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KIMP’s Picks 2nd February: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

Work week got you swamped? Didn’t have the time to catch up on things that were buzzing on social media? Don’t worry! We got you covered! 

Welcome to the KIMP’s Picks 2nd February Edition. This is our weekly run-down on some of the trending topics and hidden gems. So, ready to dive into the marketing, AI, and design buzz from this past week? Let’s go! 

In the Marketing Realm 

It’s time to take creator marketing seriously 

Creator marketing is one of the most anticipated social media trends of 2024. The below post on the YouTube Advertisers page proves the point. According to a new study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in partnership with Talk Shoppe, about 89% of advertisers are bullish on creator content. 

One other major observation in the study was that there has been a significant increase in the consumption of video content created by creators. Moreover, creators also potentially impact consumers in almost all stages of the purchase journey. All of these combined prove the effectiveness of creator marketing at the moment. So, if you have not already invested in creator marketing, now is a good time to start. 

Leveraging psychology in marketing

Marketing and psychology go hand in hand. After all, brands that truly make a difference and stand out in the competition are those that understand their customers – their likes, dislikes, what motivates them to make a purchase decision, etc. 

Why are we talking about this? Because the below post from the popular online source of marketing insights and a rapidly growing marketers’ community, Girls In Marketing discussed some very insightful connections between Psychology and Marketing and we loved it! 

The post delves briefly into 3 of the most commonly adopted theories namely the Scarcity Theory, Social Proof Theory, and Information-Gap Theory. So, if you are looking for a quick boost of marketing inspiration, this is a good read! 

Statista reveals some secrets about ad types that annoy consumers 

Statista shared a pretty intriguing post recently. This one is about the most common types of advertising – particularly about the types that reportedly annoy consumers the most. On the top of the list is an ad type you probably already guessed – an auto-play video ad, especially on that plays with sound. We’ve all been there – startled by a loud video playing the moment you visit a website! 

Surprisingly, targeted ads on social media have also made it to the list, and the traditional ones like banner ads still hold their spot. This is an insightful graph to look into if you are working on revising your digital advertising strategies. 

Quick tips for ecommerce email marketing 

Renowned email marketer and Co-Founder of Structured Agency, Chase Diamond, shared the below share-worthy post that discusses some useful ecommerce email marketing tips. From campaigns to automation, segmentation, and deliverability, the post is filled with insightful details that ecommerce business owners can benefit from. This is particularly handy if you are looking for a refresher as you are revisiting your email marketing strategies for the year ahead! 

Campaign inspiration from Uber Eats’ Super Bowl ad teaser 

The heat is on for the Super Bowl 2024 game – and advertising too! Brands have started releasing details about their ad for the year and teasers for the big ad. Uber Eats is among these brands. Talk about creating a buzz – Uber Eats definitely knows how to do it! By roping in David and Victoria Beckham, the brand already laid a solid foundation. But what makes the teaser more exciting is that the couple recreated the iconic Be Honest meme that they earlier became viral for! 

Fans of the meme as well as the fans of the couple all seem to connect well with the ad and the hint of humor in it has definitely won it some positive response! That’s one reason why a lot of folks on social media have been discussing this teaser recently. 

Ad Age, a go-to source of advertising inspiration shared the below post featuring this trending teaser. 

Snapchat now has a Spotify lens 

Are you someone who likes to share about what music you are listening to or a great track you came across recently? Who doesn’t, right? Then this update involving Snapchat and Spotify is for you. Several brands leverage Snapchat’s AR lens feature to promote their products and campaigns. And the recent one is from Spotify. 

Spotify has partnered with Snapchat to let users use the custom lens to capture and add a selfie when they share their favorite song with their friends. Campaigns like this one are immersive and engaging. They also open doors to an ample amount of user-generated content. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Google updates that could impact ecommerce SEO 

Popular SEO consultant Brodie Clark shared a resourceful thread on the Google updates that could impact ecommerce SEO. 

In the thread, he talks about the rich result types displayed in search, especially with respect to ecommerce websites. He also delves into the availability of the respective rich result types in different locations and what each means for a business. 

Content Marketing Report from Semrush 

Semrush provides some great SEO tools for site audits, competitor analysis and more. They recently shared their AI content marketing report for 2024. This is a report that summarizes a lot of details based on how things have changed in the content marketing segment especially with AI growing to be an integral part of content marketing now. 

