social Media Today

Hubspot and Howard University partner for Center of Digital Business
HubSpot and Howard University have joined forces to create a new Center of Digital Business, focusing on experiential learning opportunities, the organizations recently announced. Marketing Land

Instagram will exceed 1 billion users worldwide this year, a milestone originally predicted for 2023
Instagram is poised to top the one billion user mark this year, which represents an estimated year-over-year user base growth up from 8.4 percent to 22.9 percent for 2020, according to recently-released report data. Business Insider

YouTube Will Start Inserting Ads into Non-Monetized Content, Updates Rules Around Facial Recognition
Creators using YouTube may begin seeing ads in their non-monetized videos, a change announced in the Google-owned video platform’s newly-updated terms of service. Social Media Today

The Most Popular Email Clients in 2020
A newly-released survey of web-mail clients shows that the two most popular email clients, Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Gmail, have a combined 65 percent share. MarketingProfs

Study Finds Disconnect Between B2B Marketers And Buyers
B2B buyers find more value in user reviews, product tours, and videos, while many B2B marketers continue to prioritize long-form written content, according to recently-released survey data of interest to digital marketers. MediaPost

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE:

A lighthearted look at “brand purpose marketing” by Marketoonist Tom Fishburne — Marketoonist

A New Study About Color Tries to Decode ‘The Brain’s Pantone’ — Wired

TOPRANK MARKETING & CLIENTS IN THE NEWS:

• TopRank Marketing — 2021 CX retail trends: How to defy the decline of brick-and-mortar — The Future of Customer Engagement & Experience
• TopRank Marketing — 14 Expert B2B Influencer Marketing Predictions for 2021 — Brian Solis
• Lee Odden — Advice for Influencers from Brands and Agencies — Jason Falls
• Lee Odden — How to Create Your B2B Digital Marketing Strategy for 2021 (and beyond) — Stream Creative
• Lee Odden — 60 Best SEO Quotes From Experts And Influencers — Himanshu Tyagi

Have you found your own favorite B2B marketing story from the past week of industry news? Please let us know in the comments below.

Thanks for joining us for this abbreviated Thanksgiving holiday week edition of the B2B marketing news, and we hope that you’ll return again next Friday for another full round-up of the most relevant B2B and digital marketing industry news. In the meantime, you can follow us at @toprank on Twitter for even more timely daily news.

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