Written by Marie Ng, Wei Rong Loh and Denicia Lew.
IKEA Launches Virtual Influencer Installation at Physical Store in Tokyo
At the IKEA Harajuku store in Tokyo, an in-store installation stands out differently from its previous physical installations. Imma, a virtual influencer, has “lived” in the installation for more than three days. The latest installation of the “Happiness at home” campaign was created using high-definition LED screens and gave the illusion of an actual place that Imma had “curated” and “lived” in. These rooms make use of current IKEA products and styles using pre-recorded videos and images of Imma working and living in her IKEA-styled living room and bedroom.
With the growing popularity of virtual influencers, perhaps partnering with virtual influencers could pave the way to boost higher engagement rates with viewers to provide better reach for brands.
LinkedIn Releases New Connection for Companies and Employees, and New Follower Analytics
LinkedIn is beefing up its platform with constant updates – first, a dedicated communications channel for companies and employees on LinkedIn Company pages. The new “My Company” tab serves as a space to share internal news, company milestones, and maintain connections with colleagues. Beyond connecting with other colleagues, the tab also surfaces trending content from coworkers, and in the future may include more features such as curating unique content, broadcasting content to employees, and measuring the impact of its reach.
LinkedIn is also adding a new “Events” tab to Company Pages for people to see past and upcoming virtual events. With more events going virtual due to COVID-19, the tab provides a useful avenue for businesses to host more virtual events, and in turn for other users to find worthy events to attend as well.
Lastly, LinkedIn has also rolled out new insights for company page followers, which can help guide content and outreach processes. In the past, page admins can only view their total follower counts and basic demographics. With the new listing, it will show how page followers’ found the company page, and when they started following. Admins are also able to sort the listing by current company, industry, and location.
A Step Towards Platform Merging? You Could Soon View Instagram Stories within Facebook.
The distinct difference between these stories would be the colored ring around the users profile image, for Instagram stories, they will have the iconic pink to orange gradient, and for Facebook it would be blue.
Facebook also highlighted that with this update, it does allow other users that you do not follow to view your stories. This would be enabled for those users who have linked their Instagram and Facebook accounts together, as an additional measure to ensure no unwanted information is displayed, users would also have to opt into this setting too.
Also noted by the Facebook spokesperson, this feature “respects all existing privacy settings” and will allow users the freedom to keep these stories off Facebook entirely too.
With Facebook merging Messenger and Instagram chats last month and this new feature, we can’t wait to see what other plans they have in store.
