KIMP’s Picks 6th December: Weekly Highlights In Design, Marketing, AI, & More

It’s Friday! You know what that means – it’s time for KIMP’s Picks. And we’re here with the KIMP’s Picks 6th December Edition. 

We’ve scoured the social media feeds to bring you posts that pop, ideas that inspire, and updates you absolutely need to know. Whether it’s the latest AI trend transforming businesses, awe-inspiring campaigns, or those social media algorithm updates everyone’s discussing, we’ve got it all here.

So, let’s get started. Here are the posts that you need to see this week. 

In the Marketing Realm 

Your personalized AI podcast 

Google shared the below post announcing their partnership with Spotify to give this year’s Spotify Wrapped an AI makeover. 

As a part of this, Spotify will tap into the power of Google’s NotebookLM to give users a dynamic and personalized audio recap – a personal podcast summarizing their year on Spotify. Spotify Wrapped but in an engaging audio format. 

The AI-powered podcast is hosted by two virtual personalities from NotebookLM. These hosts delve into your favorite tracks, artists, and how your music tastes evolved throughout the year. Each podcast is uniquely generated using NotebookLM’s Audio Overviews technology, which turns static data into engaging conversations. Have you listened to your personalized podcast yet? 

This campaign highlights the power of brand partnerships and the magic that happens when brands make the most of technology to enhance personalization. 

Is YouTube the best channel for creator marketing? 

Recently YouTube shared some thought-provoking statistics about creator marketing on the platform. Reportedly, viewers are 98% more likely to trust YouTube creators than creators on other social media platforms. 

In other words, if you are looking to invest in creator marketing in 2025, YouTube is definitely a channel you cannot ignore. 

From shoppable Shorts features to YouTube Select Creators Takeovers, YouTube offers several exciting features for creators to explore and engage their audience. Therefore, this makes a great place for brands to collaborate with creators to build trust.

Building ecommerce search campaigns that convert 

Search engines are the go-to places for people to discover brands and products. Naturally, they are crucial to the growth of ecommerce brands. Therefore, ecommerce brands invest heavily in search campaigns to increase their visibility and to reach more people. 

So, how can ecommerce brands tackle the competition and ace their search campaign game? Search Engine Land has 6 valuable tips for this. 

From labeling everything to clearly differentiating and defining campaign types, and continuously making improvements based on real-time data, the post delves into effective strategies for ecommerce brands of all sizes. 

Wondering how to make the most of social media for ecommerce success, check out our blog here. 

In the Content Marketing Realm 

Strategies to enhance your YouTube SEO 

Search Engine Journal, a leading authority in search and digital marketing updates shared an insightful discussion that delves into ranking better on YouTube. If you thought SEO was only for traditional search marketing then think again. Because YouTube SEO is crucial for brands looking to build their presence through YouTube. 

This post goes into the details of what YouTube SEO is and how to optimize your content on YouTube for better reach and discoverability. 

From Shorts to trends on YouTube and recommendations, the post covers diverse aspects of ranking better on YouTube. It also discusses the ranking factors like watch time, user engagement and others that influence the performance of your posts on the platform. 

Hence this post is a great start for brands working on their YouTube content strategy. 

YouTube’s Culture & Trends report 

Knowing what’s trending, what everyone is talking about, is one way to tackle content marketing. After all, brands want to get into conversations about the hot topics that their audiences are discussing. 

YouTube’s year-end Culture & Trends report is a great place to look at for ideas. They shared this year’s trends recently highlighting the most popular topics, creators, songs and more. 

From evolving trends in pop-culture to the increase in fan-driven content, the post delves into several crucial developments. So, if you are looking for content ideas, this is a great post to check out. 

Hootsuite’s social media trends report 2025 

Talking about trends, the popular social media marketing tool Hootsuite also shared their social media trends report. This one gives some predictions for 2025 based on the developments this year. 

This report particularly highlights the increase in use of AI in social media marketing. From refining text to generating copy, tweaking images to generating images, there are many ways in which marketers and brands use AI for social media content. And this post compares how the usage has increased across diverse applications in 2024 when compared to the usage in 2023. 

So, now is a good time to invest in AI for social media marketing. 

In the Design Realm 

The Pantone COTY announcement is here 

Pantone’s Color of The Year announcement is undoubtedly one of the biggest news most creatives look forward to each year. Because the hue labeled as the color of the year often gets the ball rolling in the world of design trends. From interior design to graphic design, branding to fashion trends – the Pantone Color of the Year influences various aspects.

Meet the Pantone COTY 2025 – PANTONE 17-1230 Mocha Mousse. A warm and comforting hue, the Mocha Mousse feels grounded and pleasant. At the same time, there is a lush vibe it carries making it the perfect symbol of sophistication. So, how will you use this color trend this year? 

The aesthetics of Spotify Wrapped 2024

Spotify Wrapped is one of the most creative marketing strategies. The brand has announced this year’s recap – the Spotify Wrapped 2024 edition. 

