KIMP’s Picks 17th July: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Want to explore the crucial social media moments and buzzworthy posts from this past week? Then you are in the right place. In the KIMP’s Picks 17th July Edition we’ve compiled an assortment of posts from brands and social media creators in the marketing, graphic design, and AI segments. We have also rounded up some of the most anticipated social media updates from recent times. 

Ready for your creativity refill? Let’s go. 

In the Marketing Realm 

LinkedIn continues to rule the B2B marketing arena 

Anyone in the marketing space knows that LinkedIn is an excellent choice for B2B marketing. Top Rank, a full-service B2B marketing agency shared the below Tweet highlighting an Insider Intelligence survey statistic. And the Tweet further proves LinkedIn’s dominance in the B2B marketing segment.

The survey showed that about 80% of B2B marketers prioritize LinkedIn and about 63% prioritize YouTube. Surprisingly, the video-sharing platform that’s often seen as a source of entertainment is also one of the most productive platforms for B2B companies to connect with potential clients. 

Protecting your brand reputation

Social media has the power to help your brand go viral overnight or open up the road to negative popularity in no time. When you know that things can go both ways, the only way to prepare for what lies ahead is to have a strong plan of action to preserve your brand reputation online. After all, every little interaction you have online can strongly influence the way people perceive your brand. 

In this aspect, the below guide featured on the BuzzSumo Twitter page can be of great help. Given that BuzzSumo is one of the most reliable names in media monitoring, this Tweet is a great starting point for anyone who wants to revisit their marketing strategy to protect their brand reputation. 

From tips to build and maintain brand reputation to examples of brands with a good reputation and those with a bad brand reputation, the featured post covers all the nuances you need to delve deeper into the topic. 

Did you know that the Maybelline campaign from London was a CGI stunt? 

If you follow marketing and brand-related content on social media, we’re sure you came across a creative and memorable Maybelline campaign recently. Giant false lashes on an underground train and on a bus passing through a gigantic mascara wand. The video gained a lot of eyeballs and media coverage. 

If you have been following us in our weekly social media round-ups you probably remember that we even spoke about this campaign last week. Why are we talking about it again? Because as it turns out, the ad was not an outdoor campaign after all! 

It was brilliant CGI work and there was no real outdoor installation involved. The below Tweet from a leading digital publisher Creative Bloq points out how it was recently revealed that the campaign that got people to think it was an outdoor campaign was not an outdoor campaign at all. 

Well, the campaign did garner a lot of social media buzz for the brand. So, it’s a win anyway. However, we can’t deny that the idea would have made for a brilliant outdoor campaign after all. 

Talking about outdoor advertising, this next post talks about one such creative step toward better outdoor advertising. 

Digital OOH campaigns 

Digital OOH (out-of-home) advertising combines the perks of outdoor ads and digital media in advertising to build awareness for a brand and to increase engagement. Basis Technologies, a leading name in the digital advertising automation segment, recently announced its collaboration with Vistar Media and Place Exchange. The idea is to simplify digital outdoor ads and to allow instant and convenient customization of the content displayed. 

MarTech, a popular source of all the marketing technology-related information, shared the below post highlighting this collaboration and what it means in the world of DOOH. 

Creative advertising by Samsung 

When you are feeling stuck and unable to find a creative idea for your next campaign, AdWeek is a great source of inspiration. Among the many creative ads the company shares on its social media, the below ad from Samsung is totally worth your time. 

The Ad incorporates the element of humor which almost always works in marketing. The fun parody takes a dig at the teen horror movies from the 90s and creates something memorable. 

Adopting marketing technology 

We talk about AI and other technology entering the world of marketing and how they revolutionize the way brands connect with their customers. But do brands really make the most of marketing technologies that arrive in the market? 

Well, the below post from Gartner highlights how only 42% of marketing tech was being leveraged in the year 2022. If you think you aren’t utilizing these technologies to the fullest, the featured post also gives some quick tips on how to make this happen. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Growing organic traffic 

Driving organic traffic to their website is one thing that most businesses struggle with. And this changes when you have a search-engine-optimized content strategy. In other words, you need strong SEO for reliable organic traffic. 

Search Engine Journal is a great place to find all the latest Search news and more. On its LinkedIn page, Search Engine Journal shared a post highlighting five effective ways to strengthen your SEO techniques. 

From analyzing the competition to refreshing outdated content on the site, the post covers a handful of beginner-friendly ideas. 

B2B content marketing success 

We spoke about LinkedIn being the most popular B2B marketing platform. But what about the content? How do you make sure that your content drives conversions? The below Tweet has all the answers. It is from Semrush, a popular tool for keyword research, marketing insights, and more. The post emphasizes on 4 crucial elements for a B2B marketing content strategy to succeed. 

Social media content strategy 

While the above post talks about B2B marketing content in general, you also need to have a strong plan in place for your social media content. Creating a social media page is easy but bringing engagement to the page is what most people struggle with. To address this, Neal Schaffer, Fractional CMO, and a leading authority in the world of digital marketing shared the below post on his LinkedIn page. 

