digitalcommsjbova

[digitalcommsjbova]

Apple News Update

Apple news is something I always ignored as a feature of my iPhone, because I felt I had enough access to the news from other outlets. Plus, I’m on my phone enough as it is and didn’t feel like I needed the alerts forcing me back to scrolling even more than I already was. Turns out, it was exactly as I feared when I turned on the notifications this week. So many alerts popped up about the happenings in the world, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing given my goal to be more informed. However, by mid week I was ready to power down the phone completely because I was overstimulated by the tiny screen.

Upon opening the app and making sure my notifications were turned on, I thought the user interface was very “Apple”. It actually reminded me a lot of Apple Music in terms of the color scheme, categorization, and sections (which I’m sure was intentional). Each story was accompanied by the universal Apple symbol of ‘share this somehow’, and I immediately appreciated the ease of sharing. I ended up sending a few relevant stories to family and friends, which I rarely do when I peruse through the news. While I’m being honest about my routine... I often rely on TheSkimm on my morning commute to deliver me news efficiently and in a way that I can easily understand and digest. That’s part of their mission, and I definitely fall in the platform’s target audience. Apple News is different, but I feel as though I learned a lot more. For example, TheSkimm gives me the highlights and the bare minimum of what I need to know, whereas Apple News gave me quotes and images that fully immersed me in the story, to the point where I’ll be looking for follow up and closure on some of them. One of these is the Fortune article “Here’s Why MGM Is Suing The Las Vegas Shooting Victims”. The title grabbed me immediately as someone who participated in March For Our Lives, and someone who cares deeply about common sense gun laws. From a legal perspective, MGM is saying they cannot be held liable for the deaths, injuries, or damages that resulted from the terrible tragedy. Some of the comments mentioned how this opens the door to a conversation about how to serve justice for all the mass shootings in the country... but I I digress. When using Apple News, I also enjoyed the variety of news outlets they arrange in the interface. From NPR to the New York Times, and Fortune to National Geographic, it certainly covered a wide gamut of news stories throughout my week. I noticed this is a great opportunity for publishers to utilize advertising while I clicked through each of them. Scrolling down beyond Top Stories, I see the “trending” section, which includes only 4 articles, a smaller number than I would expect. It reiterated what I already believed to be true: Apple is concise and doesn’t want to bombard its users with anything irrelevant, but doesn’t miss out on the opportunity to be clever.

It was a little strange to scroll past “trending” and seeing two video sections “top videos” and “must see videos”. Hmm, I understand the concept of top videos, but who is determining why the others are “must see”, even better content then “top”? Ah, question answered: in the tagline below them, it says chosen by our editors”.

I dig deeper in to the videos and it turns out some of these are fairly repetitive with the top stories I already browsed through on the top of the page. There are 20 must see videos total (I counted because they seemed to go on and on) and it turns out there are some completely unique stories, but I had to scroll to find them. From Kylie Jenner to Southwest Airlines and a digital museum in Japan, there is certainly a lot of diversity. Finally at the very bottom, I see a “For You” section. This one looks identical to the Apple Music “For You” section, which I sadly find underwhelming. They just don’t know me as well Spotify does, but I know they’re trying to.

The “For You” section for Apple News is certainly intriguing. It’s based on topics and channels I read, so in their defense they’ve only been measuring that this week. 

Unless they are monitoring what I do on my iPhone... is that what’s happening here?

All in all, I will definitely use Apple News again. I really enjoyed the seamless format, and despite some of its quirks I think it does a solid job delivering a lot of different types of news from all different outlets. I’ll be interested to see if they curate more articles relevant to my interests the more I use it over time.

