Augmented Reality is an intelligent encounter of a certifiable climate where the articles that dwell in reality are upgraded by computer-created perceptual data, some of the time across various tangible modalities, including visual, hear-able, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be characterized as a framework that joins three essential elements: a mix of genuine and virtual universes, ongoing collaboration, and exact 3D enrollment of virtual and genuine articles. 

AR TECHNOLOGY OVER THE YEARS

AR IN THE PAST

AR IN THE PRESENT 

AR includes a variety of technological innovations such as:

AR IN THE FUTURE

To come to think of it the possibility of AR expanding is endless. It’s just a matter of time before this innovation will become an integral part of our daily routine. We are still yet to get there but there are a few organizations that have already adopted and have indulged in providing the best experiences to their consumers. Let’s take a look at how brands have incorporated and used AR in increasing the customer experience. 

IKEA – STUDIO APP 

Ikea remains world-class and leads mixed reality shopping. Ikea was one of the first retail stores to implement AR technology, the Ikea Place application permitted clients to put virtual furniture in a room. Presently involving LiDAR sensors in iPhones, the all-new Ikea Studio application empowers clients to catch whole 3D room plans and once again plan them, joining everything from windows and doors to curtains and carpets. Presently in beta, Ikea Studio isn’t yet connected to the Ikea site, meaning it offers a fairly siloed client experience (with no shopping usefulness included). As per Wired, be that as it may, this adaptation of Ikea Studio was the generally implicit groundwork for the appearance of Apple Glass, which could make a more vivid and sensible AR experience. Tommy Campbell who is the digital design lead at SPACE10 told Wired that they’ve tried very hard to make sure that the studio can co-exist on both smartphones and on the glasses-like settings as well. (1)

GUCCI – VIRTUAL SNEAKERS 

One of the fundamental reasons retail marks have put resources into AR innovation is to help clients settle on better and more educated item choices. Gucci was one of the luxury brands to do such, adding an AR element to its application to let clients ‘ try on’ shoes. This is a profoundly utilitarian illustration of AR for retail; by providing clients with a visual portrayal of how an item will look in reality, the innovation can hypothetically decrease returns and lift consumer loyalty. 

WALMART – TESTING FOR INVENTORY

In October 2020, Walmart declared that it would transform four of its actual retail locations into ‘test stores’ to evaluate new innovations determined to improve all stores to become both in-stores and online shopping centers.

A significant component of these stores is stock control, with one test including an application that is intended to accelerate the time it takes to move things from the private alcove to the deals floor. The application utilizes expanded reality to do such, permitting representatives to hold up a handheld gadget (which will then feature the containers all set), instead of examining every individual box. 

This is one illustration of expanding the truth being utilized to upgrade interior cycles, successfully making a more consistent and quicker work process. In spite of not being noticeable to clients, that’s what Walmart says “notwithstanding, the client will benefit”, with the innovation, at last, assisting with improving the client experience by putting more items on racks, quicker than previously. 

MACHINE A – VIRTUAL CONCEPT STORE

Machine-A is a London-based idea store, which is typically committed to displaying contemporary style. With the covid-19 and current year’s London style week either dropped or restricted to advanced shows, Machine-A concocted an idea to empower whatever a number of individuals could reasonably be expected to see crafted by arising creators. The thought was a virtual store, which as ShowStudio states, intended to “carry a vivid twist to a computerized time of shows, spanning the space among IRL and URL.” 

By just scanning a QR code inserted in banners and bulletins situated around London, versatile clients had the option to ‘enter’ the virtual shop and investigate the new assortments of originators. Matthew Drinkwater, top of the Fashion Innovation Agency, told Vogue Business that AR in this setting assists with building “a lot nearer connection between the customer and brand when its extremely challenging.” 

While this model is for the most part about mindfulness and commitment – as there’s no coordinated shopping usefulness – it indicates how AR could improve the web-based business experience in the future, basically making virtual stores for clients to both peruse and purchase in a totally vivid manner.

