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KIMP’s Picks 16th August: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Today social media is one of the go-to places for news updates for a vast majority of internet users. Whether it is the latest tech-related chatter or news about AI and other advancements in specific industries, social media is where a lot of people catch up on what’s happening around them. But let’s face it. This can sometimes get overwhelming. With the ever-growing stream of updates, it becomes tough to stay on top of all those relevant to you. All those updates that truly matter. The updates that end up becoming market movers, the game changers. 

Does that sound relatable? Then you are in the right place. KIMP’s Picks is just what you need. This is our weekly social media round-up post. This is where we aim to deliver all the biggest and most crucial updates in the worlds of marketing, AI, and more. So, instead of endless scrolling, you can catch up on the latest buzz in just a few minutes. Ready for this week’s roundup? Then let’s get started. 

In the Marketing Realm 

About lead generation ads in the AI era 

Lead-gen ads are crucial to businesses. In a recent post, Search Engine Land, one of the leading authorities in SEO-related news, shared the below insightful post. This post discusses how AI and automation are reshaping the lead generation landscape.

The article outlines strategies to navigate this evolving environment. It talks about building a strong foundation, leveraging AI tools, optimizing landing pages, and aligning sales and marketing efforts. 

The post finally delves into the need for businesses to stay adaptable to industry changes in order to improve their lead-generation efforts and drive growth.

Tapping into BTL advertising 

BTL or below-the-line advertising focuses on leveraging media other than mainstream media. There are several advantages to this and hence brands actively invest in BTL campaigns. Ads of The World featured one such BTL campaign from Ramak Dairy. 

This is also a great example of experiential marketing done right. For the campaign, the brand transformed their famous cheese products into interactive games and activities. This helped them engage a wide audience boosting brand awareness. 

The innovative approach not only entertained consumers but also effectively communicated the unique qualities of Ramak’s cheese range. The campaign highlights the power of BTL advertising in creating memorable brand experiences and driving consumer engagement.

McDonald’s rekindles nostalgia with Collector’s Cups

This next post is a recent McDonald’s campaign. For this one, the brand is tapping into nostalgia with its new Collector’s Meal. Featuring six limited-edition cups featuring iconic brands and characters, the fast-food giant aims to recapture the magic of collecting. 

The move is a strategic play to engage both longtime fans and a younger demographic. By offering a unique and collectible cup, McDonald’s is creating a buzz around the brand and driving customer excitement.

Collectibles and physical merchandise, like the one used by McDonald’s in this case, are effective in boosting brand awareness and engagement. 

The significance of social listening 

Hootsuite is one of the most popular social media management tools out there. In a recent post, they shared a resourceful discussion diving into social listening and how it helps drive business success. 

The post also gives a few quick strategies to use in order to elevate your brand’s social listening efforts. From identifying and focusing on a few key objectives, and starting with big players like Instagram and Facebook, the post delves into some key points. They also have a detailed social listening guide if you would like to read more about this concept. 

The shifting social media landscape 

In a recent post, the popular social media news site Social Media Today shared a thought-provoking discussion on the changes happening in the social media landscape. 

The post highlights how social media is changing and how platforms like Meta and X are adjusting their algorithms and policies. This has also resulted in publishers and marketers diversifying their strategies. 

They also cite the rise of Reddit as an example. This shift has partly been due to their partnership with Google. It highlights the potential of platforms that were once considered secondary.

This is a reminder for brands to be open to diversifying their social media strategies and to stop relying too much on one or two platforms. 

Tackling the holiday marketing challenges 

The below post on the Think With Google page dives deep into some useful insights for marketers getting started with their holiday marketing efforts. 

According to Google, the holiday shopping season is shrinking, intensifying competition for retailers. Therefore, to succeed, brands must adapt their strategies to capture early shopper interest.

This article also highlights the importance of understanding consumer behavior shifts, with shoppers becoming more deliberate and deal-seeking. It emphasizes the need for early engagement and building customer confidence.

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Using the right archetypes to keep your content fresh and relevant 

Storytelling is a valuable tool in content marketing and the below post from Content Marketing Institute discusses 7 ancient archetypes and how they can be used to enhance the quality of content. 

