Marketers of the Universe: A digital marketing podcast

Google’s March 2024 Core Update, and are things trending up for TikTok?

• Brew Digital • Season 1 • Episode 12

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Welcome to another episode of Marketers of the Universe, where this time we're looking at Google's new attitude towards AI generated content, and TikTok's burgeoning role as a search engine and viable marketing platform.

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Generative AI promises to be one of the best consumer unlocks since the introduction of the internet, but before that, we need to deal with its many, many abuses. One such issue is the use of AI to generate copy that is hijacking Google search results with irrelevant, spammy content. Well, the search giant has had enough, and the March 2024 Core Update aims to reduce “unhelpful” content that’s been written for search engines, not humans.  SEO experts ShinRoo Chao and Jason Morris talk us through what this means for businesses.

Meanwhile, TikTok continues to dominate conversations – positively and negatively. Although the threat of a US ban looms, the video platform continues to expand in popularity. Young people are increasingly turning to TikTok as a search engine, and marketers are started to find success in B2B advertising. With Mark Bundle hosting, we talk to social media managers Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira and  Saufi Mohd Nor, alongside paid media manager Ross Stratton to find out if TikTok is the place to be. 

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Further reading
How to choose the right marketing channel for your campaign
Elevate customer engagement through personalised content marketing
Everything marketers need to know about the possible TikTok ‘ban’ in the USA
Meet Mark Bundle, a new host of Marketers of the Universe

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Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

If you are a company that is focusing on younger generations, what you need to prepare for is that, eventually, because of their culture, because of the way that they consume content, the younger generations will also explore alternative platforms.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Welcome to the latest episode of Marketers of the Universe podcast. We're here today to look at two giants of the digital marketing ecosystem. Firstly, back in March, google gave everyone a two-month window to adhere to their new site reputation policies. So we've got our SEO team in to break down all of that information into something that's a little bit more digestible and hopefully we can send you away with some tips on making sure that you're not penalized and you can make it a positive rather than a negative. And our senior email marketing manager, mark, will also be hosting a talk where we look at the mammoth that is TikTok. So, whether you're an avid user, whether you're a lurker or, like me, you're a devout avoider of TikTok, there'll be some kind of insight into everything from digital marketing strategies through to the looming TikTok ban in the US and what that could mean for businesses like yours.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Lots to discuss today. So let's get on with the podcast. For our first topic, today we are looking at Google's March 2024 core update, reducing unhelpful content by 40% and trying to just demystify that a little bit. On our panel today we have our two SEO marketing managers we have Xinru Chao and we have Jason Morris. Welcome team, do you want to take a minute just to introduce yourself. Xinru, do you want to go first?

ShinRoo Chao:

Hi everyone, I'm Xinru. I'm the SEO marketing manager at Brute Digital, so our SEO team is used to help our clients to get more organic visibility in search war. So nice to be on the topic and hopefully can give away something useful.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Thank you and welcome, jason, hello.

Jason Morris:

Yeah, so I came on board nearly a year ago now to cover Shenrou's maternity cover and now I'm full-time, and Shenrou's full-time, and we have an SEO team and we kick ass.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

So let's kick things off. Could you explain what the main features of Google's March 2024 updates? What are they trying to accomplish with these changes?

ShinRoo Chao:

Yeah. So, as we know, Google regularly updates policies or systems just to effectively improve user social experience, which they are really care about, and so on 5th March, google's March 2024 core updates. They are trying to tackle low quality content and they also introduced new spend policies targeting those with so-called manipulative tactics. So, as I checked one second ago, the rollout is still going, so it's not complete yet. Google's search engine relationship team the rollout is still going, so it's not complete yet.

ShinRoo Chao:

Google's search engine relationship team the very famous John Mueller mentioned about this rollout could take up to one month. So today is exactly one month, so we can check later if the rollout will be complete. As for the new spam policies they target, like scale content abuse, site reputation abuse and also expired domain abuse. This update policy will focus on those abusive behavior of producing content at scale to boost search ranking, regardless whether it's like automation, with so-called AI generate content, or human or a combination of both are involved. So they're trying to accomplish with this change to improve the quality and the healthfulness of the searching result. So that's something we can definitely pay more attention on the content quality.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

And Jason, just to bring you into the conversation.