[digitalcommsjbova]

Media Switch Up: Twitter

I haven’t opened Twitter since I was in college 5 years ago, and I vividly remember deleting the app off my iPhone in an attempt to purge at least a couple social media platforms from my life. At the time I sensed I was becoming a bit addicted to Instagram and Snapchat when they were first growing very popular, so my rationale was to give up any social media I didn’t use as much if I was going to spend so much time using the other apps. Twitter did not make the cut because I had lost interest in the concept itself, often wondering ‘is this really all there is to my newsfeed today?’ For this reason, I was intrigued to re-install the app this week to see if anything had changed since I was last on it.  It took me a few tries to remember my password, and once I log in Twitter immediately asks me for this:

Alright, so they want to know where I’m locate for their targeted ads. This already seems like an improvement for the publisher from a digital marketing perspective. And yet, after an entire week of scrolling through the newsfeed, I hardly see any ads targeted towards me. What’s the deal?

Something about this didn’t add up to me, especially given the huge emphasis on digital advertising nowadays. I was curious to learn more about why I would only see a few ads throughout the week in comparison to Instagram and Facebook, where I can’t seem to avoid ads every time I scroll through. After researching a bit, I found out more about Twitter’s best practices for ad targeting, which seems like a well thought out and strategic approach for brands looking to advertise on their platform. After some more digging, I also found this interesting article that talked about Twitter’s reach compared to others, and it poses “the real question is: is the smaller audience on Twitter one that’s more engaged (i.e. more likely to click on ads) than those from other paid networks?” I suppose yes if the users are engaged, but I felt like I wasn’t even given the chance because I didn’t see the ads in the first place! 

Adstage did an analysis in 2017 that showed Twitter’s CPMs and CPCs are increasing  It’s well known that Twitter’s user growth is flat, hence why revenue has been declining in recent years. I tried to find other Twitter users who may have expressed the same confusion as me, but didn’t come up with much. This makes me wonder if my lack of targeted ads is due to the fact that I just re-started my account and have not been active in years, so my following list is relatively small and perhaps out of date? 

In that vein, since I have not been active, I still follow the exact same accounts I did 5 years ago, but they at least seem to have gotten more savvy about the content they share and how they share it. For example, CNN had 5 bullet points of things for Thursday:

Bulleted ideas are a great way to grab users’ attention. I also noticed that CNN also retweets their subdivision accounts quite a bit, such as CNN politics. After a couple days of scrolling, I decided to follow several new accounts in order to diversify my newsfeed. Since living in D.C. I’ve have been making an effort to be more informed about what is going on in politics and the world, so I followed some other news outlets and even some politicians. From what I gathered this week, many folks in this arena tend to consistently promote their viewpoints in a professional manner, whereas certain presidents blast their raw and unfiltered opinions on their Twitter account every day. However, you don’t even need a Twitter account to know about this, you just need to watch the news.

Overall, I do not see any drastic changes in the platform since I last used Twitter, and I wasn’t impressed. From what I can recall from my memory, the user interface has hardly changed at all. In fact, what I found most interesting about this experience is how I noticed the lack of targeted ads right away because of the way I’ve been conditioned as a consumer to receive them and interact with them regularly. Without the ads, something feels missing. 

[digitalcommsjbova]

Media Switch Up: Pinterest

When I first discovered Pinterest back in 2012, I remember feeling enamored by the idea of being able to categorize my favorite recipes, fashion styles, home goods and decor, and more all in digital boards. It felt scrapbooking for the tech savvy generations, and without the need to keep track of all the pages and cut out magazine clips like I used to do when I was younger. I was obsessed with it and spent hours pinning images from blogs and websites all over the internet. However, once I graduated college and became absorbed with work and my post grad life, my time spent on Pinterest gradually dwindled.I tried to spent my free time reading the news and relevant articles for work, and I remember even deleting the app of my iPhone because I was trying to free up storage space once upon at time and Pinterest was no longer as critical as Snapchat and Instagram. 

