Article's Content
Article's Content
Welcome to Volume 99
Let’s jump into the good stuff.
- IG’s effort to be everyone but themselves
- The secret to getting the most out of your data
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SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram: A Case Study On Listening To Your Customers
If you’re waiting for Instagram to start listening to its users’ wants and needs, don’t hold your breath. It appears as though the app is going through a mid-life crisis, trying to find out who it really is.
Just this year alone, Instagram has rolled out a handful of updates that appeared to be mimicking a certain popular short-form video app. 👀 From the new 9×16 layout to prioritizing videos/reels, the app felt like a knock-off version of TikTok.
And where did all these updates get them? Clowned by users everywhere. 🤡
After realizing their mistake with trying to copy TikTok, you’d think Instagram learned its lesson. But the latest news is that BeReal is the new role model Instagram is looking to morph into.
Instagram’s continual missteps aren’t just entertaining. They’re a real-time case study on the importance of listening to your customers and not the competition. While Instagram is dead-set on altering itself to become a mirror image of popular apps like TikTok or BeReal, they forget that they were once the pivotal app that captivated everyone’s screens.
Higher-ups at Instagram continue to blindly make changes to the app to include features they think their users want when in reality, users are telling them the exact updates they’re looking for.
Becoming your competition isn’t important if your audience wants different features from you. While Instagram appears to be basing its entire app on the trends they see from market research, it is overlooking direct feedback from its audience right in front of them.
Let this be a lesson to you: don’t lose yourself trying to be someone you’re not when people appreciate you for who you are. And on a less philosophical, more marketing-related note: stop copying your competitors and listen to your audience!
MARKETING BEST PRACTICES
Seasoning Raw Data To Get Juicy Insights
There’s no doubt that data is a crucial part of any marketing campaign. While many use data as determining factor in drawing conclusions, data should really be used as a jumping-off point.
What do I mean by that?
It’s not enough to pull data; you need to understand your data.
Yes, some conclusions can be pulled from raw data. But data alone doesn’t tell the full story.
Digging deeper into the data enables you to uncover insights. It also helps you gain an edge over your competition.
Here at Foundation, we know that insight-driven marketing is where the real ROI is at.
When building a landing page for one of our clients, we analyzed over 4,000 reviews across review sites like Capterra, G2, and Trust radius.
After sourcing the data, we could’ve analyzed it from a copy lens to find common phrases to include on the landing page. But we took it a step further.
We analyzed the data and cross-referenced it with our target customers to uncover not only what they liked about this product but how it fits into their lifestyle.
Along with creating optimized landing page copy, we created a blog post detailing this product’s use cases, driven by the insights we gathered from our data set.
The blog post drove a lot of traffic to the site and ultimately drove sign-ups for the product.
Keep this in mind for your next marketing research session. There may be nuggets of gold within the data, but the real treasure is the insights you formulate from the data. Don’t just take your data sets at face value—dig deeper to uncover what this data means for your target audience.
For the full story on insight-driven marketing, check out the full post here.
B2B NEWS OF THE WEEK YOU SHOULD KNOW:
- There’s a new AI generator on the block
- Hackers are hitting some big companies like Twilio, Mailchimp, and Klaviyo
- The fall of creators and the rise of ‘nimcels’
BRAIN FOOD OF THE WEEK:
If you have a hobby these days, there’s no doubt you’ve considered monetizing it. And rightfully so. With the current instability of the economy, people are looking for extra cash in every avenue of their lives. It also doesn’t help that social media is flooding users with “an easy way to turn your interests into a side hustle” narratives in every scroll.
I’m here to remind you (and myself, tbh) that a hobby can be just that: a hobby. I find myself constantly stuck in hustle mode, thinking of new ways I can make some extra cash on the side. As beneficial as this mindset might be, I’ve found it gets in the way of enjoying hobbies. I can no longer create something just to create it—I expect myself to create at a high level in order to be able to monetize it.
But I shouldn’t have to be good at my hobbies! It’s just a hobby, isn’t it?
And where has this hustle mentality gotten me? Hesitant to create and not at all richer.
I know it’s not easy to turn off hustle mode. And the current state of the economy almost demands you be overly conscious of your earnings. But the ability to enjoy things without the constant concern of monetization is priceless. Spend your time doing hobbies that pay you in joy and forget the rest.
TWITTER THREAD OF THE WEEK:
8 tips from one of advertising’s greatest copywriters by Alex Garcia
NICE FINDS YOU SHOULD BINGE:
- Performance Metrics Your CMO Actually Cares About
- The Master List of Newsletters, Podcasts & Twitter Accounts You Need to Follow
- Subscriptions are out, refills are in
- How Highspot Used Lightning-Fast Scale to 4X Its Worth in 2 Years
WHAT WE’RE WIRED INTO THIS WEEK 🎧:
No One Dies From Love by Tove Lo
This charcuterie board of insights is brought to you by me, Hannah ✌🏼!