Jason Morris:

Yeah, so, similar to what Shimro's just said, what Google are doing now with this new update launch is basically removing a lot of websites that exist that are just crap, something that they do anyway and continually do so. These websites can be things that, yeah, they're trying to manipulate search. As shimru said, it's just not a useful user experience when you search for something and you have a website which just doesn't have the content there. When a user lands on that website and they don't spend a lot of time on it or they don't click through it, they have a bad experience. Google wants to remove these websites. I believe that they are making this announcement to be more part of the AI revolution which is happening.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Looking at those spam reduction policies, you've kind of alluded to them. Could we just go into a little bit more detail around what each of one of those are? So if we start with expired domain abuse, what is expired domain abuse?

ShinRoo Chao:

So the expired domain abuse is those aged websites, those old websites. So that means when the expired domain name is purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search ranking by hosting content that provide very little or no value to users, means you use the very famous name before but you put something which is not relevant. So that's the X-file domain abuse.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Is the scaled content abuse linked to people using AI quite irresponsibly? Could you explain to us what scaled content abuse is? So the thing?

Jason Morris:

with Google is they're just about to launch a new platform called SGE AI quite irresponsibly. Could you explain to us what scaled content abuse is? So the thing with Google is they're just about to launch a new platform called SGE, which is search generative experience, to be a part of the AI movement. And what AI does is it's still joining the dots, so it's finding different data and topics and things like that and then coming up with an answer. It hallucinates a bit, so it's not always true. So what Google is doing now is really having a massive cull of stuff that they are indexing and stuff that exists on the web. That isn't correct, because what AI can do is join dots and give you a result or something that might not be good.

ShinRoo Chao:

I saw some very interesting opinion on those AI generated content. I saw people say that AI is an original content because AI is kind of straight up to collect all the information and put together and give you all the information. It's kind of a plagiarized. So when Google say it's targeting original content, people think it means AI and other people say so. As Jason mentioned about the SGE, isn't it like Google are happy to plagiarize our content with SGE? So that's something we can? People outside or inside the SEO world are talking about this Because the scale content abuse is actually against use the automation to generate low quality or unoriginal content at scale. So that's quite interesting to know. Actually, all the social media, all the world mentioned AI in different way to use it, but they also want to stop the low quality content from AI generated.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

So actually it sounds like the big problem they're trying to crack down on is reducing that low quality and original content, regardless of whether it's AI or human generated.

Jason Morris:

That's Google's mantra, anyway is providing the best quality result for your search, and that's pretty much it. So when AI is coming in, they're having to do things now, such as remove all the bad crap indexed websites that exist and that have come about over the years for whatever reason. So that's why this March update is about better experience for AI-generated content, which still uses content from businesses and what they do. But yeah, if there's a lot of toxic, as they call it, websites or spammy websites, useless content I think their statement was reducing unhelpful content. So anything where someone searches for something and they get on a web page and they spend no time on it and they disappear, it's unhelpful, and if you have a link from that website coming to your site, that's now not not regarded as anything, which is great for an SEO team. You have to do backlink audits and remove all the toxic links, which is less of a challenge now, which is very good.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

I'm going to come back to site reputation abuse at the end, but I want to keep this content conversation going. Brands who are creating content right now and who maybe are using AI to create content how can they ensure that they're not penalized by this latest update?

ShinRoo Chao:

I think from Google mentioned, as long as the content is original, even if it's not helpful, it doesn't matter if it's from AI or from human or even both from AI or from human or even both, I think to avoid the penalty, definitely just always, always.

ShinRoo Chao:

Just look into what your user or your target audience want to know and what they are looking for and provide like really quality and value content on your website, because Google had confirmed quality is the most important ranking factor from a podcast last September and the quality affects the callability and indexation. We still call the search engines spider. They will call your website, but they will also evaluate the quality of the page and they will decide the priority which page to call first. So the quality is definitely the most important factor we need to look after. But, however, quality can't guarantee your rank on search result page because, just we think about, the ranking factor has like more than 200. So quality is the most important, but there are also other factors we need to take into consideration when we produce or create the content for our target audience.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

I think that's all really really useful information. And just jumping back to the site reputation abuse, obviously I'm coming from a slightly more generalist experience but from what I could see, this is something that's been quite a big problem with publishers and brands using publishers to potentially buy links or things like that. Can you explain to our audience just what site reputation abuses and where you see it having the biggest impact?