I find that any time I delete an app, it's a sure fire sign that I will no longer be using that platform. These days, I'll occasionally go to my "food and drinks" board for a recipe I've made in the past and need to refresh my memory, like this epic Superbowl party appetizer that I brought back out to cheer on the Eagles: 

Other than for food, it's rare that I spend time scrolling through all the tiles on my never-ending Pinterest feed or did a deep dive into the platform. This week when I took a fresh look, the very first view of my home page is this: 

What struck me immediately is all the random people I'm seeing these posts from as I scrolled down the feed. I don't remember following any of these people on Pinterest! Then again, it's been about 6 years since I created my account, so who knows what my younger self decided. 

Although the 200 million monthly users is not nearly the size of Facebook and Instagram, I think brands on Pinterest have a great opportunity to promote their content and can target individuals appropriately based on the interests, which are openly displayed in what they pin. This article also states how 93% of pinners use the platform to plan their purchases. For example, I pin a lot of shoes, so I noticed spot on targeting of a new brand called Rothy's, which is in the business of creating comfortable, beautiful, and professional flats made with eco-friendly fiber. Hopefully not regrettably, I just bought a pair:

There is also an 'explore' section similar to Snapchat and Instagram 'discover' section, which is another great opportunity for brands. I enjoyed that true to their mission, Pinterest categorized each section in 'explore' so it was easy to for users to navigate. From trending to food to beauty and weddings and more, it's a great variety of everything Pinterest has to offer. The advertising is native in that every promoted content tile looks exactly like the others you'll see from friends, and I think this is very well done. 

One area for improvement for brands on Pinterest could be to find ways reach their audiences with special promotions and limited time offers on products so they create a sense of urgency. From personal experience, when I see any sale from one of my favorite brands that's only for a limited time, I pounce. I think they should be utilizing the 'explore' section even more than they are today, because I only saw a few tiles that were promoted. Otherwise, my time on Pinterest this week was nostalgic and engaging. I think I may re-download the app again... for research... 

[digitalcommsjbova]

The Delight of Washingtonian Magazine

This week I focused on the most recent issue of Washingtonian magazine. I sometimes decide to pick up the magazine if I have some down time and reap the benefits of my roommate’s subscription. More often I tend to consume media from mobile sources on my commute to work, so taking a few nights this week to read through the magazine as a way of decompressing at the end of the day was a refreshing change of pace. 

Beyond the beautiful cover featuring DC culinary star turned national humanitarian hero (Jose Andres), the next two pages are an ad for MGM National Harbor, then the two after that are an ad for Rolex, one more ad for Cultura Dermatology & Plastic surgery, and then the editor decides to move on to the “in this issue” features page. 

I’ve always enjoyed perusing through this magazine, and on some level I’m sure I’ve noticed all the advertisements in the past, but this time they jumped out at me. Advertisements are at least half the magazine, and many local brands have a spot on the stage as well as national and global brands. I appreciated the native ads that looked like they were just another article when I flipped the page, because they are aesthetically pleasing and drew me in. The local advertising brands ran with was especially interesting, and I noticed how some of them targeted specific demographics. For example, AT&T ran an ad that headlined “More for your night out on U street thing” and below it read “search, visit, and share all the best places in D.C. with unlimited data from AT&T. Clearly this is targeting the younger D.C. audience that is typically associated with vivacious nightlife on U street. 

D.C. metro area concerts, books, movies, music, festivals, outdoor fitness classes, and foodie spots for summer 2018 were all showcased throughout this issue. Literally almost every other page was an advertisement, and I was a bit taken aback to see a page dedicated to my company and its slogan: 

The magazine ad also read: 

Fearless is Making New Friends. 

The articles in the magazine were for the most part relevant and interesting, especially the tech in DC chart highlighting priorities of Uber, Facebook, Amazon, and Alphabet. There was an article about how print newspapers may be fading (which was a little meta to read in a print magazine), but the old-fashioned distribution boxes have not left the city’s sidewalks. In the Road Tester article, they mention the hype around commuting options and point out the confusion around where the dockless scooter belongs. 

