It’s rather interesting that recently a social media influencer would take to reading a small tiny lil post I created and share it with their audience in secret. To be honest I was a little taken aback to hear about it myself when a member who is part of their exclusive community felt the need to reach out to share this little nugget of knowledge with me since we see each others @handles often in other areas. First, I thought it was interesting but second, it is not quite the first time this has happened to me either.
Also I took note that its rather appreciative that I must have made quite an impression on this influencer that they took the time out of their day to actually check out my content but keep it somewhat under wraps. It would have rather been nice had they reached out personally and just said thank-you for the comments and possibly bringing some extra folks along or something along those lines than to a private forum to rant? Apparently they fired off and misunderstood my intentions and their response came across rather insincere and as if I had some motive? So now there is this group of folks who have a different impression of me based on this influencers opinions. Since they took the time to check out my material I was pretty keen to pick-up on some certain choice words that appeared in their work that referenced something I presented in my own content and noticed the fact that they are now also curating a new model for upcoming content based on what they took away from my own observations. So they must have some ear to my own opinions and knowledge to find some value in what I said? idk?
The first time I had this happen for me was on Instagram with 2 well known fitness influencers and one of them has appeared on major networks. That story might be written later in a future post as a case study regarding social media. But I was not quite upset by any of it, in fact was glad to see their social channel grow because of it.
What brings me to writing this post is that I consider myself to have a really great understanding and depth in areas of design, development, marketing and social behavior since I have worked in these areas. And have done so for a quite a long while but I am also inclined to share my knowledge and opinions on things I find complete interest in and share with folks who have the same mindset and find that info of value.
User Experience
I have quite an interest in analytical data. Very fascinated in human behavior and getting into the heads of users and figuring out what motivates them to do what they do. Which is also why I have a background in User Experience.
To capture such information I have learned to integrate several tools of tracking that I have used on my site as well as on so many other client sites that helped to boost SEO in a very organic way. Yet the data has very valuable information because I know who is landing on my sites with detailed information. (I suspect there will be another post discussing this more in depth in the near future.)
Recently I came across this pretty cool online tracking tool called Hotjar. Came to hear about it when I was watching some content from another UI Designer’s YouTube channel in which they go through various online portfolios to review work from designers and developers (although from a different creator than who I reference below). I think this is quite a sweet tool that helps to understand where users are landing and then traveling on your websites and what content they are digging through to find out where there might be tough spots to figure out when they traverse through your pages of content.
Hotjar allows you to see visual data like nothing else I have seen in Google Analytics or Google Webmaster Tools even. Data from your mouse cursor is constantly captured as well as capturing how far you are scrolling through the document, no matter what platform you are using, mobile or desktop. Data begins to capture when a user lands on the site for say more than 60 seconds. You can literally look at a recording of the user navigating throughout your website as well as see traditional heat maps of where the most activities take place on a webpage. It is almost as if you are sitting over the shoulder of your user and watching them.
Another alternative app in the marketplace is called Microsoft Clarity and I am just starting to learn that as well and compare the two and give my two cents on that as well.
So I see you all! Although really, I want to understand your interests in my material in hope to serve up some tasty info that is educational and of high interest once this space is re-designed.
To learn more about Hotjar watch the capabilities here shown by the Jesse Showalter!