ShinRoo Chao:

yes, so the site reputation abuse, uh, we so call it parasite seo. So, like you mentioned, those big publisher, it's like when those trusted website host low quality or third-party content to capitalize on the hosting sites. Uh, for example, for this cnn, like those news website, so google's start to consider, like those low-value civil party content, like sponsor content or anything affiliate, to check if the content really provides value for the users. So it's not like every affiliate content or every paid content. They are not good and they want to penalize them. It's about those paid content. They don't provide value for the users. So definitely they give this to most notice for them to review the content and see if it's like relevant for the user search intent and is the content kind of providing valuable information for them.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Just to wrap things up, because we're kind of hitting our time limit now, just from both of you, can you give one piece of advice for brands who are creating content right now to go and do or make sure they're doing or continue doing, to make sure that they're doing what google wants and they're not going to be penalized by this latest update or the kind of direction that google are going in?

Jason Morris:

well, I think a summary for me is um, what google have stated as well is focus on EAT as a recommendation for any business or marketing agency, which is express your expertise, your authoritativeness, long word and trustworthiness. If you do that in a way that's positive and natural and organic, that's the way to go. So what google are going to be doing now is looking at more long tail searches and finding more genuine content. So, rather than what ai can produce if you put it into jack chat, gpt where's my nearest pie shop whatever you want to put in there, and then you copy and paste that content, google is trying to get away from that, where businesses will start using this kind of content. So if you're just more genuine, more honest, you're trustworthy, you, you gain links naturally and your content sounds more authentic. And google is very smart it will know if you're not natural anything to add to that shinru?

ShinRoo Chao:

yeah, I just want to say those new update, core updates from google sometimes are quite scary. I know everyone knows, and for core updates, actually not much the website owner can do. When it's rolling out the, the traffic can go up and down and the data already processed, but it often takes a while to understand how the updates will impact the site. So sometimes they probably can see the traffic showing the early signs, but don't draw the conclusion too early. Just wait for a few weeks to see what's the real impact and keep doing the right thing. So to conclude, and also like Jessen mentioned, always remove low-performing content and create high-quality and value content. That's always the right thing to do. Content.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

That's always the right thing to do and I'm going to pass over to Mark Bundle, who is going to host this session, around TikTok advertising.

Mark Bundle :

Over to you, mark. Hello, we are going to have a bit of a chat about TikTok. They're very public problems, but first, actually, what's something they're doing potentially quite well. Talking about this, we've got Debbie and Sophie from the social media team and russ from our paid media team, so hello to everybody and let's kick it off. Tiktok's recent uh marketing campaign has been kind of them as a search engine. Then promote themselves as a search engine. How them promoting themselves as a search engine? How do?

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

we use that as marketers. Debbie, do you want to kick us off? I think, from the point of view of a social media manager, which is what I do, we can leverage this by using the hashtags, relevant keywords and thinking really about your audience and how they consume content. Tiktok is great in terms of like providing content that actually is based on the data that you have been using for the past, so I think that's one way of making sure that, as a search engine, that's something that we are taking advantage of.

Mark Bundle :

Ross, go on. I can see what you're going to say.

Ross Stratton:

Because of TikTok's unique features. I think there's an easy trap to fall into, which is to just kind of make content off the back of trending topics. I have an image of Rich sat in an Adaptivist t-shirt reacting to the fallout from the JLO doc, which happens to be the trend topic of today. I've just checked. I think a smarter strategy would be kind of develop content that aligns with popular searches and queries, trending topics, things like how-to guides, tutorials and educational content that address kind of common user queries Just kind of making sure that your content provides value and solves problems for your target audience.

Mark Bundle :

That very much sounds like traditional SEO on a website and for kind of search rankings and things. So are we accepting that TikTok is a search engine then at this point?

Saufi Mohd Nor:

I think in a way, it depends really for marketers. You kind of have to rely on like which kind of industry is the search engine? Then? At this point, I think in a way it depends really for marketers. You kind of have to rely on like which kind of industry, what kind of product services do you have? For example, like I read this report from like adobe, like on like tiktok trends and all I use tiktok to like find new restaurants.

