Social Media Articles & Videos

  • Social Media UX: 3 Research Insights

    Companies should experiment with interactive social media content types, include relevant calls to action in posts, and avoid posting too frequently.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Types of User Interactions with Business

    Users rely on social media to find out about new products or companies, conduct research, engage with content, make purchases, and seek customer support.

  • Why Customers Unfollow You on Social Media

    Our user research revealed 5 key reasons people have unfollowed a company's social media accounts. The study also found tips to reduce unfollowing behaviors.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Interaction Types

    Our user research discovered 6 distinct types of interactions users/customers have with companies on social media. Recognize each type, and support each one with different design approaches.

  • Social Commerce vs. Social Selling

    There are two ways to facilitate e-commerce social media: you can sell directly on the social platform, or simply promote on social media with a link to a traditional e-commerce site for the actual purchase.

  • Social Media vs Social Features

    Build out social features on your own website, or avail yourself of existing (but external) social media platforms where you don't own the user experience? User research can help determine which strategy is best for reaching your specific audience and serving their special needs.

  • Passive Information Acquisition on the Increase

    People increasingly discover critical information online without actively searching for it, but such information has poor context and may have credibility issues.

  • Social Media and Gamification

    Gamification brings the visual design and the mechanics of games to other products. As we examine our ethical responsibilities as UX professionals, social media deserves special consideration. Gamification in social media can make people feel as though their social lives are being scored.

  • Social Features in Chinese Apps

    Social features (like online communities and experience sharing) are very popular in Chinese apps. This video offers examples and tips for adding social features to your product.

  • The Vortex: Why Users Feel Trapped in Their Devices

    Many users report anxiety and lack of control over the amount of time they spend online. We call this feeling “the Vortex.”

  • How Community Can Drive Commerce: A Lesson from China’s Little Red Book

    China’s popular social-ecommerce app succeeds in building a mutually beneficial user community and bringing in a smooth shopping experience for users.

  • Social Media and Millennials

    Kate Meyer summarizes her user research on how companies can appeal to social media natives.

  • Social Media Natives: Growing Up with Social Networking

    Social media use has altered how Millennials think about friendships and relationships. This impact stands as a valuable reminder of the consequences of UX-design decisions.

  • WeChat: China’s Integrated Internet User Experience

    User research finds that tightly integrated services with simple and unified design make people use WeChat; mainly through traditional GUI interactions, not a “conversational UI.”

  • 6 Ways to Encourage Social Participation on Intranets

    Promote employee contributions by setting examples, creating enticing topics of conversation, keeping a light tone of voice, and providing positive feedback.

  • Utility Navigation: What It Is and How to Design It

    Utility navigation consists of secondary actions and tools, such as contact, subscribe, save, sign in, share, change view, print.

  • Social Proof in the User Experience

    People are guided by other people’s behavior, so we can represent the actions, beliefs, and advice of the crowd in a design to influence users.

  • Intranet Social Features

    Employee collaboration and open communication are now business drivers in many companies, but social enterprise features are often poorly integrated with the rest of the intranet.

  • Writing for Social Media: Usability of Corporate Content Distributed Through Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

    Usability studies of corporate content distributed through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn: users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks.

  • Social Media Outsourcing Can Be Risky

    Hosting a company's content and services on 3rd-party social networking sites involves both tactical risks (lower usability) and strategic risks (less user loyalty).

  • Why Customers Unfollow You on Social Media

    Our user research revealed 5 key reasons people have unfollowed a company's social media accounts. The study also found tips to reduce unfollowing behaviors.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Interaction Types

    Our user research discovered 6 distinct types of interactions users/customers have with companies on social media. Recognize each type, and support each one with different design approaches.

  • Social Commerce vs. Social Selling

    There are two ways to facilitate e-commerce social media: you can sell directly on the social platform, or simply promote on social media with a link to a traditional e-commerce site for the actual purchase.

  • Social Media vs Social Features

    Build out social features on your own website, or avail yourself of existing (but external) social media platforms where you don't own the user experience? User research can help determine which strategy is best for reaching your specific audience and serving their special needs.

  • Social Media and Gamification

    Gamification brings the visual design and the mechanics of games to other products. As we examine our ethical responsibilities as UX professionals, social media deserves special consideration. Gamification in social media can make people feel as though their social lives are being scored.

  • Social Features in Chinese Apps

    Social features (like online communities and experience sharing) are very popular in Chinese apps. This video offers examples and tips for adding social features to your product.

  • Social Media and Millennials

    Kate Meyer summarizes her user research on how companies can appeal to social media natives.

  • Social Media UX: 3 Research Insights

    Companies should experiment with interactive social media content types, include relevant calls to action in posts, and avoid posting too frequently.

  • Companies on Social Media: 6 Types of User Interactions with Business

    Users rely on social media to find out about new products or companies, conduct research, engage with content, make purchases, and seek customer support.

  • Passive Information Acquisition on the Increase

    People increasingly discover critical information online without actively searching for it, but such information has poor context and may have credibility issues.

  • The Vortex: Why Users Feel Trapped in Their Devices

    Many users report anxiety and lack of control over the amount of time they spend online. We call this feeling “the Vortex.”

  • How Community Can Drive Commerce: A Lesson from China’s Little Red Book

    China’s popular social-ecommerce app succeeds in building a mutually beneficial user community and bringing in a smooth shopping experience for users.

  • Social Media Natives: Growing Up with Social Networking

    Social media use has altered how Millennials think about friendships and relationships. This impact stands as a valuable reminder of the consequences of UX-design decisions.

  • WeChat: China’s Integrated Internet User Experience

    User research finds that tightly integrated services with simple and unified design make people use WeChat; mainly through traditional GUI interactions, not a “conversational UI.”

  • 6 Ways to Encourage Social Participation on Intranets

    Promote employee contributions by setting examples, creating enticing topics of conversation, keeping a light tone of voice, and providing positive feedback.

  • Utility Navigation: What It Is and How to Design It

    Utility navigation consists of secondary actions and tools, such as contact, subscribe, save, sign in, share, change view, print.

  • Social Proof in the User Experience

    People are guided by other people’s behavior, so we can represent the actions, beliefs, and advice of the crowd in a design to influence users.

  • Intranet Social Features

    Employee collaboration and open communication are now business drivers in many companies, but social enterprise features are often poorly integrated with the rest of the intranet.

  • Writing for Social Media: Usability of Corporate Content Distributed Through Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn

    Usability studies of corporate content distributed through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn: users like the simplicity of messages that pass into oblivion over time, but were frequently frustrated by unscannable writing, overly frequent postings, and their inability to locate companies on social networks.

  • Social Media Outsourcing Can Be Risky

    Hosting a company's content and services on 3rd-party social networking sites involves both tactical risks (lower usability) and strategic risks (less user loyalty).

  • Twitter Postings: Iterative Design

    A timeline message was made more punchy, credible, and viral through 5 rounds of redesign. (Text as UI.)

  • Write Articles, Not Blog Postings

    To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.

  • The 90-9-1 Rule for Participation Inequality in Social Media and Online Communities

    In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.

  • Community is Dead; Long Live Mega-Collaboration

    The Web is not a community: a huge impersonal city is a better metaphor. User-generated content (UGC) can be valuable (if edited), but chat rooms should be avoided because of participation inequality.