^FYI for anyone in a city without them, this is what the Lime bike/scooter brand looks like. Sort of how it looks when people ride them in D.C., minus the palm trees and smiles. Anyway, it was cool for me to see similar confusion mentioned in Washingtonian a few weeks after I described it as a brand that could use help with their digital communications plan in our introduction to class videos. 

Another interesting twist included in this issue was an article on the Best Instragram Feeds For Foodies, highlighting the top 5 insta handles to follow. I was a bit surprised one of my favorite food accounts wasn’t mentioned. Highly recommend @district_dining: 

This article made me think more about class discussions around the use of social media and mobile by brands, so it was unexpected and pretty neat to see personal brands represented in this way. I already have an Instagram newsfeed that is primarily dominated by food, but I followed all 5 of them anyway. Naturally I had to support the locals. 

Through all the user guides, the summer one piece bathing suit mania coverage, life/travel/fitness tips, and general Washingtonian insider knowledge,  I feel a lot more in the know about the DC happenings after reading this issue. There wasn’t nearly as much noise as I previously experienced on Snapchat and LinkedIn, because the advertisements in the magazine felt more naturally placed and even helpful at times. I wonder if that’s part of the traditional display I’ve always been accustomed to, and social media ads are relatively newer to navigating through those murky waters. Social ads at times are still deciding what they want to be and who they want to serve, whereas the structure of magazine ads has had it down for years. 

[digitalcommsjbova]

Snapchat Discover & Filters

This week I examined Snapchat, a social media app I mainly use for exchanging snaps every so often between friends. My usual media consumption habits are dominated by Facebook, my CNN app, and theSkimm newsletter; Snapchat is low on the list. 

Snapchat has a “Discover” section that is separate from the stories and individual snaps, and I never realized it actually says “For You” underneath the header, as if each of the tiles are targeted. And yet, the first one I saw was from the “Brother HQ” account, which appears to be an account geared towards men. I searched online to learn more about them and it sounds like their concept is a lifestyle account, and apparently Brother HQ has more than 18 million followers. I noticed there was some content specified as sponsored, for example “Free Yoga Daily Workouts” and “Want Toned Abs? Here’s what you should be Eating” showed up in my tiles. I must peruse more fitness websites than I thought if I’m attracting these ads...? 

Anyway, it became very evident that the “Discover” target audience is geared towards younger generations, specifically Millennials, Generation Y, and Generation Z. I drew this conclusion from the type of content these generations are typically associated with, topics such as health, fitness, relationships, food, and nightlife. I can’t imagine Baby Boomers in my parents’ generation digesting and enjoying this sort of media hub with random content. 

As I was scrolling through “Discover” this week, I was overwhelmed by dozens of tiles that flashed teasers of what might be inside if you click them, some more intriguing than others, such as “The Apple Store of Pot Just Went Public” or “I Ate FREE Food For a Whole Week”. It was difficult to get a sense of the community on Snapchat in the “Discover” section, because users do not leave comments, share, or react to the content. In fact, as soon as the section I was flipping through ended its story, it disappeared from the top of the page where I found it – so I could not do anything with it even if I wanted to. The only option for users on Snapchat is to post and understand your content will ‘disappear’ after a period of time, and I gather regular users typically do not make it to the “Discover” section. 

The “Discover” section is presented as a pop culture based feed with a combination of videos, quizzes, celebrity stories, and more. There were definitely some recognizable brands in “Discover” such as Cosmopolitan magazine, People magazine, Daily Mail, Buzzfeed, and National Geographic. I noticed these channels each had a ‘subscribe’ option after I clicked through their stories and images, and it was very easy for me to hit the button accidentally (which I did twice). 

Publishers took advantage of the platform space and created captivating, funky visuals to excite and engage viewers. In addition to these publishers, other brands I noticed using “Discover” for advertising and sponsored content included Samsung, Exxon Mobil, and even a few upcoming movie trailers. I’d like to do some research as to how significantly the followers and views have increased since this re-design with the active tiles, because it must have jumped. 

