Digital Snapshot | 07.10.20 | The Audience Agency

Hello and welcome to edition 114 of the Digital Snapshot, a round-up of the latest news, how-tos, inspiring work and good reads.

I'm sure many of you will be interested in our analysis of the data from Indigo's Act Two survey into digital engagement with culture since Covid. You can read the key findings here.

Remember we are here to support you with any research or consultancy needs relating to digital - whether that's to help to develop a digital strategy, understanding your online audiences//digital behaviours, or supporting you with training & mentoring. Please do get in touch for a chat about how we can help.

Updates

For years, Facebook had a rule that you couldn't use images in ads that had more than 20% text over them. Looks like they've got rid of that rule.
In other Facebook news, it seems they're moving ever closer to integrating Instagram and Messenger chat.
Ofcom has released its ever-useful annual Communications Market report, stuffed full of stats about how consumers use different channels, including online. Here's a good summary of the digital insights; spoiler alert Twitter continues to decline in use amongst mainstream users.
Fortnite continues to innovate with merging performance and events into the game. The latest news is that it's launching a live concert series.

Useful // bookmarkable

Oliver Vicars-Harris has created a super useful app that collates different digital job roles advertised in the cultural sector. Useful for benchmarking salaries and to review job descriptions for different roles.
They may 'only' be buttons and links but the copy you use on them will be the difference between people clicking (or not).
I find the title of this piece a bit depressing but Curators are the New Creators does contain some essential truths about why good curators can go far.
How to ask your users good questions that will get you useful answers.
Insightful piece from the Creative People and Places project Revolution Arts about what they learned trying to run a community participation project digitally post-Covid.
This is ostensibly aimed at news publishers but if you are trying to choose which email marketing software to use then this is a really useful guide, with pros and cons of many of the main providers.
For any B2B organisations, these LinkedIn hacks are definitely worth reading and bookmarking.

Distracting // entertaining

How normal am I is an art project that lets you experience how AI judges your face.
Future Digital Possibilities is a Facebook Live event from Museum Nord to explore how digital technologies can be best used by museums and heritage organisations.
BFI London Film Festival has gone virtual and starts today.
The Bodleian Library has launched its new digital interface.
For a bit of light relief, I liked these email greetings/sign offs during the pandemic.

Good Reads

Lots of new start-ups have sprung up to cater for the link in bio trend.
The geeks among you will like this in-depth article about the history of web browsers. Genuinely fascinating.
One Lost Weekend is about how the shutdown of the arts is affecting New York. Of course, the content is somewhat depressing, but what a beautiful way to tell the story.

That's it for this issue. As ever, if you come across any interesting or noteworthy content please do send it my way. We are here to support you with training, research and consultancy, so please do get in touch. You can find all past editions of the Digital Snapshot here.

You can find me or The Audience Agency on Twitter. See you soon.

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The Digital Snapshot newsletter shares the latest, most important news from the social media and digital world - as relevant to the arts, culture and heritage sectors.