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KIMP’s Picks 26th July: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

It’s Friday again and that means one thing – it’s time for KIMP’s Picks. Yes, the KIMP’s Picks 26th July Edition is here. This is our weekly social media roundup where we bring to you all the latest updates buzzing in the world of social media. From AI news to marketing inspiration and surprise social media algorithm changes, we have all the big updates right here.

So, no more FOMO. Are you ready for a quick social media recap? Let’s get the ball rolling. 

In the Marketing Realm 

Meta’s Holiday Marketing Guide is here 

Social Media Today is a go-to source for all the latest social media news and updates. They shared the below post summarizing the Holiday Marketing Guide shared by Meta. 

This guide is to help businesses get a head start on the holiday season. This new guide is packed with tips and insights. The guide gives a snapshot of the sales that happen on Meta platforms during the holiday season. 

It is loaded with interesting insights like the fact that almost 54% of shoppers find products and brands on Meta platforms and that nearly 55% of them have been influenced by Meta platforms when it comes to festive purchases. 

The guide also packs some tips for advertisers to start planning their holiday campaigns and reiterates the importance of AI tools and Reels in holiday marketing. 

Google is reversing its course with respect to Third-Party Cookies on Chrome 

In a surprising move, Google has announced it will not be phasing out third-party cookies in its Chrome browser as previously planned. Instead, Google will likely introduce a “new experience” that offers users more control over their privacy settings. As of now there are no concrete details about this new approach, but it appears users will be able to opt in or out of third-party cookie tracking. Digiday, a leading source of digital marketing news shared the below post discussing this move from Google. 

While the future of cookies continues to be unclear, Google remains committed to developing privacy-preserving alternatives. In fact, the company’s Privacy Sandbox initiative, which includes tools for targeted advertising without cookies, will continue to be a major focus.

Cadbury’s new campaign taps into nostalgia 

Ad Age has featured a new campaign from Cadbury discussing its brilliance. What makes this campaign special is that it has a unique way of blending old plus new. It makes the most of AI which is the latest craze and maintains a retro theme. 

This campaign comes as a part of the brand’s celebration of their 200-year anniversary. For this, they have created an AI tool that lets users upload their selfies to instantly create retro-themed posters with them. There is also a sweepstakes attached to the campaign promising a £200 reward for 25 lucky winners. 

So, if you are looking for ideas on creating a campaign that makes the most of the latest trends while boosting engagement, this is a great campaign to explore. If you are looking for ideas or insights on brand partnerships, this next post is for you. 

Reddit announces partnerships with major sports leagues 

Reddit recently announced a partnership program with major sports leagues like NFL, NBA, MLB, PGA, and NASCAR. This partnership aims to create a better experience for sports fans on Reddit by providing them with exclusive content like video highlights, AMAs with players, and behind-the-scenes videos. 

Additionally, this campaign also offers advertising opportunities for brands to connect with these engaged communities. This campaign comes as a reminder of the strength in communities, like the sports community leveraged in this case.  

We discussed online contests and brand partnerships. Next, we have a campaign inspiration for those working on influencer marketing strategies. 

A refreshing take on influencer marketing 

Ads of The World featured the below campaign recently. This is a campaign that leverages influencer marketing. The Austrian National Tourist Board launched a unique summer campaign called #iamAUT.

What sets this influencer campaign apart is that instead of the usual influencer content creation that looks staged and unauthentic, they sent European influencers on “offline vacations” where they put down their phones and truly experienced Austria.

In a way the campaign also highlighted the importance of disconnecting and enjoying a genuine vacation, thus appealing to people overwhelmed by social media. It also shows a refreshing new way to collaborate with influencers instead of the traditional models for content that looks too promotional. Now that’s something to explore when you collaborate with influencers in the future. 

Google is revamping its Merchant Center 

Search Engine Journal, an online publication that shares the latest search news and insights shared the below post discussing some changes coming to Merchant Center. 

Reportedly, ecommerce businesses around the world are in for a mandatory upgrade as Google is revamping its Merchant Center platform by September. The new Merchant Center is coming with an AI-powered makeover that promises improved product listings, data-driven insights, and a more user-friendly interface for online retailers.

The updates also include new features like Product Studio, Centralized Analytics, Redesigned Navigation, and others. It’s a good idea for brands to start preparing ahead because reportedly, these changes are likely to bring a significant increase in both user engagement and product offerings.