There was also a bit of ~~inception~~

going on when a 5 second advertisement was displayed between other sponsored content tiles, but it always concluded in a seamless transition to the next. However, it was not the best user experience feeling rushed watching flashy content that disappears before I know what’s happening. For example, an entire quiz I took vanished without a trace of my results...  

Even still, I think other brands can follow the others’ lead and use Snapchat as a platform to attract attention and boost user engagement -- clearly they are doing something right. Many brands are not “Discover” partners and could benefit from joining this channel, because even the less widely known brands such as Brother HQ, which lives on Snapchat, can build a large follower base. 

Aside from “Discover”, I know brands utilize Snapchat filters offered to individual users as a fun and unique mechanism for target audiences to interact with a brand. For example, I remember Gatorade had a filter during football season that allowed users to create a video of pouring a bucket of the sports drink on themselves while wearing a football helmet. Around Cinco De Mayo, Taco Bell created a filter that turned the user in to a taco, distorting the face in a ridiculously comical way. 

The fact that the brands’ filter campaigns left such a positive and lasting impression on me and others I know proves that others are missing out on an opportunity to do so. This week, I noticed the only individual filter options were some interactive games that I found very confusing and odd. Can’t help laughing out loud at the screenshot it produced, so A+ on peaking my interest: 

^ Regardless, I feel like this is a waste of a filter? You can see above there were also bubbles, a cat, a giraffe... but none of the games offered appeared to be affiliated with a brand. Seems like a missed opportunity all around. I think brands should look to Snapchat as a part of their digital communications strategy and take advantage of reaching the massive younger demographic that remains loyal, active users. 

[digitalcommsjbova]

Deciphering the Newsfeed of

I chose to study how media is displayed on LinkedIn, because I rarely use the platform unless I’m on the job hunt and sending out a few obligatory networking messages. I had high expectations for the largest professional networking website, because the job search function is so robust. However, in my first few minutes exploring my newsfeed, I was a bit mystified. Things I found abundant include: somewhat relevant advertisements, updates from connections to the nth degree, and sporadic trending news sections. Since I worked in recruiting for a few years, I mistakenly over-connected with too many prospective candidates in my former life. A great deal of what these connections react to and the content they share makes up what I perceive to be about 80% of my newsfeed after this experience. In other words, it’s a ton of noise from people I do not know as well as their connections.   For example, this week the content included many job postings, and “liked” posts ranged from someone’s proclamation of their ALS diagnosis that literally began with the quote "I am dying", to a video of a developer describing how to build a serverless application in java. In fact, these two posts were shared right on top of the other. I even saw a couple posts written completely in Spanish, which I discovered to be from connections made during my time recruiting for office locations in South America. The most fascinating part of this overload of random content I digested is that the users on the platform actively engage with each other, making it appear as if this notion of over sharing and raw honesty is the norm for the LinkedIn newsfeed users. In sum, this week I’ve felt spammed with recruiting blasts and/or random professional updates from strangers because someone I may have a distinct connection to liked their post, such as:

^ I have no idea who Ryan is, but happy to hear about his ambitions / I actually agree this is a cool partnership... 

^ Thanks Nancy, but instead my thinking cap led me down a rabbit hole of Airbnb searches in Pasadena (but touche, escaping the DC humidity right now became a selling point to me in this moment).  

After closing Airbnb and continuing to scroll through, I become increasingly aware of the content overload my brain is experiencing from this type of feed. I’m scanning posts sporadically based on what is visually appealling and inevitably missing bits and pieces. I laugh to myself thinking how truly impossible it would be to have a productive morning at work if I attempted to read every article and watch every video I saw on this chaotic home page. 

