Morning Furlough Fam!

Q4 is officially here. As the year is nearing a close, this is time to reflect on the first 3 quarters and strategize on how you can make the most of your Q4 efforts. If this year hasn’t been your best, don’t dwell on it, there’s still time to reach your goals. Personal and career development is always ongoing.

What are your goals for Q4?

In this week’s issue:

• Essential UI Principles For Success
• The Latest TikTok Innovations You Should Take Advantage Of
• What’s going on in the Furlough Community?
• Digital Marketing Highlights You Should Know About

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Essential UI Principles For Success

Anyone and everyone who is in marketing or business benefits from knowing the best UI principles.

Good UI is critical for a good experience as a consumer. If you website or app isn’t easily navigated, your customers will become overwhelmed and frustrated when faced with your product or service.

Ultimately, this leads them to dropping off… 😞

Here are the essential UI principles you need, as told by our ultra creative community member and UX/UI designer, Darius:

1. Clear Call To Actions

They need to be accessible and easy to spot.

The worst thing you can do is have other elements obstructing over your CTA. Prioritize visibility with contrasting colours, little copy and ample white space for a clickable CTA.

2. Reduce Visual Clutter 

There’s only so much mental energy that your consumers have to dedicate to you. This is especially true in a world of short attention spans and instant gratification.

Reduce the visual noise so the things that matter stand out.

The famous Chanel quote still holds true to this day:

“Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off. It is always better to be underdressed.” – Remember for your next UI design session.

3. Reduce Your Copy 

People don’t read. They scan.

Enough said.

The Latest TikTok Innovations You Should Take Advantage Of

TikTok – The social app that’s earned the side-eye from top platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

Not only has it filled the Vine-shaped hole in our hearts, it’s captured millions of viewing eyes which is fantastic for businesses and marketers globally.

As told by community member, Jeremiah, If you are only using the basic functions of TikTok you are missing out on opportunities for growth.

TikTok is introducing: 

1. Partnerships 

Vimeo and Canva have joined forces with TikTok to supercharge your ads.

This partnership will help you streamline two areas: Ad production and creative.

Users are now able to produce and publish ads using custom templates to the TikTok Ad Manager in minutes.

2. New Ad Pages

This one is seriously good.

According to global product strategist at TikTok, Jaqueline Fitzpatrick, “Instant Page” is a loading page which loads 11 times faster than a standard mobile landing page.

This means users can take a closer look at your brands message by swiping through content and watching videos within the app itself.

Find out about the third innovation you should take advantage of here. 

What’s going on in the Furlough Community?

Things are heating up over at Furlough!

Startup Booster Sessions

Seasoned entrepreneur Ophir is kindly hosting startup booster sessions in the Furlough Lounge where he answers all your business Q&A’s and helps troubleshoot any issues you are going through. Free mentorship like this is really rare to come by so we are grateful that he is taking time out to facilitate these sessions. For anyone who wants or has started their business this is an essential.

Lookout for the next session in the announcements channel

The Furlough Mastermind is back! 

I’m sure many of you will be happy to hear this! For those of you who haven’t experienced a Furlough Mastermind before you need to come along. These are live collaborative sessions where we give you practical advice so you can learn and grow in the marketing space.

Sessions are held over on Twitch every weekday at 12pm EST 

Last Friday we celebrated Furlough’s Twitterversary!

Drop us a follow for the short marketing insights you need.