Saufi Mohd Nor:

So I thought, like most users use tiktok to search restaurants, but apparently it's not even the top five things that people search on TikTok which is surprising to me because I use that mostly for that. But the top five are like new recipe, new music, diy tips, fashion advice and all workout routines. And, of course, if we're talking about more like a software company or like a B2B company, you are on lower rank in terms of like what people search. So I think it is applicable, but as a marketer, you need to make sure that do my company have any presence, do we already start posting on it? So if people search on it will pop up and, of course, the basic things like do my industry or my product services already established some sort of like community and all so if you're like a food and beverage company, like new recipes, yeah, that's an easy like raw set like you know how to cooking recipe tutorial and stuff, so that would be easy way to kind of utilize that and that kind of leads into what I was going to ask next.

Mark Bundle :

Actually, traditionally, tiktok is seen as kind of a younger medium. It's a place where it got almost a rebellion against traditional social media, where young people went to avoid their parents. That's kind of. The audiences have been there, as you said, the trends and everything. So is the audience there? Is the community there ready for b2b marketers?

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

I'm super excited to answer this question, just because one of the clients that I'm working on right now one of the things that we pitched to them was actually inspired by the TikTok community of DevOps, interestingly. So, yeah, there are communities within TikTok that are B2B, they are professionals, they are actually working on niche content, so I think that there is no risk I mean, there is always a risk of you alienating a certain demographic if you focus on one thing too much, but I don't think that for businesses necessarily, it doesn't mean that TikTok is only for the Gen Z anymore. I think millennials are starting to adapt to it. I think there are different streams of content and topics that are popping up there, so I think that's something worth noting. But I think that if you are a company that is focusing on younger generations, what you need to prepare for is that eventually, because of their culture, because of the way that they consume content, the younger generations will also explore alternative platforms.

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

I don't know if anyone is familiar, but there's also a new one called Triller. It's the latest platform right now for consuming video content. It's something that is not snapshot outside of youtube shorts, outside of instagram reels. So, as you see, like, more and more things are popping up, so it really depends on how much you know, just making sure that you don't rely heavily on tiktok brilliant.

Mark Bundle :

I love the fact you've talked on where they're going to the next platforms as well, because obviously we talk an awful lot about b2B, but B2C might be targeting those kind of younger people, so Triller apparently is the next place to go. I didn't even know that existed, so that's fascinating. I want to talk a little bit more now about kind of the dark side of TikTok, so to speak. At the moment. Obviously they're in the news quite publicly with the ban looming in the US ban in air quotes. If you read into it, it's more so they want it to be sold to an American company. Based on. That is now the time to be exploring alternatives to TikTok is like Triller, for example.

Saufi Mohd Nor:

Selfie. Just kind of piggyback from what Debbie said is don't just kind of like also roster just now. Just don't just jump on TikTok just because it's fun, you think it's a cool thing, because if you do have the proper strategy, it really doesn't matter if, like any of other, like social media profiles, like banned, you'll survive it. You can still connect to your audience because you do know, like I'm on LinkedIn for this reason, I'm on Facebook for this reason, I'm on TikTok for this reason. So I think it's always good to have more alternatives than once.

Saufi Mohd Nor:

But I wouldn't like recommend people to just kind of like all right if for businesses who are like active on tiktok right now, don't just kind of abandon it out of nowhere just because you're scared it's going to be like be banned. Instead, maybe you can look into like okay, what worked for tiktok, because sometimes what worked for tiktok could also work for, like instagram reels. So that's you. You can kind of switch it a little bit, like test it out, you know, does it work? Like in case this is banned? I kind of already have like a backup plan already. But I wouldn't say like any business who are active on TikTok right now to make any harsh decision. You know, just stay active, but on the meantime just make sure you understand why you're on there and if you can kind of replicate whatever good content you have there on the other social media profile, brilliant.

Mark Bundle :

Thank you, ross, anything to add to that.

Ross Stratton:

The idea of kind of relying solely on one platform for content creation. Marketing carries risks and don't necessarily want to rely on one platform. It's important to kind of diversify your online presence, just so it mitigates the impact of any kind of disruptions like we're talking about. I think you shouldn't be active on other platforms anyway. As Staffie said, you shouldn't really go into panic mode and think, oh wow, we need to stop advertising on TikTok.