The featured post presents 15 useful tips to help you optimize your social media content and increase engagement. 

In the Design Realm 

Understanding the Guinness logo 

Stories of how popular brand logos were designed and how they were received by their target audience are often great places for marketers and entrepreneurs to find inspiration for creating brand identity. And for such stories, the Logo Design Love Twitter page is a great space. 

Logo Design Love shared the below post retrospecting and dismantling the nuances of the Guiness logo. The story of the visual identity that was born in 1862 is quite an inspiration for anyone looking to design a new logo or looking for ideas on how to redesign their existing logos. 

Adobe Firefly FAQs

Adobe Firefly has been making waves in the world of AI art generation. And a lot of new features were introduced as well. One of the most important updates has been the introduction of new languages. Wondering how prompts work in different languages and how the translation part is handled? The below Tweet from Adobe gives a quick peek into the FAQs regarding these updates. 

In the AI Realm 

AI in retail 

AI has entered and proved its power in almost every industry. The impact of AI might be different across these industries but the fact remains that AI changes the way businesses operate. The below post from Google shows how AI particularly impacts the retail segment. 

Considering that retail is a competitive industry where optimized customer experience is paramount, AI can make a big difference. And the below post gives a quick peek into some of the impacts of AI in the retail industry. 

Shopify Sidekick 

We spoke about AI and its impact on the world of retail. So, here’s a live example of one such application. 

Shopify is the next brand to join the AI race with its unique virtual assistant called Sidekick. Shopify Sidekick is about providing entrepreneurs with timely support and ideas when doing business on Shopify. 

Tobias LütkeTobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, shared the below video that introduces Shopify Sidekick and it looks like a promising idea all set to make new waves in the retail industry. 

Google Search Labs 

If you haven’t already heard about Google Search Labs now is a good time to start. This is an experimental platform where Google is venturing into using generative AI to make search better. The video shared in the below Tweet gives a peek into Search Labs and the post featured answers all the questions you might have before you use it. 

Testing out the image upload capabilities on Bard 

A bunch of new features were introduced in Bard recently, and one of them has been the option to include images in your prompts. For this, you can use Google Lens to capture images when you ask questions. 

Marie Haynes, a recognized leader in the SEO industry shared the below Tweet to give a preview of what the image upload feature on Bard looks like. Have you tried using image inputs on Bard? 

Creating a website using Bard 

Bard’s coding capabilities have been lauded by many. And its image uploading option that we discussed just now is one of the most anticipated features. What happens when these two features come together? 

Popular AI educator, Alvaro Cintas, shared the below Tweet outlining his Bard coding experience which combines the tool’s coding capabilities and image uploading option. 

Human content Vs AI content for traffic 

The market is flooded with AI content creation tools that can create SEO-friendly content as well as social media content in seconds. But are these tools as good as human content writers? That has been a widely debated question. Reboot’s SEO experiment brings the answer to this question. 

Reboot, a popular marketing agency shared the below Tweet summarizing its SEO experiment to understand how human content and AI content perform against each other when it comes to driving traffic to a website. The study showed that in the long run, human-generated content seems to bring more reliable organic traffic to the site. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

Creator Ads Revenue Sharing on Twitter 

Ad revenue sharing for creators has been an anticipated feature on Twitter and it’s finally here. This feature allows creators to get paid for allowing ads in their Tweets and responses. Twitter announced the arrival of this feature and what to expect from it in the below Tweet. 

Did Threads cause Twitter’s traffic to plummet?

The past couple of weeks have been special for Meta with their all-new social media app Threads gaining a lot of popularity. One of the main reasons behind the popularity of this app is that it is being dubbed a big threat to Twitter. So, what effect did this app have on Twitter? 

Similarweb, a popular web analytics tool, shared the below Tweet with the graph showing the visible decline in traffic to the Twitter site upon the introduction of Threads. According to the graph, there was a 5% drop in traffic in comparison to a similar period from the previous week. That is clear proof that Threads is indeed a strong contender that Twitter needs to look out for. 

This is how long it took various platforms to reach their first 100 million users 

We spoke about Threads just now. So, let’s talk about the reasons why this app has been making headlines. One of the most notable mentions will be the speed at which the platform gained its first 100 million users. From Mark Zuckerberg’s post, it was revealed that the app gained 100 million sign-ups in just  5 days since its launch. This is the fastest-ever growth for a social media app. 

The below Tweet from Visual Capitalist puts this data into a more understandable form by comparing the timelines it look for various social media apps to reach 100 million sign-ups. As you can see, what apps like LinkedIn and Twitter could achieve in years Threads achieved in days! 

Let’s wrap up 

With that, we would like to close our social media roundup for the week. We hope these posts gave you a quick look back at how this past week progressed in the world of marketing, AI, and graphic design. Stay tuned for more insights coming your way next Monday.