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Internal linking best practices 

The right internal linking strategies are crucial in content marketing. Google recently shared an insightful post that discusses the best practices for internal linking. 

From including meaningful and relevant anchor text to the strategic placement of links on the pages, and not using too many links, the video discusses several useful tips to improve internal linking. So, if you are working on improving your SEO, then this is a great video to check out. 

How do you future-proof your SEO? 

Search Engine Land shared a resourceful discussion on future-proofing SEO. Given the challenges that businesses are facing with the ever-evolving Search landscape and algorithm changes, brands are always on the lookout for ideas to optimize their SEO. 

The post discusses how established brands seem to be dominating Search recently implying that successful SEO now works best when integrated with overall brand marketing strategies. 

It also discusses the significance of multi-channel focus like tapping into paid advertising and social media for maximum impact. And finally, there is also a brief discussion about the need for relevant traffic instead of increased irrelevant traffic. 

In the Design Realm 

Adobe announces fresh updates coming to Photoshop & Illustrator

The posts below from Adobe focus on some useful updates to Photoshop and Illustrator. 

A few of these updates on Illustrator include:

  • Generative Shape Fill (beta) – to add detailed vector art to shapes by simply typing a description.
  • Text to Pattern (beta): to generate custom patterns from text descriptions.

And on Photoshop: 

  • Selection Brush Tool – to simplify object selection and manipulation for compositing and applying filters.
  • Adjustment Brush – for precise control for applying adjustments to specific areas of an image. 
  • Bullets & Numbering Type Tool – to apply bullet formatting to the text in the design. 

These are just a handful of the many updates that have recently been added. How many of them have you explored? 

A playful and versatile font idea 

Looking for font inspiration? Then here’s one that Google recently shared from the Google Fonts library. 

According to Google, Kalnia Glaze, designed by Frida Emgle is a unique display font that utilizes the capabilities of the COLRv1 font format to create stunning visual effects. 

A notable detail here is that the font incorporates smooth gradients and transparencies directly into the font itself. This eliminates the need for layering or additional effects software. Given that it’s a variable font, it lets you customize the style based on the requirements eliminating the need for hunting for other options. 

Branding design inspiration 

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest branding by Scandinavian design studio Bold offers valuable takeaways for brands looking to create a memorable identity. The Brand Identity regularly shares design projects that carry valuable design lessons for brands and they featured this recent branding design for Eurovision in their post here. 

What makes this design project stand out is their choice of blending two themes and how they have seamlessly achieved that. The design combines the mesmerizing aurora borealis with the dynamic patterns of a music equalizer to create a unique identity for the brand. There is also a classic typeface to represent the heritage of the brand. On the whole this design project exemplifies the use of unique themes to create a memorable identity for a brand. 

In the AI Realm 

OpenAI’s Rule-Based Rewards 

Most AI models continue to use human feedback loops to optimize the model and the results they deliver. However, to address the gaps in this approach, OpenAI has announced Rule-Based Rewards to optimize and train their models. Accordingly, the model compares the generated result with simple rules to ensure that the output meets safety standards. 

They have defined “hard refusals”, “soft refusals”, and “comply” decisions based on the type of requests the models have to handle. The featured post also includes examples of the different scenarios that the model might encounter and how they plan to tackle this through Rule-Based Rewards. 

Stability AI takes a big step in multi-angle video generation 

Stability AI introduces Stable Video 4D, a groundbreaking AI model that generates dynamic multi-angle videos from a single video input.

This new tool lets you upload a video and receive footage of the same object from eight different angles. It can generate 5 frames across 8 views in about 40 seconds. What’s more? You also get to specify camera positions to fine-tune the angles of views. The result is a set of high-quality novel-view videos. 

While the tool is currently in the testing phase, it is available on Hugging Face for experimentation. 

Meta announces Llama 3.1

Meta is taking its next big step in the world of AI with the announcement of Llama 3.1 405B model. This move marks a significant shift towards open-source development in the AI industry, traditionally dominated by closed-source models. 

All Llama 3.1 models benefit from a larger context window (128K tokens) and enhanced support for eight languages. Over 25 partners, including major cloud providers like AWS, NVIDIA, and Azure, have announced to offer services for Llama models from day one.