Mark Bundle :

So I think we've said it as a team, we've said this many a time know where your customer is and go to them. I guess the last thing I want to touch on is with the ban, is obviously the theory that the Chinese Communist Party, the CCP, are manipulating TikTok, manipulating the algorithm to impact voters, consumers, whoever you want to pick across the Western world, assuming that's true. Obviously there's no definitive evidence either way that I'm aware of. Assuming that's true, how does that impact you as a marketer or business? Does that mean you stay with TikTok? Does it mean you moderate your content? Debbie, what are your thoughts?

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

I think this is a big one, but in general, I think the algorithms of social media has been changing massively. There's a lot of movements within creators, artists, industries that are, you know, questioning algorithms are changing at the moment, but the one in particular, tiktok. It basically just puts us at risk in terms of like, how our content itself is distributed and also the visibility of your brand and your messaging Meaning to say that as a new brand, of your brand and your messaging Meaning to say that as a new brand, you are put at risk that your audience, that number will probably drop. That's the reality of it. But what I would say as well is that, if I look at the other platforms, one thing that I've seen communities are starting to do and users of other platforms and Instagram I'm talking about Instagram right now is that people just start to adapt and test a lot more.

Debbie Gacutan-Jardim De Oliveira:

So I see that content creators test a lot on videos that repeat itself quite frequently. That basically gives the algorithm an insight into like oh, this person is consuming content quite a lot because the video is playing quite repeatedly, or users that are putting quite a longer text form, which is actually not a best practice on social media before, because you have a longer text on your caption, people stay much longer on your post and therefore you know it then sends another signal to the algorithm to push your content out more. So I think, like what I'm trying to say here is that it will be affected, but as long as you prepare for it, as long as you're ready to experiment it which again what social media is all about as well it's always staying on your toes, keeping on and also trying to like mix up your content. I think you will be fine.

Saufi Mohd Nor:

On my end. I think I don't know, maybe this is jumping into conspiracy theory borderline already, but I do believe that at the end of the day, like any social media like really, it's kind of manipulated by a certain party I don't want to drop names but any social media really. So I don't think, like people like Debbie say, algorithm always change all the time. Whenever that is, for example, like Instagram back then, the moment they switched from like videos instead of pictures, the algorithm kind of changed. You know, you kind of have to adapt Anyway. So I think who manipulate algorithm shouldn't really like be a businessman concern. So I think it's more of like, how do you connect to your audience? So, for example, I started seeing using instagram example, like debbie as well, other than just stories, reels and wealth.

Saufi Mohd Nor:

There are a couple people, especially if they do influencer marketing, that they do have. These influencers have a subscribe option and then kind of posting on their followers who subscribe to them. So it's like becomes like a more group, private messaging and stuff. So I would say you just kind of have to like, know, like what are the ways, because even on tiktok, if you want to say like, oh, the main for you bitch is like manipulated and so on. But there are other features on tiktok. There are the tiktok story, there are the tiktok live stream, like you know. There are other ways for you to kind of engage with your community there. So it's more like about your strategy as a business and if you really know your audience, so it doesn't really matter who manipulate any social media platform, I think you'll you'll be able to find your audience and connect with them accordingly yeah, it's fantastic, and so obviously, everything's open to abuse.

Mark Bundle :

If you're using things properly, you use them properly. Brilliant ross. Anything to wrap us up I actually have nothing.

Ross Stratton:

Those are two perfect answers that I I refuse to follow.

Haydn Woods-Williams:

Well done guys that is all we've got time for today. Thank you so much for listening. Today's topics were both super, super fascinating and I'm going to go back and listen and make notes. We do hope you found some useful snippets in the session and you can go and put them into play in your own marketing strategies. Thank you for getting this far through the listens. We love making this content. We'd love it if you could go and recommend this to a friend or a colleague that you think would find it enjoyable. Thank you to the Brew Digital team for their research and input into today's session. Make sure to go check out our past episodes, subscribe on whatever platform you use to listen to our podcasts and we will see you on the next one. I've been Hayden and these guys are the marketers of the universe. Thank you.