What Is Visual Intelligence and Why it Will Make you Better at Social Media
[Originally published on the Dash Hudson blog.]
We thought it was time for a proper explanation of machine learning basics and to discuss the properties of computer vision and image processing. Seeing as that’s where the world is headed and all…
That’s right, we’re in the midst of a new kind of digital revolution, and it involves machine learning artificial intelligence. Don’t worry, we’re going to explain what all of that is. 🤯
Visual intelligence: two words united by the data scientist community and loosely thrown around by marketers for the past couple of years. Maybe as an attempt to impress the less knowledgable, maybe not. You might have also caught wind of expressions like ‘computer vision’, ‘machine learning’, or the less common ‘image recognition’. All of these terms relate back to the infamous futuristic appellation: artificial intelligence.
We know that this jargon can be confusing, and because artificial intelligence is the way of the future (aka right now), we figured it would be a good idea to break things down into an easy, layman’s terms lesson.
So here we go.
The Basic Premise
What is computer vision? At its core, it’s a machine’s ability to see and understand things the same way humans do. Computers don’t have brains and feel no emotion. They don’t have the ability to form opinions or to think subjectively. But programming a photo recognition software or a robot can enable machines to mimic those qualitative things to help us be better at life. Think of Alexa, for example.
Throw the word visual in there, and it becomes artificial intelligence applied to all things — you guessed it — visual. While the information you have about this technology may be limited for now, you likely already interact with it every day without realizing it. For example, those suggestions from your favorite online retailers based on the items you’ve already viewed? That’s the result of an intelligent image processing software programmed for photo recognition and understanding consumer habits.
An image analysis software is able to see, as the human eye would, what elements are in a photo to be able to surface the proper results for an image search. There’s no tagging a photo with descriptive keywords because the machine KNOWS what’s in it by “looking” at it. Say what?! Yup, a programmed machine learning technology possesses visual analytics that work as an image finder, and is able to source photos with a quick picture search through an image recognition software.
TL;DR — With visual intelligence and a machine learning platform, computers are able to conduct an image recognition search without the photos being tagged with any descriptives. It’s as though they are seeing things the way humans see them.
Are Robots Going to Be Taking Over the World?
No. But they are taking over image processing. Whenever machine learning is mentioned, people typically begin thinking of doomsday by way of robots gone rogue. Thankfully, the man versus machine stronghold is a Hollywood invention. What computer vision projects, however, is man aided by machines.
While machines won’t be running the show any time soon, image and vision computing are going to provide the kind of assistance that we’ll all eventually rely on. This type of big data will ultimately take the guesswork out of marketing decisions. The implementation of machine learning as a service has the potential of eliminating bad business rulings with visual recognition capabilities and computer vision resources. But it doesn’t mean that it absolves the human brain of any importance.
Image analysis and computer vision will make companies more proficient than ever before. They’ll be able to individually target consumers and tailor what they see based on the determinations of a visual analysis software. Prepare to not only take your marketing to unprecedented heights, but your brand’s personalization abilities as well. Having machine learning artificial intelligence as a business tool will be a complete game-changer.
In fact, the shift has already begun.
What Does This Have to Do With Social Marketing?
Everything, dear Watson. What if we told you that your job as a social media editor could be made a lot easier with the help of these machine learning algorithms? They’ll be able to power a photo search and yield results through picture recognition. Instagram marketers rely on this vital visual touchpoint to engage their brand’s audience, and this is the most effective method to connect with followers.
If you could pair your unique human abilities like creativity and cognitive thinking with computer vision’s visual IQ to initiate image understanding, wouldn’t that give your social activities an unprecedented lift? Through these machine learning applications, predictive analytics can mean taking the guesswork out of all your image output. Consequently, that means your future strategies could turnout successful results every single time.
Dash Hudson’s very own Vision platform houses an image search engine powered by computer vision image recognition. It’s programmed to sort millions of photos via big data visualization, to then inform brands on which ones will trigger the highest engagement based on real-time visual analysis of their content. It scans millions of photos and picks up on visual cues within an image to identify what’s in it.
Our computer vision software understands the content it’s looking at, and also offers brands the ability to scrutinize what their competition is doing. Next on the docket is being able to select influencers to collaborate with based on their content’s compatibility with their own audience. The possibilities are limitless and the industry is about to take a turn for the explosive, that’s a guarantee.
We’re currently living through the artificial intelligence revolution, where machine learning as a service is on the verge of becoming commonplace. It might not seem that way now because we never know we’re in a phase of humanity until it’s behind us, but I assure you that it’s indeed happening as you read this.
The trick to navigating this brave new world is to adapt and to embrace. Computer vision machine learning is going to completely turn the social marketing world on its head thanks to the types of photo recognition software it will drive. The early adopters will come out on top: the quicker you’re on board, the better your understanding, the further ahead you’ll be.
Things never stop evolving, especially as it relates to social media marketing, and the nimble ones always triumph — we don’t need AI vision to know that.
To learn more about our tools and how we can help, get in touch today.