Every year, the brand identity of the Spotify Wrapped edition for the year makes waves and sets new trends in the creative realm. This year, we couldn’t help but notice the vibrant colors and nostalgic pixelated graphics. 

Retro pixel art style is predicted to be one of the crucial graphic design trends in 2025 and the brand identity of this year’s Spotify Wrapped edition strongly aligns with this. 

Design as a universal language 

The popular online publication The DRUM shared an intriguing article featuring the views of Paul Ostryzniuk from AKQA London. The post discusses what it means to look at design as the universal language. 

It highlights that design isn’t just about aesthetics and how it is a powerful tool for communication and problem-solving. 

The post also ventures into several strategies for design thinking including the need for empathy in design. On the whole, this is a good read for creatives and anyone looking for some creative inspiration. 

Tips to use textures in design 

Textures can make designs look more dynamic and sometimes even be effective in enhancing the emotional appeal of the design. Therefore, textures are crucial in branding and marketing designs alike. 

The post discusses the different types of textures that can be used in design and their applications. It also presents some tips for using these textures in different design elements. So, if you are looking to add a creative twist to your design and bring more depth with textures, then this is a post you cannot miss. 

Google Fonts for the holidays 

A few weeks ago, Google introduced the option to filter fonts in the Google Fonts library based on their moods and appearances. Options like this make it easier for creatives and marketers to find the right fonts for their designs. Fonts that accurately capture the vibe of their design. 

Now to align with the holidays and to make it easier for creators to find the right fonts to capture the holiday spirit, they have introduced more filters. Labeled “Seasonal” this category lets you shortlist fonts for specific holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, Halloween, Kwanzaa, and Diwali. 

So, finding the right fonts for your holiday graphics just got simpler! 

Freepik’s AI Suite is expanding 

A couple of years ago, Freepik was a leading stock elements library. But now it’s so much more. In addition to browsing for stock elements, users can also access AI-generated designs that meet their requirements. 

Now to add value to their AI suite, they announced the addition of more new features. These features allow users to edit their images. This includes adjusting the brightness, colors and other core parameters of any design. Additionally, you can also add grains and textures to your design and customize them to your liking. 

In the AI Realm 

A new era in multi-modal AI 

Amazon unveiled Nova – their new suite of foundational models with multi-modal capabilities. This comes as a suite of AI models in Bedrock namely: 

• Amazon Nova Micro – for low-cost text-only applications. 
• Amazon Nova Lite – low-cost multi-modal model. 
• Amazon Nova Pro – accuracy, speed, and cost-effectiveness. 
• Amazon Nova Premier – to be released as the most powerful and capable model in Q1 2025. 
• Amazon Nova Canvas – for art generation. 
• Amazon Nova Reel – video generation. 

Designed to be fast and efficient, these models are crafted so as to enable users to tap into the power of generative AI irrespective of their budget. 

Given their integration into Bedrock, these models will also be easily accessible through a single API. From creative content generation to impressive video understanding, these models are touted to bring a whole new set of possibilities for users in various segments. 

Google is bringing their most powerful AI models to Vertex AI

Vertex AI is Google’s machine learning platform and now Google is bringing their most powerful video and image generation models Veo and Imagen 3 to this platform. 

For now, Google is bringing Veo in a private preview to allow organizations to generate videos from text and image prompts. However, Imagen 3 within Vertex AI will be available to customers from next week. Reportedly, this version of Imagen 3 comes with refinements in the results including better details and lighting. 

On the whole, this expansion makes it easier for creators to generate high quality visuals more efficiently and conveniently. 

In their post here, Google also featured some brands using Veo and Imagen 3 in their workflows and how these AI models have transformed their processes. 

Google’s Genie 2: for interactive 3D environments 

Google DeepMind has introduced Genie 2, a powerful new foundation world model capable of generating an endless variety of interactive, playable 3D environments. 

This model can create environments from a single image and text description. Therefore AI and human agents can interact using keyboard and mouse inputs. Unlike traditional game engines, Genie 2 can simulate realistic interactions, lighting, physics, and object behavior in real-time. 

In short, by leveraging Genie 2, researchers can train and evaluate AI agents in a vast array of scenarios, accelerating the development of more intelligent and adaptable AI systems.

The increase in ChatGPT usage 

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT have now become integral components in most workflows. Creators, marketers, and businesses find diverse ways to tap into ChatGPT. And recently, OpenAI announced that there has been a steady growth in the usage of ChatGPT.  

Reportedly, the weekly active user count currently stands at 300 million with about 1 billion messages sent by users on ChatGPT on a daily basis. Finally, there are over 1.3 million developers who have built on OpenAI in the US. 

The numbers look promising and indicate the steady growth of ChatGPT in the generative AI segment. 

Google ventures into AI weather forecasting with GenCast

Google has introduced GenCast, an advanced AI-based weather prediction model. Reportedly, this model sets a new benchmark for forecasting accuracy, especially for extreme weather events. GenCast provides probabilistic, high-resolution forecasts up to 15 days in advance.