From well-known ones like “the quest” to “overcoming the monster” the post discusses some well-known story archetypes that users can instantly relate to. Diving into these archetypes can give you plenty of ideas to work on campaigns that resonate with your target audience. 

In the Design Realm 

Canva for communication 

Canva has been expanding rapidly. They are no longer just about DIY design for non-designers. They have become crucial components of the design workflows for organizations. And in the below post, they delve into some of the features and tools on Canva that make them excellent platforms for communication within organizations. 

The post explores options like building a Class Hub, a Classroom Newsletter, and announcements as well as engagement cards. In short, this talks about some of the less explored useful features of Canva. So, if you haven’t used them already, now is a good time to start. 

Packaging design inspiration 

The Brand Identity discusses design projects that inspire creatives and in a recent post, they featured a unique packaging design created for Dermica, a vegan skincare range. The design project focuses on sustainability. 

The brand’s commitment to eco-friendliness is evident in their use of bio-based plastic and refillable packaging. This approach aligns with growing consumer demand for sustainable products and demonstrates the importance of considering the environmental impact throughout the product lifecycle.

To highlight this and to bring out the beauty in sustainability the creative team has integrated subtle gradients and an overall minimalistic design. 

What creativity brings into logo design 

Creativity is one of the requisites for logo design. In fact, with a hint of creativity, even the simplest logo idea can become spectacular. 

This logo design featured by Creative Bloq was designed for The New York Golf Club. We must say it’s a stroke of genius. By cleverly combining a classic symbol of golf with a modern aesthetic, the design captures the essence of the sport while projecting a fresh, contemporary image.

Additionally, to add more meaning and visual intrigue the design blends a golf club imagery into the bird’s wing. This shows how tweaking your design and combining different layers of meaning can instantly elevate your logo. 

Designing for non-profits 

It’s Nice That rounds up design projects of all sizes and from different industries. Here they featured a design project for Ovarian Cancer Action (OCA). This is a powerful example of how design can drive impact.

By carefully considering the organization’s mission and target audience, the creative team created a visual identity that is both empathetic and assertive. The reimagined cancer ribbon logo effectively captures the essence of the organization while standing out from competitors.

The color palette combines traditional charity colors with bolder hues to create a distinctive and impactful look. This shows how a fresh perspective helps when designing for non-profits. 

In the AI Realm

Gemini Live brings new opportunities in conversational AI 

This next post we have is from Google. It’s about their next big step in Gemini. Google’s Gemini Live introduces a more natural and interactive way to engage with AI. This new feature allows users to have easy and smooth conversations with Gemini, Google’s advanced language model.

The key features are particularly designed keeping smartphone users in mind. They include hands-free operation, the ability to pause and resume conversations, and a choice of voices. By making AI more accessible and engaging, Gemini Live has the potential to revolutionize how people interact with AI assistants. 

As AI and the lineup of AI assistants continue to evolve, Gemini Live represents a significant step forward in human-computer interaction.

Made by Google 2024 was mostly about AI 

Made by Google 2024, Google’s 9th edition of this event was a big hit and was one of the hottest topics of discussion in the tech world. A notable detail here is that a majority of the announcements made this year focused on some AI advancements coming to the Android ecosystem, to Google devices. 

There were updates about Pixel 9, and the reimagined Android features and other refinements coming to Google’s products in the coming years. 

Android is changing thanks to Gemini 

This next post delves into what we briefly discussed earlier – the changes coming to the Android OS thanks to the extensive integration of Gemini. Based on their post here, their vision of making Gemini a critical part of the Android space is mainly to enhance user experience. 

One of the first features highlighted in this post is the revamped Google Assistant thanks to the integration of Gemini. They also discuss the improved security measures they are bringing in so as to make their tools and products more secure in the AI era. And finally, they also discuss how these features transition across various devices in the Google ecosystem including regular and foldable smartphones and tablets. 

X announces Grok-2 and Grok-2 Mini 

X has unveiled its new language models, Grok-2 & Grok-2 Mini, currently in their Beta release. Building on the success of its predecessor, Grok-2 offers enhanced capabilities in chat, coding, and reasoning. This advanced model is now available to X Premium and Premium+ subscribers.

