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Snapchat Launches New AR Shopping Showcase as Part of its Holiday Season Push

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snapchat launches new ar shopping showcase as part of its holiday season push

Snapchat’s looking to expand its eCommerce credentials with a major showcase of its evolving AR tools, tied into Black Friday, which marks the beginning of the final shopping push of the year.

Snapchat’s partnered with a range of big-name brands on several AR-focused shopping initiatives, the biggest of which being its ‘Snap Holiday Market’, which includes immersive AR shopping experiences from Amazon, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon, and Walmart.

Snapchat Holiday Market

As explained by Snap:

Each brand will have a dedicated virtual store environment within the Holiday Market, where Snapchatters will be able to browse products and holiday deals in an AR space that’s been custom-built and unique to each brand.”

Snapchat Holiday Market

Accessible via the Lens Carousel in the app, the integrations will provide dedicated product showcases, including interactive and Try-On elements, along with up front branding for each partner business.

Snapchat Holiday Market

As noted, the initiative aims to provide a showcase into Snap’s evolving eCommerce tools, which could hold significant appeal to businesses looking to reach younger consumers, and align themselves with the latest trends in digital shopping engagement.

In addition to this, Snapchat’s also partnered with a range of fashion and beauty brands to add in more AR try-on and eCommerce Lenses.

Snapchat Holiday Market

Various big-name brands, including Dior, American Eagle and Tory Burch, are taking part in this broader shopping showcase, which will all contribute to Snap’s bigger push on facilitating connection to young audiences through more immersive, engaging eCommerce tools

The rise of online shopping over the past two years has opened new avenues of opportunity, and all of the major social platforms are now looking to link in, and provide more direct connection to their audiences. Snapchat, specifically, is looking to take the next steps into more immersive, indicative AR tools and options, which will likely hold more specific appeal to its younger audience, while they’ll also move Snap ahead of other social apps in providing similar in-app shopping experiences.

Snapchat’s been steadily developing its on-platform shopping options, which incorporate both physical and digital items – and even some projects that align with both, with users able to create digital products in the app, that can then be commissioned as custom, physical pieces.

Snapchat digital item creation

And while it doesn’t have the same technological resources as Facebook and Apple, with respect to building for the next stage of AR, Snap is still arguably the leader in the space, with advanced AR try-on tools and Lenses that continue to provide more ways to facilitate in-app shopping, so you can see what fashion items look like on you, specifically, direct from your device.

Snapchat try on tools

Such developments have Snap well-placed to capitalize on the next wave of commerce, and this new holiday showcase will provide more insight into how Snap’s looking to provide an advanced platform for retailers to connect with shoppers in this next phase, which also leans into the broader metaverse shift.

Which, of course, everyone is now buzzing about, since Facebook legitimized the next platform with its ‘Meta’ name change. No one knows, however, what exactly the metaverse will be, but integrations and projects like Snap’s new tools provide more insight into how our physical and digital worlds will increasingly collide, and how young consumers, in particular, will lead that shift.

As a further push, Snapchat’s also launching a new marketing campaign for the season, which will invite Snapchatters to “Scan to Shop” via various Snapcodes, which will activate these new AR Lens experiences.

AR remains central to Snap’s efforts, and will be a key part of the next stage. Indeed, Snap says that it now facilitates over 6 billion AR Lens plays every day, which underlines the potential, and this new showcase will no doubt spark a lot more interest in the app’s next-level connection tools as a means to tap into the rising eCommerce shift.

Next up, then, is Snap’s own AR glasses, which may also be coming sooner than many think.

Socialmediatoday.com

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TikTok’s popularity complicates possible U.S. ban

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TikTok’s popularity complicates possible U.S. ban

Data: AppTopia; Note: Musically became TikTok in the U.S. on Aug. 2, 2018; Table: Axios Visuals

The U.S. government’s threat to ban TikTok takes aim at what has become the most popular smartphone app in the country.

Why it matters: TikTok’s scale presents an enormous challenge to lawmakers trying to argue that the app’s national security threat outweighs the wishes of the millions of people and businesses that use the app.

  • The TikTok app has been downloaded more times in the U.S. than any other social app since it merged with U.S. lip-syncing app Musical.ly in August 2018, according to data from Apptopia.
  • The app is expected to generate more than $11 billion in U.S. ad revenue by 2024, far outpacing rivals like Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter, per eMarketer.
  • TikTok has also captured far more revenue than its competitors from in-app purchases, like coins that fans can use to tip their favorite creators, per Apptopia.

Driving the news: TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew plans to highlight the app’s growth in remarks prepared for his first-ever Congressional testimony on Thursday and released Tuesday night by the House committee he will address.

  • The company now counts more than 150 million monthly active users in the U.S., up from the 100 million users it first reported in 2020, executives confirmed to Axios.
  • Chew will also likely cite TikTok’s role in supporting small businesses — a message that’s also been used by tech rivals like Meta and Google when faced with regulatory pressure.
  • On Tuesday, Chew posted a TikTok video touting the app’s reach, asserting that 5 million U.S. businesses, a majority of which are small or medium-sized, use TikTok to reach their customers.

