What Happens When Data Drives Content Curation [Case Study]

[Originally published on the Dash Hudson blog.]

Real talk: Instagram is both an art and a science. The finest social media editors are great strategists as well as creative minds. Being analytical is equally as important as understanding intangible things like brand essence and aesthetic — you can’t have one without the other when it comes to social media marketing.

This very important premise served to support the development of Dash Hudson’s AI-powered software, Vision, where big data is scrutinized for social media optimization. The fact that really smart creative people were also looking to numbers and visual analytics to back their decisions made us want to build a business intelligence solution for the modern, content-driven marketer.

These are exactly the type of folk that work for media group Clique, a multi-vertical business with social savvy in droves. At the forefront of innovation since its inception, the company has never stopped its forward-thinking, especially when it comes to embracing business intelligence tools. Clique brands inc. upholds its leader status with a progressive marketing approach and well-rounded social media stategy.

Home of Who What Wear, MyDomaine, Obsessee, and Byrdie (among others), Clique’s data analysts work ‘round the clock to ensure that the teams for each brand are making the smartest, most informed creative decisions as it relates to visual output on their most important channel: Instagram. And that means being able to lean on Dash Hudson’s predictive analytics powered by machine learning.

The company is able to marry aesthetic creative instinct and factual statistics by leveraging the content performance predictor housed in Dash Hudson’s visual intelligence tool. We followed Clique’s beauty vertical, Byrdie, as it challenged Vision’s functionality to inform the brand’s posts for two weeks straight, and the results were pretty outstanding.

Get our latest Instagram marketing case study now to learn:

• How using computer vision applications helped Byrdie narrow in on top performing content.
• Why Clique’s Byrdie team became more efficient through Vision.
• That data can actually curate a high-performing and aesthetically pleasing, on-brand Instagram feed.
• How Dash Hudson’s Vision is able to collect and analyze data to help brands with social marketing.
• What kind of engagement boost Byrdie received after posting Vision-recommended photos.
• Why Clique is so ahead of its competition.
• The many ways that brands can use Vision to streamline their workflows, make their teams work smarter, and increase their overall social performance.

See below for a short excerpt and get the full computer vision PDF delivered to your inbox now. 🎬

A Sea of Imagery

Clique’s successful social presence across its brands did not come without some struggle: the teams needed an efficient way to source high performing visual assets in the company’s ocean of owned and earned content. With millions of visual touchpoints between a brand and consumer, Clique knows that it’s more important than ever to make the most of every interaction, especially on Instagram.

Putting Vision to the Test

The team at Clique’s beauty publication Byrdie work hard to deliver visuals that make Instagram scrollers stop and stare, but they needed a hand determining what was truly resonating with its growing audience. With this dilemma in mind, the team put Vision’s photo performance recommendations to the test. Over the span of two weeks, the social editors posted both a control group of images they had manually selected, as well as a batch of Vision-recommended photos. That’s when the magic happened.

Instagram users scroll through really quickly, only stopping at what’s visually appealing. We really want to understand why that visual — and what about it — is making her stop and take a closer look.
- Kelsey Simmons, Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at Clique

There’s no union more perfect than the one of the left and right brain. Having a critical aesthetic eye is vital in a world where your branded visual output is incessantly targeting people every single day. That said, instinct can only take you so far, and to succeed in business, you also have to learn to listen to the sweet whispers of data. Lend an ear!

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