Ventures like these prove that the applications of AI stretch far beyond what we see in everyday applications. While the core enterprise applications and workplace efficiency enhancement are discussed most of the time, more extensive applications like weather predictions are now coming into focus. 

World Labs unveils a new AI model to generate 3D worlds 

There is a new AI tool in town and it is from a relatively new AI startup called World Labs. This AI tool can generate immersive 3D worlds from a single image. The key difference here is that these are interactive worlds that can be scaled and allow users to explore them and adjust them in real time. 

This innovation is poised to revolutionize industries like gaming, movies, and simulation, allowing creators to craft and manipulate digital worlds with ease. Within the generated worlds, users can use their keyboard or mouse to take a look at different perspectives. 

The capabilities of the tool appear similar to those of Genie 2 from Google Deepmind. And developments like these indicate that we are moving into the next era in AI with more and more organizations venturing into interactive environments and playable 3D worlds. 

Grok now supports multiple images in prompts 

Multi-modal AI models are productive because they allow for more immersive conversations. Grok was relatively slow to join the race when it came to supporting multi-modal inputs. However, the X AI team is now marching steadily ahead by introducing the support for multiple images. 

X Daily News, a leading source of information and updates related to the X ecosystem shared the below post highlighting this update. 

Social Media Feature Updates and Algorithm Changes

X launches Shopify app to enhance holiday sales 

In a recent article, X announced their new Shopify app crafted to tap into the holiday shopping frenzy. This app is designed to help merchants in the U.S. and Canada boost their holiday sales. 

The app integrates seamlessly with X’s platform. Therefore, businesses can conveniently run AI-powered ads and sync their products to X Shopping Manager. 

Key features include simplified campaign creation, dynamic product ads targeting the right audience, and performance tracking with a one-click X Pixel setup.

Additionally, merchants can also feature the bestselling products on their X profile to drive more traffic organically. 

New features coming to Instagram Channels 

It’s been close to two years since Meta introduced the broadcast Channels option on Instagram. However, within this short duration, this feature has gained a lot of popularity. It has grown into a platform for brands and creators to give their followers instant updates and insider information. 

Building on this, they are expanding the features within Channels. Creators and brands will now be able to allow users to respond within their Channels. 

Secondly the Prompts feature allows creators to choose from default prompts or set custom prompts to instantly ask questions and initiate conversations in their Channels. 

Finally, the analytics options within the Channel will now help creators understand the performance of their Channels better. They also get personalized recommendations for improving their Channel performance based on specific goals. 

November updates from Meta 

Meta shared a post summarizing some of the key updates that were announced across the various social media platforms in their ecosystem. From minor algorithm changes to fine-tuning their app interfaces Meta has been busy optimizing their platforms for users and creators. 

Firstly, there is the announcement that Instagram is working on a feature that lets you change the content recommendations by resetting the current recommendation settings. Secondly, WhatsApp announced the transcripts feature for voice messages allowing users to quickly see what the message is when they cannot listen to them. 

Finally, calls on Messenger are getting better with the background noise suppression option and other features.  

LinkedIn announces cover image slideshow for select users 

Ora Levit, VP of Product Management at LinkedIn shared a post discussing a new feature coming to Premium Business Users. This new feature is the dynamic cover image slideshow. 

Given that the banner image or cover image on a business’s LinkedIn page is one of the most prominent elements, it has a great impact on the visitor’s first impression of the business. This acts like a virtual store signage. Therefore, to make this more intriguing, LinkedIn will allow Premium Business Subscribers to create an immersive slideshow to keep the banner image section dynamic. 

TikTok’s yearly recap 

As we bid adieu to a year, brands come forward with year-in-review posts. These recap posts allow brands to showcase their milestones and also connect with their customers more meaningfully. YouTube announced the 2024 YouTube Music Recap about a week ago. Spotify announced Spotify Wrapped 2024 this week, as we discussed earlier. And the next on the list is TikTok. 

The post delves into milestones like the fact that more than 1.2 million posts were created on TikTok within the first 10 months of 2024. They also discuss how the platform has performed as a productive space for entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. For more such updates and to understand where TikTok stands currently, do give this post a read. 

TikTok celebrates #GivingSzn 2024 with new features 

TikTok recently announced that as a part of #GivingSzn 2024, the Donation feature on the platform is getting an upgrade. Partnering with Goodstack, TikTok now allows creators to raise funds directly within the app for a wide range of nonprofits, from local initiatives to international organizations.

This feature lets creators create personalized fundraisers right within the platform. They can add custom names, goals, cover photos, and personal stories to inspire action. This is to drive meaningful change. 

Time to Draw the Curtains

That’s a bunch of exciting updates to close the week, don’t you agree? How would you like to receive more such weekly updates curated to keep you in the loop? Sounds good? Stay tuned and check this space for the next KIMP’s Picks Edition. Or better yet, sign up for our newsletter for instant updates.