The post also gives a glimpse into some of the observations captured in the report. The data captured in the report is based on a diverse range of businesses of all sizes. According to their observation, about 67% of businesses are using AI in their content marketing and SEO processes and 78% of those who use AI seem to be happy with the results. 

The secret to writing engaging social media captions 

When it comes to creating content for social media, things don’t end with creating eye-grabbing images or videos with great copy. There’s one other final detail that you need to focus on and that is the caption for the social media post. 

Social media management tool, Later, shared the below post that talks about writing social media captions. It talks about quick tips on writing captions that align with your goals for the post, a hook that instantly grabs attention, adding a CTA to take customers to the next stage in their purchase journey, keeping it conversational, and of course, using the right keywords and hashtags. 

In the Design Realm

Canva’s new features 

Do you use Canva to design your brand’s graphics? Then you need to stay alert because Canva has recently been adding a lot of cool features to stay ahead in the competitive space. Both in terms of generative AI capabilities and design editing, Canva has been providing users with a whole lot of exciting updates. In the below post, they gave a glimpse of some of the new features that users can now explore on the tool. 

While there are several things new, this post talks about the option to add dividers to documents created on Canva, the ease of clicking and dragging elements, collaborating anonymously, and the option to add mentions. 

GM finds the most creative way to celebrate the Detroit Lions 

General Motors recently revamped their brand lighting at their world headquarters at the Renaissance Center and the logo was seen featuring a lion’s tail. This is the brand’s way of standing for #onepride and supporting the Detroit Lions. This kind of versatility comes as a big plus when you have a simple logo. Ad AgeCreativity shared the below post discussing this temporary logo makeover by GM. 

Tapping into crucial sports moments can make a big impact on a brand because you are connecting at a more personal level with the fans in your target audience. Moreover, it also gives the brand a lot of news coverage, like in this case. 

Adobe announces updates to Substance 3D 

Do you use Adobe Substance 3D for creating 3D designs? Then this post is for you. Adobe announced the Sampler on Substance 3D now has some fresh updates. This also includes the addition of several new assets to the asset library on the platform. From improved filter tools to material assets and texture generators, there are several things for 3D designers to explore. 

Demonstration of Adobe’s Text-to-Vector Graphics function 

Adobe Firefly has transformed the design workflow in the Adobe ecosystem with a host of AI capabilities. And the Text-To-Vector Graphics feature is one of the most popular among them. This lets users instantly generate vector graphics for various applications using simple text prompts. Adobe shared the below video demonstrating some of the applications of this function. 

Do you like Comic Sans? 

If there is an award for the most hated font in the creative world, Comic Sans would perhaps bag it every year. Over the years the font that was once widely used has earned quite a bad reputation for itself as being “unprofessional” or perhaps even “cliched”. A popular source of design and creativity-related inspiration, It’s Nice That shared the below intriguing post that delves back into the history of Comic Sans. 

So, if you are looking for some fresh perspectives and a creativity boost, the article featured in the post is well worth your time. The post makes you wonder if the font really deserves this much hatred after all! 

In the AI Realm 

Google’s Art Selfie gets a generative AI makeover 

In 2018, Google’s Art Selfie tool made waves by allowing users to find their art doppelgangers by uploading a selfie. Version 2 of this fun tool is out now but with a generative AI twist. This update leverages generative AI to instantly transform your selfie into an artwork based on the custom art style and scenarios you choose. 

As a Google Arts & Culture feature, this one aims at allowing art and history aficionados to feel closer to their favorite works of art and also learn more about them in the process. 

Google unveils Mobile Diffusion 

OpenAI’s ChatGPT has a mobile app and Google recently unleashed a host of generative AI features for smartphone users like Circle To Search. So, the progress that generative AI is making is slowly advancing to the smartphone landscape as well. A solid proof is Google’s recent announcement that comes in the form of Mobile Diffusion. This is Google’s text-to-image model that allows users to generate images from text prompts but is designed especially for mobile devices. 

Meta announces Code Llama 70B

In a recent post, Meta announced the release of Code Llama 70B. According to Meta, this is the “largest and best-performing model in the Code Llama family”. Reportedly, this brings the model’s capabilities close to that of GPT-3.5. 

As with the other coding models from Meta, this one is also made available in 3 versions – the fundamental model, specialized for Python, and one for Instruct. These updates show the rapid progress that generative AI is making in the coding landscape. 