Be smart: Tuesday’s video is part of a broader consumer campaign that the short-video platform is beginning to push amid growing efforts by federal and state governments to limit or ban the app.

  • Last week, The Information reported that TikTok sent a message to some creators inviting them to join its top executives in Washington D.C. to support the company on Capitol Hill.
  • This week, TikTok is trying to appeal to users directly in the app. “Some politicians have started to talk about banning TikTok,” Chew said in the video posted Tuesday. “Now this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.”
  • He then directed users to leave comments about “what you want your elected representatives to know about what you love about TikTok.”

Between the lines: TikTok has ramped up its marketing efforts in recent weeks, buying prominent ad space alongside many of D.C.’s most prominent political publications.

  • While most of TikTok’s consumer messaging is focused on the ban risk facing the app, its Washington campaign has mostly focused on steps the company is taking to protect U.S. user data.

The big picture: Surveys indicate that the public remains mostly divided on whether the government should ban TikTok, but Republicans are much more likely to support a ban than Democrats.

  • Lawmakers that oppose the ban argue the government needs to find more convincing proof that TikTok is a national security threat before forcing the app’s Chinese parent ByteDance to sell to a U.S. company or face a ban.
  • Lawmakers that support moves against TikTok say the app is a threat to U.S. user data privacy because of Chinese laws that require Chinese companies to share user data with China’s government.

Yes, but: Many lawmakers fall somewhat in the middle, arguing that lawmakers need to provide the public with more clarity about the actual national security risks.

  • “If you’re going to pull the plug on one of the largest digital communities in the country, you have to make a very clear case for why you’re doing that,” Rep. Jeff Jackson (D-N.C.), an avid TikTok user, told Bloomberg.

What to watch: TikTok’s U.S. tech rivals have been waiting in the wings, hoping their TikTok clones — like Reels on both Facebook and Instagram, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat’s Spotlight — could steal some market share from TikTok if it were banned.

  • Those services have all launched in the wake of former president Trump’s initial proposal to ban TikTok in 2020, and many have grown pretty sizable.
  • Google said last month that YouTube Shorts has crossed 50 billion daily views.
  • Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram “have more than doubled over the last year,” and people sharing Reels “has more than doubled on both apps in just the last 6 months.”

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WhatsApp Adds New Group Chat Controls, Additional Context Around Group Membership

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WhatsApp Adds New Group Chat Controls, Additional Context Around Group Membership

WhatsApp’s adding some new control options for group chats, which will provide more capacity to manage who can, and can’t, join a group, while it’s also providing new insights into groups in-common with other users, to provide more context for connection and discovery.

First off, on group controls – WhatsApp’s adding a simplified control panel UI to approve new chat members.

As you can see in this example, the new format will enable chat admins to approve and reject group chat applicants, while it will also show people that have been previously approved or rejected.

That could make it much easier to manage your group chats, and ensure you’re on top of all participating members – which will be handy for Communities, which WhatsApp added back in November, and enable users to connect around specific topics.

The idea is that this will expand WhatsApp usage beyond private chats, and facilitate a wider range of discussion. And with more social media engagement switching to private chats, it’s another means for Meta to align with that shift, and keep users engaged.

It’s a simple addition, in broader context, and could be beneficial for those trying to keep tabs on their group membership.

WhatsApp’s also adding a new ‘groups in common’ display, to help users glean more context about other members.

WhatsApp groups update

As per WhatsApp:

“With the growth of Communities and their larger groups, we want to make it easy to know which groups you have in common with someone. Whether you’re trying to remember the name of a group you know you share with someone or you want to see the groups you’re both in, you can now easily search a contact’s name to see your groups in common.”

The display could also assist in group discovery, helping you find more relevant Communities that you might also want to join to engage in related topics.

As noted, with more online interactions switching to private chats, and away from public posting on social platforms, Meta’s now trying to align with that change, and provide more ways to keep users engaged, and help brands also meet them where they’re active.

WhatsApp, which has seen big growth in US, is now a larger part of the equation, and with more people leaning into more private discussion spaces, it makes sense for Meta to provide more tools to facilitate such.

The next step is monetizing WhatsApp, which remains a work in progress – but Meta is indeed making progress on this front as well.

As such, group chats could be another way to help boost exposure for brand functionality in the app, which is why Meta will be keen to build on these tools wherever it can.

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LinkedIn Creates Profile Summaries, Job Listings Via Generative AI 03/22/2023

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LinkedIn Creates Profile Summaries, Job Listings Via Generative AI 03/22/2023

Microsoft-owned business and
employment-focused social platform LinkedIn is adding a new ChatGPT-powered tool Premium subscribers can access to create personalized writing suggestions for sections of their LinkedIn profile, as
well as other AI integrations.

LinkedIn Premium subscribers now have the option to “Enhance” their profile via AI-drafted options for the …



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