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KIMP’s Picks 12th July: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Social media is tough to keep up with. But with so many advancements in the world of tech, AI tools making waves, and social media algorithms changing constantly, there’s a lot of buzz you cannot miss. 

From breaking news and viral trends to insightful discussions, there’s always something captivating happening online. That’s why every week we dive into the social media posts that caught our eye and unpack the stories behind them. 

So are you ready to catch up on what everyone’s been talking about online? Then let’s get started with the KIMP’s Picks 12th July Edition. 

In the Marketing Realm

Some quick Search updates from Google 

Google shared a short insightful video that summarizes some of the most recent updates that have come to Search. Given that ranking well in Search is one of the biggest priorities for brands, this is a great video for marketers and business owners. 

The video talks about AI Overviews in Search and what they mean for brands and users. It also delves into Merchant listings that appear in the Search Console for ecommerce sites. With this brands can evaluate the visibility of their products. Furthermore, there is information about Documentation Updates, Community Updates, and minor Search updates like Web Filter. 

Tips to boost customer confidence 

This next post is also from Google on their Think With Google page. It talks about one specific aspect of marketing – boosting customer confidence. Because according to Google, confidence customers are about “18 times more likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family”. 

The post delves into the need to make it easier to find information. This particularly talks about how catering to the category knowledge of consumers helps since this helps customers feel like they have done enough research. 

The post also talks about maintaining the relevance of the information you present to your audience and how to use AI for this purpose. 

Turning marketing setbacks into opportunities

Recently, Popeyes’ attempt to promote their new boneless wings backfired when their X account got suspended for violating messaging policies. However, the brand is now capitalizing on the suspension to generate buzz. Ad Age, a great space for creative inspiration, shared a detailed post on this approach delving into the brilliance behind the idea of turning setbacks into opportunities in marketing. 

The backstory is that Popeyes planned to direct message (DM) 63,000 X users who previously disliked boneless wings with a free offer on National Fried Chicken Day. However, their account suspension disrupted the idea. To spin the suspension into a marketing opportunity, the brand hinted that it was intentional. 

The brand also highlighted that it’s all part of their plan and emphasized their mantra: “We Don’t Make Sense, We Make Chicken.” 

While Popeyes gained some attention, their account remains suspended. Therefore, risky marketing tactics might not always be worth a shot. 

Tapping into creator marketing 

Creator marketing is one of the most promising social media trends of 2024. So, if you are wondering how to get this right, then the post here from the Adweek magazine is sure to intrigue you. 

The post begins with talking about the recent state of cancel culture. It also emphasizes how partnering with genuine creators puts the message in the hands of trusted voices within a brand’s community. 

It also reiterates the importance of a loyal fanbase and how it can act as a crucial buffer during criticism. Their grassroots support not only strengthens the brand but also boosts the brand’s credibility with consumers seeking realness.

The post also establishes that brands should focus on building communities with creators who value them beyond just money or recognition. This fosters long-term trust and collaboration. In short, The article goes on to explore the shared responsibility between brands and creators.

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Pros and cons of AI content 

Every day there are new AI tools in the content marketing segment. So, if you are using AI content in your marketing strategy and wondering whether you are on the right track, this post from Semrush is for you. 

The post delves into the pros and cons of AI-generated content. It talks about the benefits like saving time and effort, cutting down content creation costs, and maintaining a consistent flow of content. It also discusses the cons like the lack of originality in the content created by most AI tools and the poor quality of content that some of these tools can generate. 

Tackling the issue of ranking for irrelevant keywords 

Ranking well in search is important: but it’s more about ranking for the relevant keywords. On the contrary, ranking for irrelevant keywords can be a problem. It leads to website visitors abandoning your website when they do not find the answers they came for. The below post from Search Engine Roundtable discusses this problem. 

So, what do you do when your posts rank for the wrong keywords and you do not want to remove those posts? The post recommends tweaking the respective post titles and also optimizing the content to eliminate ambiguities in order to tackle this issue. 

