Friday, May 11, 2018
The ultimate guide to Google Analytics for UX designers
https://uxdesign.cc/google-analytics-ux-alice-emma-walker-958d6f0f0af3
Wednesday, May 9, 2018
Facebook Messenger Platform Welcomes Augmented Reality
http://www.adweek.com/digital/facebook-messenger-platform-welcomes-augmented-reality/
NiAugmented reality has arrived on Facebook’s Messenger Platform, the social network announced Tuesday at its F8 annual developer conference in San Jose, Calif.
Facebook vice president of messaging products David Marcus wrote in a Newsroom post that there are currently more than 300,000 active Messenger bots and over 200,000 developers on Messenger Platform, adding that more than 8 billion messages are sent between people and business on Facebook’s flagship messaging application each month.
The social network announced at F8 that Asus, Kia, Nike and Sephora are the first brands to debut AR effects for their Messenger experiences, adding that other brands can join the wait list to integrate AR into their experiences on the messaging app via Facebook Camera effects.
Asus is using the new features to “bring the unboxing experience to virtual life.”
Asus was one of the first brands to debut AR effects for Messenger experiences
Facebook
Kia will allow users to personalize and customize the Kia Stinger.
Kia was one of the first brands to debut AR effects for Messenger experiences
Facebook
Nike is dropping a new pair of sneakers via Messenger and offering a “red-carpet” sneak peek.
Nike was one of the first brands to debut AR effects for Messenger experiences
Facebook
And Sephora is enabling people to virtually try on new makeup.
Sephora was one of the first brands to debut AR effects for Messenger experiences
Facebook
Marcus wrote that when people interact with brands on Messenger, those brands can prompt them to open the app’s camera and access brand-specific filters and AR effects, adding that images or videos containing those elements can be shared in Stories, groups or one-on-one conversations, or saved to users’ camera rolls.
He added, “Blending AR effects and messaging solves a real problem for people shopping online. There are so many situations where we need to visualize a product before we feel comfortable buying it. We often seek input from our friends and family before making a purchase. This feature—launching in closed beta—leverages the nature of messaging to help people get valuable, instant feedback about purchases, customizations and more, without ever needing to set foot in a store. This feature is the latest addition for our AR Studio, which powers expressive and immersive experiences across our family of apps.”
Facebook also announced that Messenger’s suggestions from M will be extended to provide translation suggestions for different languages in the social network’s Marketplace commerce section.
When Marketplace users receive messages that are not in their native languages, Messenger’s M will ask them if they want to translate those messages.
The feature is launching the U.S., for English and Spanish conversations, and Marcus said Facebook intends to expand it “in the coming weeks.”
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Jeff Bezos Banned PowerPoint in Meetings. His Replacement Is Brilliant
In his 2018 annual letter, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos repeated his rule that PowerPoint is banned in executive meetings. What Bezos replaced it with provides even more valuable insight for entrepreneurs and leaders.
In his letter, and in a recent discussion at the Forum on Leadership at the Bush Center, Bezos revealed that "narrative structure" is more effective than PowerPoint. According to Bezos, new executives are in for a culture shock in their first Amazon meetings. Instead of reading bullet points on a PowerPoint slide, everyone sits silently for about 30 minutes to read a "six-page memo that's narratively structured with real sentences, topic sentences, verbs, and nouns."
After everyone's done reading, they discuss the topic. "It's so much better than the typical PowerPoint presentation for so many reasons," Bezos added.
As a student of narrative storytelling in business for the past 20 years, I can tell you exactly why it's so much better.
1. Our brains are hardwired for narrative.
Narrative storytelling might not have been as critical for our survival as a species as food, but it comes close.
Anthropologists say when humans gained control of fire, it marked a major milestone in human development. Our ancestors were able to cook food, which was a big plus. But it also had a second benefit. People sat around campfires swapping stories. Stories served as instruction, warning, and inspiration.
Recently, I've talked to prominent neuroscientists whose experiments confirm what we've known for centuries: The human brain is wired for story. We process our world in narrative, we talk in narrative and--most important for leadership--people recall and retain information more effectively when it's presented in the form of a story, not bullet points.
2. Stories are persuasive.
Aristotle is the father of persuasion. More than 2,000 years ago he revealed the three elements that all persuasive arguments must have to be effective. He called these elements "appeals." They are: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos is character and credibility. Logos is logic--an argument must appeal to reason. But ethos and logos are irrelevant in the absence of pathos--emotion.
Emotion is not a bad thing. The greatest movements in history were triggered by speakers who were gifted at making rational and emotional appeals: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.; and John F. Kennedy, who blended science and emotion to inspire America's moon program.
Neuroscientists have found emotion is the fastest path to the brain. In other words, if you want your ideas to spread, story is the single best vehicle we have to transfer that idea to another person.