As I mentioned earlier, I previously worked in recruiting. I spent 2.5 years at AppNexus, the world's largest independent advertising technology company, where I had an inside look into the ad-serving world. I have a lot of respect for AppNexus and always pay attention to their blog posts, which I was happy to see linked on the company posts. A particular post comparing their demand side platform product to Tesla intrigued me, but I paid closer attention to what LinkedIn was showing me as a consumer looking at this post. Under the company name "AppNexus" I can see right away it has 30,715 followers, but what stumps me is this post was shared 4 days ago and has only 5 likes and 0 comments. It makes me wonder if someone is monitoring that engagement back at headquarters. 

Regardless, the order of the content shown on LinkedIn does not seem to display posts with the highest traffic in terms of comments or likes, or even chronologically, so I’m not exactly sure how the algorithm is designed. Aside from the individuals posting and reacting to content, I do not get the impression that many of the companies I follow on LinkedIn have dedicated employees managing the brand and carefully choosing their content shared on this particular platform.

Further, I noticed various promoted posts for little known recruiting software and even more job openings. Again, I was derailed from this blog post for a bit searching the open HR career opportunities at Google around the country. When I continued browsing, I noticed how much noise there was in my feed about topics that may not even be considered newsworthy, such as an analytics chart examining the recent "Yanny versus Laurel" debate.

In addition to the subtle promoted content, I noticed the fine print above certain posts that read "Trending at Cigna, a company similar to yours", which is spot on considering I work at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Other times, the industry targeting felt a little off, for example:

Why would Steve Jobs be trending in insurance rather than tech? Not sure, but I instinctively found myself clicking on embedded articles like this anyway. It’s funny how natural it has become in recent years for us to simply click on trending content, sponsored content, and native ads even if we are not consciously interested in reading them.    

Any time I wandered away from the newsfeed, LinkedIn frequently reminded me of my option to pay to upgrade to premium so I can take advantage of seeing who is viewing my profile, how I compare to other applicants, online video courses, and more. Ah premium, part of the moneymaker. I was also served this ad: 

^ Which I found comical, considering I’m halfway through my current Master’s in HR program at Georgetown… but I see where their head (algorithm) is at.  

Back to the newsfeed once more. Apparently, LinkedIn has decided their feed warrants a “Daily Rundown Tuesday”, which was announced as “The news professionals are talking about now, curated by LinkedIn’s editors. Join the conversation on today's stories in the comments. The professional news you need to know now: Uber hit with harassment suit, Lowe's poaches JC Penney CEO, and more top news”.

Curious if this Daily Rundown Tuesday is actually posted every Tuesday? It’s an interesting idea, but I wonder how a headlined brand like Uber in this case feels about LinkedIn using its platform to broadcast their negative PR, while simultaneously posting their open jobs. I think some brands would view this type of earned media as a benefit, because regardless of the message, it gets their name out and links to their LinkedIn company page whenever referenced (shown below, Apple is bolded). Interestingly, I did not see a single company respond to a post made about them, which is different compared to Facebook and Twitter where I have seen company accounts respond frequently. 

After this week of observation, I notice my LinkedIn feed is not comprised of the same news I am privy to on other platforms. The news I have been exposed to on LinkedIn every so often came from some credible sources such as Forbes and The Wall Street Journal regarding relevant topics such as the Facebook privacy ordeal or Crypto currency. To my dismay, the majority of the newsfeed I saw was individual professional achievements often posted by people I have never met or followed. And if there was in fact an interesting article I spotted and I made the mistake of not saving the link, it was impossible to find it again once I had moved on.

I downloaded the app for the week to compare the interface to the way I typically see it on my laptop. The interface was essentially the same, and again I felt very much linked in to the personal lives of strangers, sometimes their professional. I plan to delete the app shortly after finishing up this post, because the overwhelming majority of the type of media I’ve been bombarded with this week is unfortunately not worth consumption. While there are some valuable posts and interesting content shared, the newsfeed is presented as an overall disjointed cluster of nonsense in a strange order.

To conclude, there’s nothing like reading this uplifting quote while perusing for a career move (read: below on the photo):