OpenAI now allows GPT mentions 

Just last month OpenAI made its GPT store available. And now there has been yet another update. In the below post, OpenAI gave a preview of the update that lets you instantly select GPTs from your chat. Typing “@” lets you pull out a list of your GPTs and select the one you wish to immediately use. 

Currently, the feature is only available to paid users and not to free ChatGPt users. This is a way to allow users to make the most of the GPTs they create in any of their conversations. 

MidJourney announces Niji V6 for Anime & Eastern aesthetics 

Mijdourney has grown to become one of the most powerful generative AI design tools. In a recent post they announced Niji V6, an update, particularly for creators who use the tool for Eastern and Anime aesthetics. To access the version, users can key in “–niji 6” at the end of their prompts. 

The model is designed to be able to follow styles more accurately. Several Anime lovers around the world have been using the version and sharing their work on social media recently. 

Yelp gets an AI upgrade 

Yelp, the renowned crowd-sourced review platform is the next one to join the AI race. In a recent app update for iOS devices, there was an assortment of 20 new features introduced. The most notable among them have to do with AI. 

The popular tech blog Engadget shared the below post discussing the new AI updates on Yelp. this version of the app taps into the power of AI to automatically generate business summaries so that users can easily find the restaurants that best suit them. Additionally, AI is also used to personalize the home page for the users and display the most relevant content. Advances like these show how generative AI can be used to upgrade user experience on the whole. 

Shopify’s new AI-powered features 

Similar to Yelp, Shopify is yet another business that has decided to bring AI to its customer touch-points. In the below post, Shopify gave a peek into what this new AI update is all about. This advancement allows users to use simpler terms to search. It makes search more conversational. Semantic Search, Shopify’s AI-powered new update, lets users to search for products in a natural language rather than worrying about keying in the right keywords for relevant results. 

The video in the post gives a glimpse of what this feature is about. But that’s not all. Another major update is the option for sellers to edit their product images with AI so as to post more professional shots in their listings. These AI features are tuned to help both sellers and consumers on the platform. 

Google introduces a new image generation tool: ImageFX

Google’s Imagen is currently one of the best generative AI models for image generation from text prompts. Google further amplifies its capabilities and simplifies its accessibility via ImageFX, a new text-to-image tool added to Google Labs.

A notable feature is that ImageFX comes with an option that lets users instantly switch between styles so as to access variations of the design and compare the results.

Bard has some big updates

Google announced that you can now tap into the capabilities of Gemini Pro in Bard. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several other big updates added as well. One of them is the addition of image generation capabilities to Bard. And as per Google’s announcement, Bard is also now available in additional languages in more than 230 countries and territories.

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

X will likely bring Video Spaces 

Spaces has been a big hit recently on X and the team has been introducing some useful updates to the feature as well. Reportedly, the next big change is possibly the option to turn on video in Spaces. X News Daily, is a great place to get all the important X-related news and they shared the below post discussing this possibly upcoming feature. 

Spaces has been a great feature for brands and creators looking for ways to boost their audience engagement. The addition of video will be a great way to further personalize the experience. 

TikTok is working on some updates to product videos on the platform 

TikTok has become a great place for finding shopping ideas as well as for shopping. And the introduction of TikTok Shop in the US made a big difference to the platform’s stance in the social commerce space. 

In a recent post, The Verge magazine discussed how TikTok is possibly bringing a new feature that will automatically identify products featured in a video and provide purchase links for the products. This can be a major breakthrough for social commerce and can make shopping from TikTok easier for the audience as well. 

YouTube brings more capabilities to the YouTube Studio app 

YouTube Studio is a great resource for creators to tweak their videos before posting them on their channels. And now YouTube has announced some useful updates for the platform. These include a new and improved research tab for the desktop version, publicly shareable community clips, scheduling for posting member-only content, and some additional features in the analytics part. All of these tools are meant to simplify a creator’s job and improve their productivity when managing their channel. 

The Curtain Closes 

That brings us to the end of the KIMP’s Picks 2nd February Edition. We hope that these posts we picked out for you gave you that much-needed weekend catch-up! And we’re sure you’re coming back for more. Because we know how difficult and overwhelming it can be to stay ahead with all things discussed and all things trending on social media. That’s exactly why we have this weekly round-up for you so you do not have to suffer from FOMO. So, stay tuned and we’ll be back next week with all the exciting news and updates. 

Posted On

02 Feb, 2024

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