SEPHORA – VIRTUAL ARTIST

Beauty care products retailer Sephora’s ‘Virtual Artist’ apparatus has been accessible by means of its primary application starting around 2016, and it stays probably the slickest illustration of AR inside magnificence. As of late, obviously, Sephora has been empowering utilization as a trade for in-store shopping.

Rather than furniture in homes, the AR innovation allows customers to see what certain items (like lipstick or eyeshadow) could look like on their own faces. To do such, it utilizes Modiface innovation to examine lips and eyes, prior to overlaying different lip tones, eye shadows, misleading lashes, etc. 

The primary point of the application is by all accounts to help online business deals, with purchasers commonly determined in-store because of questions about what items will resemble, all things considered.

Some could say it is no counterpart for giving the real in-store try-on experience, yet the advantage of the instrument is the number of various items clients can test – without the issue or tedious nature of doing it, all things considered. In the meantime, it additionally fills in as a touch of good times for customers but one more way for excellent brands like Sephora to give amusement and motivation as well as the actual items.

By looking at all these amazing augmented reality real-life examples we can say that this is definitely the way forward. The current value of the AR market stands at 3.5 billion and by 2024 there will be 1.73 billion users of AR on mobile phones. Almost 70% of the users of AR believe that it brings them benefits. If this keeps on growing this way it is expected that the revenue for AR will hit $340 billion by the year 2028. This is not only beneficial and fun for the customers but also the businesses, 67% of media planners want AR ads in their digital marketing campaigns. (4)

AR or expanded reality has gone from unrealistic fantasy to reality in a little more than a century. There are numerous AR applications being used or a work in progress today, notwithstanding – the idea will possibly take off all around when UX architects contemplate how they can coordinate AR with day-to-day existence to further develop usefulness, proficiency, or nature of encounters. There is limitless potential for AR, the unavoidable issue is – how might it be explored?

REFERENCES

(1) 2022. [online] Available at: <https://econsultancy.com/14-examples-augmented-reality-brand-marketing-experiences/>

(2) The Interaction Design Foundation. 2022. Augmented Reality – The Past, The Present and The Future. [online] Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/augmented-reality-the-past-the-present-and-the-future>

(3) Inap.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.inap.com/blog/7-incredible-examples-of-augmented-reality-technology/>

(4) 2022. [online] Available at: <https://techjury.net/blog/augmented-reality-stats/#gref>

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This report entails a deep understanding of SPONSOR A GAMBIAN GIRL (SaGG) Foundation’s social media listening and analytics. SaGG Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on empowering girls and women through education. The main focus is to link girls in Gambia with sponsors in U.K., U.S.A. Germany etc. directly to provide education which in turn will not only educate them but also help them break the biases prevalent in the society.

This report will help the charity to break the social media barriers and grow on different channels. We will also focus on social media listening and propose changes as to how they can improve their Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

SOCIAL MEDIA LISTENING

“A picture is worth a thousand words” has become the new adage in this era of social media. But not only pictures but videos, reels and tweets have also come into the picture and are playing an important part in the social media revolution. For any business and in this case a charity to be successful it is essential to carry out social media listening to get insights on how good or bad they are doing; and what they can improve to attract more traffic to their channels. ((Li and Xie, 2019)

From the insights gained from the posts that SaGG Foundation posts on Instagram and Facebook it is evident that they need to work towards attracting more donors/sponsors to their channels.

According to the above attached graph and insights of the posts made on the social media channels, it is evident that the most engagement was on the picture posted about the fact that more than half the girls in Gambia get married and become pregnant even before ending her education; which means that the jobs aspects are really meager. This post on Facebook and Instagram was able to reach the most number of people – 1,905 and also received likes and shares on it as compared to the other posts made. According to studies brands and charities that include pictures and videos have a higher chance of getting engagement than those who don’t. (What Encourages Facebook Engagement? – eMarketer, 2022)

Looking at the social media we can see that they have a total of 4.91k followers and just 54 posts on all the channels. The posts were quite engaging i.e. more than 50% of followers liked, commented or shared the post. Instagram takes the lead amongst all the social media channels that the foundation have.

