📡 Stories. It's all about Stories.
Welcome to another Pulse!
It’s an unusually sunny mid-November Sunday here in Manchester. Hope you’re happy and healthy - and nothing else matters, right?
- Ben
📰 News
Snapchat is rolling out Friendship Profiles. In each Friendship Profile, you’ll find the images, videos, messages, links, and more that you and your friends have saved in Chat, all in one place. [Add me on Snapchat: perspectiveix]
Elon Musk’s Boring Company reached a new milestone this week: it completed digging out its first tunnel in LA. Musk posted a video of the breakthrough to his Twitter account, showing off the machine reaching the end point, which the company calls O’Leary Station.
Instagram accidentally exposed some user passwords through its data download tool - but it’s now fixed.
Cryptocurrency chill causes mining speculator Nvidia’s stock to plunge. It’s no surprise of an exciting, but unpredictable market.
🧠Insights
Voice Assistants in 2019 - Credit: Andres Urena on Unsplash
What’s the Next Big Thing for Voice Assistants in 2019?
Voice assistants continue to gain momentum, but there’s still little clarity around how this new interface affects the brand-consumer relationship, and how brands need to reposition themselves in light of this.
With strong chances of more growth on the horizon, stakeholders in voice tech are having to consider questions that underline its durability and monetisation potential.
Above all, they’re grappling with the need to commercialise voice assistants, and solidify the role they’re playing across the purchase journey.
Read more on GlobalWebIndex.
📊 Statistics
🥊 Facebook vs. Instagram - Credit: SocialBakers
Facebook vs. Instagram
Each of them offers a unique advantage for brands:
Facebook: the biggest audience
Instagram: the most engaging
via SocialBakers.
Instagram: Stories vs. Posts - Credit: SocialBakers
Instagram: Stories vs. Posts
- Over 50% of the content shared on top business profiles of Instagram is now shared as Stories.
- However, stories reach less than 10% of their fans compared to over 20% reach of regular posts. But this makes sense due to the temporary nature of stories.
via SocialBakers.
The state of social platforms - Credit: Pew Research Center
The State of Pinterest
29% of US Adults Use Pinterest. Of the other social platforms, it’s fourth in popularity, behind YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. However, the metric has been slowly climbing.
According to Pinterest’s own demographic data, more than half of Pinners are international and more than half of new signups are men. This means that even if US audiences aren’t gaining as quickly, there’s potential for an international audience to take off.
💰 Pinterest delivers $2 in profit per $1 spent on ads.
📌 70% of Pinners will search, save or click on a Pin.
📱 85% of Pinterest searches happen on mobile.
Read more on SproutSocial.
📱 Tools & Apps
Buffer Stories Creator: Quickly create thumb-stopping content for Facebook and Instagram Stories. (Web-based)
🎧 Audio Stimulation
Quiet - Credit: Fabrice Villard on Unsplash
Why would someone choose NOT to talk for 17 years?
In this episode, Guy Raz and his guests explore ways to find quiet in our busy lives. How can we step back and make time to reflect in an increasingly distracted and hurried world?
Listen on NPR One | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify.
🎮 Fun Stuff
How accurate is this now?
Credit: Rob DenBleyker - Cyanide and Happiness
Not as accurate as The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, which you can actually buy on Amazon.
While we’re at it,
P Is for Pterodactyl - Credit: by Raj Haldar, Chris Carpenter, Maria Beddia
While we’re at it, here’s something accurate, but super weird. Don’t click if you’re in the middle of eating something - seriously!
Teeth. Terrible teeth - Credit: Roman Fedortsov
Russian fisherman, Roman Fedortsov, posts terrifying creatures of the deep sea. There’s a lot more on his Twitter and Instagram.
This is not goodbye...
This is a big thanks to you for being a part of Pulse & Perspective IX family!
See you next week!