In the Design Realm 

Creating pixel art in the Adobe ecosystem 

There are various applications of pixel art. They carry a hint of nostalgia and can be handy in game designs, app interfaces as well as in various other graphic design projects. Some brands even use them in their branding. No matter where you choose to use pixel art, the question is about how you create them. 

To tackle this, Adobe shared the below post featuring a video preview of how to create pixel art in Adobe Illustrator. The video walks you through the process of creating something simple yet visually unique to demonstrate the versatility and efficiency of the tool. 

Google Font inspiration 

Google Fonts is one of the most sought-after font libraries for creatives. Given the assortment, it can sometimes be overwhelming to find the right one. Therefore, here is a quick recommendation from Google. 

The font featured here is Ga Maamli which is inspired by vintage posters and the hand-written scripts they use. As an all-caps font, this one looks bold and unique. The consistent brush stroke letters add a touch of personalization. But yes, it also carries an informal vibe and is slightly playful. On the whole, it makes a great choice for eye-grabbing headlines.

Brand identity design that takes cues from the target audience 

The Brand Identity, the go-to website for creativity inspiration, shared the below post that throws the spotlight on a branding design project for Pantheon, an educational platform. What stands out is that the design for the brand draws inspiration from the target audience and that’s what makes the design unique and hard to replicate. 

Pantheon is about revolutionizing education with tech-powered tools and inclusivity. Accordingly, the brand identity takes cues from the core values of the brand. Therefore, the logo symbolizes growth and the flow of information. Additionally, the textured gradients embody Pantheon’s vision of inclusive education. 

Building a brand identity around shapes 

Shapes have a crucial role to play in design. The below post features one such design project built around shapes. It’s Nice That shares some of the most inspirational design projects from brands around the world. They recently featured the brand identity designed for Måll, a Finnish shop in Karjaa, Finland. 

The distinct element of this identity is that it revolves around the concept of circles. From the chosen geometric font to the imagery, several elements have been built around circles. And the vibrant color palette complements this identity. 

In the AI Realm 

Anthropic makes prompting more efficient 

Anthropic has supercharged their Console with new features to help you craft powerful prompts for your AI applications. Given that with most sophisticated generative AI tools coming up with the right prompts is challenging, this update on Claude is a welcome move. 

The new update helps you see how your prompt performs with real-world scenarios and thus test it out to be sure that you get the best results. You can further compare prompts and find the ones that work best. With these new prompting tools, Claude lets you iterate on your prompts quickly and efficiently.

Stability AI improves Stable Assistant 

Stability AI’s Stable Assistant enhances workflow and they have announced more new features in the assistant. 

The new features include Search & Replace which helps you search for specific elements in your design and replace them with other elements based on text prompts. The other is the Stable Audio feature to generate audio from text. 

Stable Assistant already has a set of image editing tools and upscaling options and now these new features amplify the effectiveness of the assistant. 

OpenAI ventures into bioscience research by partnering with Los Alamos National Laboratory

OpenAI has been slowly expanding their presence in various industries through strategic partnerships. And their recent one is with Los Alamos National Laboratory in order to help them venture into bioscience research. 

This collaboration aims to leverage the potential of AI to accelerate scientific progress while also mitigating potential risks. This partnership aims to develop a first-of-its-kind evaluation process to assess how AI models like GPT-4o can assist scientists in lab settings.

Synthesia is working on more life-like avatars 

Synthesia is bringing a whole new level of realism to AI video! They are introducing stunningly realistic AI avatars with full-body and hand motions. These avatars will seamlessly interact with their environments, adding a whole new dimension to your video productions.

Moreover, it will also be easier to create your own personal AI avatar. Synthesia’s new system allows you to record yourself using a webcam, phone, or camera, even keeping your natural background if you prefer. These avatars come equipped with impressive lip-syncing and natural voice capabilities, with the ability to replicate your voice in over 30 languages!

This is in addition to the benefit of working with Synthesia AI Video Assistant. You’ll soon be able to simply choose a pre-designed, branded template, and provide a link to your knowledge base, The AI video assistant will then take care of the rest.