SaGG Foundation has social media presence on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter whereas mentioned before Instagram has the widest reach.

The post to receive the most amounts of engagement was related to a success story. It could be said that sponsors and followers simultaneously are more likely to engage in a post that is related to real-life experience. Sharing more success stories would result in growing the network wider.

COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

It is essential for any business and in this case for charities to look at their competitors to gain insights and simultaneously improve in the areas they lag. In this section, we will be doing competitor analysis in comparison to SaGG Foundation. The first competitor is Right to Play, which is working towards protecting, educating and empowering children to rise above adversity using the power of play. They are currently operating in 15 different countries across the globe. The second competitor taken for the analysis is Education International. They are a union of 401 organizations working in 172 countries. Their aim is to provide free, quality and fully funded education to children.

SaGG Foundation is below average for audience; ranking 3^rd amongst the three charities as per the above insight. Our charity has an audience of 4.91k whereas, Right to Play has 17.4k and topping them both is the Education International with an audience of 66.4k. The reason for them to have a higher audience is because they have a more social media presence than SaGG.

SaGG Foundations’ posting frequency is about 13 posts a week which is better than Right to Play but lesser than Education International. It is evident that SaGG Foundation has actually increased its social media activity by 108% as compared to last year – 2021.

SaGG Foundation saw the biggest increase in total engagement on Twitter, while the competitors increased most on Facebook. One of the most engaging posts for our charity has been on Twitter which also received retweets getting more reach and engagement. Resulting in the highest increase in engagement rate i.e., 52% compared to other competitors who only saw a percentage increase of 19% and 48%.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• SHARING SUCCESS STORIES  

According to the statistics seen above, SaGG Foundation needs to share more posts related to the success stories of the girls. This post so far has had the highest number of engagements which means sharing such a post would not only engage but also increase the number of followers and attract more sponsors to play their part in the cause.

• USE OF ORGANIC PICTURES

Organic and natural pictures have secured more like and shares on SaGG Foundations’ social media channels rather than edited pictures. If they can manage to use such images they might be able to gain more reach, likes, and comments.

• ADD YOUTUBE LOGO TO THE WEBSITE

The website for our foundation is quite detailed but one thing that is missing is the YouTube logo which has a negative impact on the charity. Why? The charity has a YouTube channel where they share the stories and conduct events; which means if they do not have a logo for YouTube on their page the website traffic would not be diverted towards YouTube resulting in a loss of reach.

• START A TIKTOK CAMPAIGN

In this digital and social media era, TikTok has gained more attention of people than other channels for trendy, fun and informational content. It would be of use to the charity by posting relevant and engaging content on TikTok. This would indeed attract more sponsors and capture wider audiences. Using a probabilistic approach can help gain more reach and audience than any other method. (Yue et al., 2020)

• INCREASE YOUTUBE CONTENT AND PRESENCE

SaGG Foundations YouTube channel needs more engaging content. They have only 8 subscribers and not a lot of content as compared to Right to Play which has 400 subscribers and much more engaging content. They should focus on increasing their YouTube channel to have a wider reach.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, it could be said that SaGG Foundation has the potential to gain the attention of a wider range of audiences and also increase their engagement and reach via different social media channels by increasing its online presence.

REFERENCES

Li, Y. and Xie, Y., 2019. Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? An Empirical Study of Image Content and Social Media Engagement. Journal of Marketing Research, 57(1), pp.1-19.

Emarketer.com. 2022. What Encourages Facebook Engagement? – eMarketer. [online] Available at: <https://www.emarketer.com/Article/What-Encourages-Facebook-Engagement/1008677> [Accessed 31 March 2022].

Yue, K., Liu, W., Li, J., Wu, H. and Yin, Z., 2020. Probabilistic Approaches For Social Media Analysis. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.

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