Weekly Digital Roundup (3.17.14)

This week marks the start of spring, and Google sprang into action with a fresh redesign and other budding features. Without further ado, here’s what we found to be the biggest news, so you may comfortably remain snuggled under a rock.

Music to Our Eyes

In perfect timing with the music portion SXSW, Google added concert information to musicians knowledge graph displays. So now if you want to find an artists tour information, all you've got to do is Google their name and their upcoming show info pops up in the knowledge graph on the right side of your screen. Give it a shot!

SERP Spring Cleaning

Google revamped their search engine results page display, removing clutter like underlined type. The new layout features larger titles and a new ad label they had been testing on mobile, in an effort to have consistency across platforms. Many are wondering, though, how this will affect meta data and other SEO elements. Moz goes into detail here.

Can Facebook Ads Outperform TV?

According to Coca-Cola executives in France, the brand's Facebook ad campaign brought in 3.6 times the ROI than TV ads. However, Coke stated that although Facebook ads outperformed its TV counterpart, the brand is not about give up on TV, for it's a combination of the two that really made the campaign successful. Coke's Marketing Director Manuel Berquet said, "Now we know that beyond just encouraging conversations, Facebook's targeting capabilities and engaging ad units also make it an effective sales channel."

Data Brings the Dollars

Twitter will soon be tapping into your user purchase behaviors to improve its ad platform. They've partered with Datalogix to gain access to rich databases of personal information, including over 1,500 retailer customer loyalty cards. By matching up user email lists, Datalogix is able to cross-reference their database to match users who saw a promoted tweet with users who actually buy products. This new retailer feature will be launched within the coming months, but we're mostly excited to have more of our data flying around.

UGC for the Win

A recent study by Crowdtap reveals that millennial consumers trust user-generated content, and are more likely to remember the message compared to content shared through traditional media sources. Crowdtap's COM Anna Sassoway says, "The best social marketing is not publishing itself, but inspiring others to publish content about them." Brands are increasingly looking to influencers to create and spread content, and lucky for them, it's a convenient shift in responsibilities.Go get fluthered, Irish friends!