"I'm actually a big fan of anecdotes in business," Bezos said at the leadership forum as he explained why he reads customer emails and forwards them to the appropriate executive. Often, he says, the customer anecdotes are more insightful than data.
Amazon uses "a ton of metrics" to measure success, explained Bezos. "I've noticed when the anecdotes and the metrics disagree, the anecdotes are usually right," he noted. "That's why it's so important to check that data with your intuition and instincts, and you need to teach that to executives and junior executives."
Bezos clearly understands that logic (data) must be married with pathos (narrative) to be successful.
3. Bullet points are the least effective way of sharing ideas.
I wrote an article last year titled "Google's CEO Doesn't Use Bullet Points and Neither Should You." He still doesn't. Neither do Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Richard Branson, or most of the world's most inspiring speakers.
Bullets don't inspire. Stories do.
Simply put, the brain is not built to retain information that's structured as bullet points on a slide. It's well-known among neuroscientists that we recall things much better when when we see pictures of the object or topic than when we read text on a slide.
Visuals are much, much more powerful than text alone. That's why, if you choose to use slides, use more pictures than words--and don't use bullet points. Ever.
During his discussion at the forum, Bezos said he could have spent the entire event talking about narrative. That means he really studies this topic and is passionate about it.
You should be too. Stories inform, illuminate, and inspire--all the things entrepreneurs strive to do.
What Makes BMW the Most Engaging Car Brand on Instagram?
When it comes to mentions of car brands on Instagram, according to the Auto Insurance Center, BMW wins, hands down.
The brand has a huge lead over its competitors in terms of number of posts on Instagram — more that 260K over the next most-mentioned brand on Instagram, which is Jeep.
In the month-long data period (from Aug 18-Sept 18, 2016) for which we tracked BMW, the car brand posted 96 times, generating over 13 million in engagement. That means over 142K in engagement for each of their posts.
Here is a look at what tactics BMW is using on Instagram and how, combined with earned media, its owned account is helping the brand win on the platform.
BMW’s Tactics on Instagram
Posting the Content Type that Resonates with Followers
Of all the content BMW has posted on Instagram, 94% are photos. The brand understands that photos see more average engagement than videos on Instagram. Average engagement on their photo posts were over 2X the engagement that they received on their video posts, and have generated over 97% of the total engagement for the brand in this time period.
BMW’s most engaging post from the data period is a photo post with over 286k likes:
Posting Frequently
BMW has adopted a consistent cadence to posting content on Instagram for their followers. Being consistent helps keep the brand top-of-mind for the people who follow them, and also helps generate constant engagement, making it easier to identify peaks and lows and the reasons behind them.
Appealing to the Inherent Emotions of the Audience
Cars have been a source of design and inspiration for many, and in a way they encapsulate the technological advances we have made, from Ford’s Model T to self-driving cars. BMW understands that there is a nostalgia attached to such developments, and that this is one of the reasons why people collect vintage cars all over the world. The brand keeps this in mind when it creates content for its followers. Here, they posted a photo of the first BMW 02, which was launched 50 years ago.
Running Creative Contests
During this time period, BMW ran an engaging contest, where they put up the first ever live photo collection of all BMW models, aggregated by BMW’s followers. The best photos submitted were featured in the gallery. This shows that BMW is paying attention to earned media by inciting followers to get more deeply involved and capitalizing on the pattern of behavior they’ve been exhibiting anyway: showing off their cars.
How to Create the Perfect Post on Any Network
This is a very creative strategy to enrich customer experiences and at the same time create a strong and vibrant community of BMW fans, since recognizing your fans can be a strong motivating factor for getting them to share more content in the future. It also encourages others to share content in hopes of being recognized by a prestigious brand like BMW.
Re-gramming User Content
67% of all the posts BMW posted in this data period are re-grams from their followers. Re-gramming user content helps brands source fresh and engaging material. This is an especially winning strategy when you have an enthusiastic group of followers that is passionate about taking photos, just like car photographers or food and travel photographers.
How Are These Tactics Helping BMW?
Having a consistent and well-crafted strategy to engage with followers on Instagram has paid off well for BMW. Their compelling visuals and strong messaging have created a very engaged audience on the network, with over 157.8% engagement as a % of followers for this data period.
BMW has also seen huge growth in audience numbers in this data period, gaining over 460K followers, which is a 5.6% jump in their total audience.
BMW has managed to gain an in-depth understanding of their audience on Instagram, creating a very strong focus on post quality and striking an emotional bond by recognizing fans in a unique way that does not end at just re-gramming.
What else do you think makes brands successful on Instagram? What differentiating strategies does your brand use? Leave us a comment below or let us know on Twitter, and download the Measuring Your Digital Brand Impact guide to learn more about building and growing your brand strategy.
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