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Droll Polls and Touchscreen Shopping Sprees

Tyler Wilcox : September 01, 2017

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Trendspotting 2018

There’s enough happening in the here and now, but sorry – you have to start thinking about the future. Fortunately, Inc.’s roundup of Six Social Media Trends To Prepare For In 2018 features a lot of the same trends from the last few years. The rise of chatbots, the pivot to video, and the increase in “social listening” have all been on the minds of digital marketers for some time now. Most interesting is the trend towards increased personalization for audiences, thanks to more robust social analytics: “This kind of data means marketers will have the insights to craft better and more personalized content for their audiences,” writes John Hall. “It’s past time for marketers to be creating and distributing content that truly speaks to and engages audiences on a personal level; social media will help make that easier.”

Droll Poll

Here’s a trend you don’t have to wait ‘til 2018 for: sarcastic polls. Following a wry/dry Twitter meme that used the platform’s poll function to poke fun at personal dating ads, brands such as Denny’s and Penguin Books have hopped on the bandwagon. The results have been hilarious (for the most part) – and a good way to cut through the Twitter timeline noise. “Way too many people were doing the same thing,” said Patrick Wells, a social media creative at agency Tombras Group, who produced one of the better joke polls for MoonPie. “So I just decided to make fun of it all. I think most people found it refreshing.”

Polygramory

Did a sarcastic poll make you LOL? Well, if it had appeared on Polygram, a just-launched social media platform, your friends and followers would know – without the use of an emoji. According to Digital Trends, the network “gauges user response using artificial intelligence to recognize facial expressions, tallying up responses based on a smile or frown.” Time will tell whether users will latch onto Polygram or whether it will go the way of the Ello.

Touchscreen Shopping Spree

The way we shop on smartphones is very different from how we shop on our desktop PCs, according to new research. Smartphone buys are more impulsive, more hedonistic – movie tickets, dining out and the like. Desktop purchases, on the other hand, are more practical: home furnishings, haircuts, etc. The touchscreen has an easy-to-use interface that puts you into an experiential thinking style. When you’re in an experiential thinking mode, [you crave] excitement, a different experience,” Dr. Ying Zhu, the professor behind the research, told Fast Company Design. “When you’re on the desktop, with all the work emails, that interface puts you into a rational thinking style. While you’re in a rational thinking style, when you assess a product, you’ll look for something with functionality and specific uses.”

Weekly Moment of Zen

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