Social Mind: Social and AI Insights - July 2024

Serving up Social Media and AI Insights🎾

Hello and welcome to a new month and the July issue of Social Mind 🙌

Just as the players start to showcase their skills on the grass courts of Wimbledon 🎾, I’m serving up a fresh set of tips, insights and updates designed to help you stay ahead in the ever-evolving worlds of social media and AI.

My own sporting highlight last month came in the Swansea Half Marathon where I ran my best ever time over the course🏃‍♂️ I’m now training for the Cardiff Half in October where like last year, I’ll be running for Age Connects.

Last Wednesday, the FREE A I webinar 🤖 was once again popular, so teaming up with NILC I’m presenting another one next month on Wednesday, 14 August - An Introduction To AI – How To Be More Productive. Please forward the registration link onto any contacts or colleagues who might be interested.

To improve your use of AI, read my latest blog post below containing 34 tips on improving your prompts.

If you have any thoughts or questions on social media or AI or if you’d like a free demo of any of the new features mentioned below, don't hesitate to get in touch or hit reply.

Let's get into it…

WhatsApp taking on Zoom? 📺

Meta have been busy launching new features on WhatsApp this month including the ability to have up to 32 people on a video call, speaker spotlight to see who’s talking and screenshare with audio.

As well as the Zoom like features you can now add your email address to WhatsApp, making it possible to login from any device whether it is internet connected or not.

Want to highlight an event to your WhatsApp Group chat? You can now add an Event by selecting the paperclip symbol when composing a message (see below).

Plus watch my latest video below for a demo of how to send photos via WhatsApp in HD.

On WhatsApp for Business Meta are adding a new AI assistant for businesses which will let businesses chat with customers using AI. This new feature will roll out first in India and Singapore. Plus marketers will soon be able to use AI to create Facebook and Instagram ‘Click-to-Message’ ads, which take users to a WhatsApp chat.

You can now schedule posts to Threads 🗓️

Meta has recently opened up the API for Threads, making it possible for social media dashboards like SocialPilot (aff link) and others connect to the platform. This development allows for planning and scheduling of posts and helps with the management of social media content.

Insight: This move is a boost for social media managers and users of Threads. It will save time plus consistent scheduling has been shown to improve engagement and reach.

Ads appearing in Microsoft Copilot answers 😲

I spotted recent that Microsoft's Copilot is publishing ads in its replies. However, when directly asked about this practice, Copilot denies it 🤔 

Insight: This does nothing to improve people’s trust of AI and Microsoft. No doubt Microsoft want to monetise Copilot further, but whether it’s a one off or going to be a regular feature, the addition of ads to Copilot has been handled badly.

Where do you obtain your news? 📰 

According to the latest Reuters Digital News Report, YouTube is used for news by almost a third (31%) of people each week, WhatsApp by around a fifth (21%), while TikTok (13%) has overtaken X (10%) for the first time.

Insight: If you’re producing content that contains news or updates it’s worth noting the popular channels for this type of content.

LinkedIn revamp Newsletters and launch Premium Company Pages 💼

LinkedIn have refreshed the look of Newsletters for readers and for publishers have added Microsoft Designer integration for cover images and the ability to embed member profiles and company pages. For the benefit of both and most significantly of all notifications are now actually happening! In addition, anyone following you will be prompted to subscribe if they aren’t already.

Insight: LinkedIn say that they have seen a 59% increase in the amount of people publishing Newsletters and experienced a 47% increase in engagement over the past year. So together with the improvements, it could be time to consider publishing one. As a side note, I post a version of this newsletter over on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has announced a new Premium offering for company pages, providing a suite of enhanced features to boost engagement and visibility. LinkedIn Premium Company Pages will offer custom CTA buttons, auto-invitations for leads, insights into page visitors, testimonial displays, and access to AI writing assistants. Subscribers can showcase rich media and reviews with the new "Services Showcase" section and use the "Request Services" button to generate leads. The new pages are expected to be available globally by the end of July.

Fancy a pair of sunglasses with ChatGPT? 😎

Solos, a smart glasses manufacturer, is set to launch the AirGo Vision later this year which will use OpenAI’s GPT-4o AI model, enabling the camera to recognise objects and answer questions about the user’s surroundings. The AirGo Vision will also have a swappable frame system, allowing users to switch out the camera as needed, and will include notification LEDs for incoming calls or emails. Additionally, the glasses can integrate with Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude AI models. The price for the AirGo Vision is likely to be higher than the $249.99 camera-less audio version which you can buy today. This launch positions Solos to challenge Meta’s Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, which currently dominate the market.

Insights: The AirGo Vision offers a compelling alternative to Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses and is likely to make a significant impact. With similar products likely to follow, could we see smart glasses start to replace the smart phone? I think so.

Apple Intelligence is coming soon 🧠

With iOS 18, Apple is set to revolutionise how people interact with Siri. Apple Intelligence promises a more natural engagement with Siri, enhancing its contextual awareness to provide more accurate and helpful responses.

For those moments when Siri needs extra assistance, the voice assistant will now utilise the power of ChatGPT rather than directing users to the web. The integration of the latest version of GPT-4o ensures that when Siri cannot provide a response, users will receive a prompt asking if they'd like ChatGPT to handle the query.

Insight: iOS 18 complete with Apple Intelligence is likely to be launched in September and will give a much needed boost to Siri as well as making AI more mainstream.

Help from AI to make you more productive 🤖

Last week’s free AI webinar for NILC Training was a success and I received some great feedback including:

“Really enjoyed the introduction to AI webinar earlier. Some amazing stuff that I wasn’t aware of.” Reuben Carr

You can register now for Introduction To AI – How To Be More Productive (Free Webinar) which takes place on 14 August at 10am.

📝Read my latest blog post to improve your use of AI tools:

📺Watch my YouTube video for NILC where I demonstrate how to send your photos via WhatsApp in HD:

Back on 1 August…

That's it for this month’s issue. I hope you found it interesting and useful.

If you need any help with social media or AI, you know what to do 😃

Best wishes 🙌

JP

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