YouTube Music, Instagram opposites and emotional intelligence

This week in 60 seconds…

  • YouTube are joining the saturated music streaming market with the launch of YouTube Music, an audio-only service to hero remixes, covers and live tracks, plus an intuitive, personalised homepage
  • From smart apps to smart hardware, London-based start up Realeyes plan to use computer vision to read people’s emotions as they watch ads – and then use predictive analysis to feedback on its effectiveness. Creepy
  • But there are other ways to stay smart these days. How about a Tupperware pot that tells Alexa when your food is getting old? The ultimate kitchen inessential
  • Meanwhile, Instagram continues to strengthen its engagement-led approach with the release of its latest sharing feature. You can now share other people’s feed posts straight to your Stories
  • But if you’d rather remove a post than regram it, you’re also in luck; the platform has finally launched a mute feature allowing you take out the feed cloggers, without having to unfollow. Dreams really do come true…

A final thought…

With Stories set to overtake Feed sharing any day now, the power of ephemeral content is undeniable, and can not be underestimated. Platform features are constantly evolving to meet users’ needs, and your brand should be one step ahead in providing content that maximises them.

Data Byte

With over 970 million accounts posting Stories daily, the 842% lift from early 2016 is certainly impressive to see – and something for strategists to be aware of. While Snapchat was the original source of inspiration, using vertical formats to communicate user narratives, Instagram has now taken the reins with 300 million daily Story users, which accounts for 60% of its audience.