Microsoft’s new metric to measure AI impact on work quality

Several organizations have already integrated AI in various forms into their workflow. However, does AI really make an impact on your workflow? That’s an abstract question, isn’t it? But Microsoft has now come up with an idea to simplify this – their new metric called Copilot Assisted Hours. 

Quantifying the actual impact of AI on productivity helps gauge the effectiveness of investing in AI tech and tools. This new metric captures time saved by using Copilot to summarize meetings,  tracks time saved by finding information through Copilot’s chat function, and estimates the time saved by using Copilot to create emails, documents, presentations, etc.

AWS unveils App Studio

The popular tech news website VentureBeat shared the below post discussing a new development from Amazon. Amazon Web Services (AWS) is shaking things up with its new App Studio. App Studio is a tool that leverages generative AI to streamline internal application creation for businesses.

This is meant to be a user-friendly interface powered by AI that allows anyone with some technical background to build secure, scalable enterprise applications. Users simply need to describe their requirements in natural language and App Studio takes care of the coding part creating a professional-grade application within minutes.

Etsy introduces new seller guidelines 

In an effort to combat a surge of generic products and AI-generated items, Etsy has revised its seller policy with a focus on transparency. Based on these new guidelines, sellers on Etsy must categorize their listings and also use labels that clearly indicate the level of human involvement in creating the product. 

To this end, they are introducing the labels “Handpicked”, “Handmade”, “Sourced” and “Designed”. These labels in the Item Labels section help consumers understand what they are buying. Additionally, Etsy is also taking a stand against listings selling AI prompts, and such listings will be flagged and removed. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

Meta AI Assistant in WhatsApp is getting better 

Reportedly Meta is working on improving Meta AI Assistant in WhatsApp. This will build on the existing features and introduce the option to include images in your prompts. 

Meta AI will then automatically analyze uploaded photos, identifying objects and providing relevant context. Moreover, users can also give text instructions to the AI chatbot, allowing for on-the-fly photo editing directly within WhatsApp.

As for privacy concerns, users will also have complete control over their photos. They will be able to choose to share them with Meta AI for analysis or editing, and they can delete them at any time.

X is possibly testing a dislike button 

Ever since Twitter became X things have changed drastically. And the interface of the platform is among the many things that have changed. Reportedly, X is also working on introducing a dislike button. While there is no official news from X or a timeline for this, there are speculations that you will soon be able to react to posts by clicking on the dislike button if you do not like the content. 

X Daily News, a page filled with all the latest updates and rumors about X shared the below post giving a snapshot of what this feature might look like. About a decade ago Facebook introduced the Dislike button but it was short-lived on the platform. YouTube is the other big platform that still has the Dislike option. And now reportedly, X might soon have it too. What do you think of this move? 

X reports soaring engagement 

As we reach the halfway point of 2024, X has reported impressive growth metrics for Q2. According to X, users are spending an average of 361.9 billion seconds on the platform per day and this is reportedly 8% more than the usage recorded last year. Also, the monthly active users on the platform have increased to about 570 million. 

Another notable component is that the daily video views on X stand at 8.2 billion. That’s more than 45% year over year. These statistics show that engagement on the platform is increasing and now is a good time for brands to focus on their X marketing. 

LinkedIn Sponsored Newsletters 

LinkedIn Newsletters are valuable assets for brands. They help them reach targeted audiences and strengthen their social media presence. According to Social Media Today, LinkedIn now supports sponsored newsletters. 

This lets you promote your newsletters and therefore expand your reach. That can be a great way to increase the number of subscribers. Given that long-form content like articles and newsletters work well on LinkedIn this new update is a good motivator for brands to start focusing more on newsletters. 

That’s a Wrap! 

That concludes the KIMP’s Picks 12th July Edition. With these quick updates, we hope that you were able to bid adieu to the week knowing well that you are all caught up on the crucial developments from this week. For more such weekly updates and to be sure that you do not miss out on all the social media buzz, stay tuned and we’ll be back with another social media recap next week!

Posted On

12 Jul, 2024

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