Here are the announcements from Google And Perplexity about the availability of Llama 3.1. 

According to Meta, this new model unlocks new possibilities for developers, such as generating synthetic data and distilling knowledge into smaller, more efficient models.

Perplexity now has a voice mode in its mobile apps 

Touted to be a great contender to replace Google in the search game, Perplexity has been advancing at a steady pace. 

On their X page, they recently announced that the Perplexity app on iOS and Android will now have a Voice Mode. Given that most other popular AI models now have multi-modal capabilities, the introduction of Voice Mode in Perplexity is a welcome move. This is also a clear sign that the tool is progressing steadily keeping up with the growing demand for it. 

OpenAI announces GPT-4o mini

Recently, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o mini, their most cost-effective small language model yet. This new model reportedly offers superior performance compared to previous options and opens the door for a wider range of AI applications. 

According to OpenAI, GPT-4o mini is initially available to tier 4 and 5 users in the OpenAI API, with plans for broader access. Free, Plus, and Team users of ChatGPT will also eventually gain access, further democratizing AI usage.

Meta AI’s new updates 

Meta’s renowned AI assistant Meta AI is reportedly getting smarter and more accessible with the introduction of multi-lingual capabilities. It is also now available in 22 countries on WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook. 

The other update is the “Imagine me” option that lets you upload a selfie to imagine yourself in various settings. Here’s a demonstration of this feature shared by Mark Zuckerberg. 

Along with these, the assistant is also getting convenient photo editing options including the removal of objects and transformation of elements within the image. Additionally, according to Meta, their AI assistant can now handle more complex requests with ease. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

Instagram lets you add notes to posts 

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram announced in the below post that Notes will now be available in more places. Earlier, the Notes option was introduced in Messages and on profile where you can add notes that are displayed only to friends. These are ephemeral, like Story posts. 

In the below post, Adam Mosseri unveiled the arrival of this option on regular posts and Reels as well. Accordingly, you will be able to leave notes for your friends and followers you follow back. These notes can be added to the content you both see. 

What’s new on YouTube? 

YouTube shared the below video with a roundup of all things new on the platform. The first among them is the introduction of the Inspiration Tab in more languages now including Korean, Hindi and Japanese. Secondly, the platform now lets you save all your favorite music from Shorts. These can be saved in different playlists similar to the playlists you organized for videos saved for later. 

Thirdly, the platform has also announced that Affiliate Creators will now have access to a Chrome extension. Finally, there are also a bunch of fresh resources added for creators in the Creator Tips Help Center. 

TikTok’s ecommerce push

TikTok is evolving rapidly. In a recent post, Bloomberg discussed TikTok’s upcoming ecommerce push. Reportedly, they are bringing an in-app shopping experience to the European market. This is likely to be introduced first in Ireland and Spain scaling back on earlier plans for a wider European rollout.

The company aims to introduce TikTok Shop to additional European countries in 2025. The ecommerce landscape is fiercely competitive and hence TikTok Shop will be up against giants in the domain. 

X launches Trend Genius for real-time ads

X recently announced a new advertising format, Trend Genius. This is designed to capitalize on real-time conversations on the platform. Trend Genius allows advertisers to align their campaigns with trending topics, ensuring maximum impact and efficiency. 

Reportedly, by monitoring conversations on X, Trend Genius automatically deploys ads when specific topics gain traction, optimizing ad spend and engagement. And these ads are automatically paused when the conversation cools down. This can be a revolutionary move in advertising especially for advertisers looking to constantly jump on trends. 

X adds a new feature powered by Grok

A post from X Daily News highlights a recent Grok-powered feature coming to X. The “More About This Account” feature uses Grok to quickly summarize key details about the account. 

However, the initial response to this feature has not been positive entirely. Some have highlighted the significant inaccuracies and limited utility of this feature. A TechCrunch article here, for instance, discusses how the responses are sometimes generic or incorrect information about users. On the whole, the current implementation falls short of delivering the promised value.

Wrapping Up For the Week

That brings the KIMP’s Picks 26th July Edition to a close. It has been a busy week indeed. And if you think that keeping up with updates like this one feels overwhelming, fear not, for KIMP’s Picks is your go-to weekly social media recap. Watch this space and we’ll be back soon with the next social media recap post. 

Posted On

26 Jul, 2024

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