Grok-2 demonstrates significant improvements in various benchmarks, outperforming competitors in areas like reasoning, knowledge comprehension, and math. The image generation option introduced in this model is the other thing that several Grok users are already talking about. 

Audible’s new AI-powered search feature is here

Audible has introduced Maven, an AI-powered search feature that transforms the way you search for audiobooks. With this new feature, users can now easily find titles using natural language queries. This makes the search for audiobooks more convenient and intuitive.

In fact, Maven goes beyond basic search by offering personalized recommendations based on user preferences. Reportedly, Audible is also experimenting with AI-generated reviews and curated collections to enhance the overall listening experience. 

But yes, the feature is currently in its beta stage and is set to reach about 50% of Audible users in the US. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

More changes are coming to Reddit 

We discussed how the social media space is shifting drastically. And how the surge in the use of Reddit is one of the many unprecedented developments. This is partly due to the company’s active research in the field of AI and the introduction of several new features in the past few months. 

According to the below post from the popular tech news website Engadget, Reddit will soon bring AI search and paid subreddits. 

Accordingly, the search results page will use AI summaries to help users find what they are looking for much more quickly. This sounds similar to the AI Overviews that Google is currently displaying to users. 

Moreover, the paid subreddits feature is in line with the paid subscriptions that several social media platforms currently offer. These paid plans offer a host of exclusive content and features to subscribers. Reddit seems to be joining the league. 

Brainstorm with Gemini – a cool new YouTube tool for Creators 

YouTube is testing a new AI-powered tool called “Brainstorm with Gemini” to help creators generate video ideas, titles, and thumbnails.

 Leveraging the power of Google’s Gemini AI, the platform aims to streamline the content creation process.

This move positions YouTube as a leader in AI-driven creator tools, potentially giving it a competitive edge over other platforms. While the tool is currently in a limited testing phase, it signifies YouTube’s commitment to supporting creators and enhancing the overall content creation experience. 

TikTok Spotlight – a game-changer for entertainment marketers 

TikTok recently announced a new feature that excites entertainment brands and marketers. This is the TikTok Spotlight feature. This new promotional tool has been designed to help entertainment marketers capitalize on the platform’s viral potential.

By leveraging user-generated content and AI, Spotlight enables studios to create dedicated landing pages for movies and TV shows. This measure can be of great value in driving traffic and engagement. 

The new feature offers a more direct way for entertainment brands to connect with TikTok’s massive audience. Moreover, this can also simplify the process of measuring campaign effectiveness on the platform. 

New DM features on TikTok 

The below post from LifeHacker talks about cool new DM features coming to TikTok. Reportedly, the platform will now let you send custom stickers in chats. This is similar to the option to send stickers in other social messaging apps but the difference is that the platform will also let you create and send custom stickers. 

The next big update is the support for group chats. While this has been available on most other social media platforms for a while now, it is also coming to TikTok now. 

Now you can add more slides to your IG carousel 

Carousel continues to be the most engaging format on Instagram. Whether it is for an entertaining post or an informative one, carousels work well for brands and creators alike. 

A few weeks ago Instagram extended the limit for the number of slides in the carousel from 10 to 15. And in recent news, the count has been expanded to 20 now. This means that you can now add more photos to your carousel. This lets you create more engaging posts. So, have you tried 20-slide carousels on your page? 

Instagram is testing a new map feature 

Reportedly, Instagram is testing a new feature that closely resembles Snapchat’s Snap Map. The upcoming feature will allow users to share text and video updates based on their location, similar to how it’s done on Snap Map. While Instagram is focusing on tighter privacy controls, the core functionality mirrors Snapchat’s popular feature.

Wrapping Up…

It’s now time to wrap up the KIMP’s Picks 16th August Edition. From AI updates to algorithm changes on popular social media platforms, there have indeed been quite a lot of updates this past week. If you would like to receive more such updates every week, stay tuned! Until then, keep exploring and keep pushing your creative boundaries. 

Posted On

16 Aug, 2024

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