What is working in the region right now?

Competitor tracking

tier: peer = individual designers in Yaser's exact lane (independent/ freelance UX-UI product designer, GCC or enterprise clients) — the daily delta only compares against these. tier: leader = big-name educators, useful for format ideas only. tier: connection = a real 1st-degree LinkedIn connection surfaced from Yaser's own network with design-relevant work, kept for country/reach ranking even when authored-content signal is currently thin. Grow this table over time as new peers surface.

Learned answers

• Output scope: strategy/report + on-camera video scripts only. Never posts,

publishes, or schedules content on any platform. (User, 2026-08-15)

• Standalone agent: no integration with linkedin-autopost, linkedin-engage,

or any other existing agent. (User, 2026-08-15)

• Cadence: on-demand only, no schedule/cron. (User, 2026-08-15)
• Video deliverable: full shooting script + camera/background direction,

plus assist with editing/captions once Yaser drops a raw filmed clip in ~/Desktop/agents/ux-marketing-strategist/raw-clips/ (not yet built — ask before building an editing pipeline the first time it's needed). (User, 2026-08-15)

• Video content angle (2026-08-22): every video must go beyond narrating

what a project was — it needs a real opinion/stance, a prescriptive "here's how to think about design / how to proceed" takeaway, and room for life-philosophy framing (how to live/carry yourself as a designer), not just case-study description. Applies to all 60-video-plan scripts and any future video content this skill drafts. (User, 2026-08-22)

• Instagram: check nazzaly73 directly for ad content; user expects it to be

viewable without a login. In practice Instagram's anonymous view is login-walled for full content — WebFetch still surfaces bio/theme data; see Learned site methods. (User, 2026-08-15)

• Instagram gap resolved (2026-08-27): Yaser logged into Instagram himself,

one time, into a new ux-marketing-strategist-instagram agent-browser session (same pattern as linkedin-autopost's reused session). This is now the permanent method for all Instagram research — see Learned site methods. Also corrects the real handle to @nazzaly (nazzaly73 never existed) and confirms the account is Professional, so per-post Insights (views, reach split, likes/comments/saves/shares, profile visits) are readable directly, not just public-facing numbers.

• Analytics overhaul (2026-08-17): every dashboard page must analyze, rank,

and trend — not just display raw numbers. Overview becomes an executive intelligence layer (top performers, momentum, spikes/drops, recommendations) fed by metrics-history.json + reports/daily/*.md + reports/links/*.md. LinkedIn and Instagram each get a full platform-analysis page (audience, growth, rankings, top posts, trends), cross-linked back to Overview and to the underlying reports. Metrics with no real public source (impressions, reach, saves, clicks on anyone else's content) must render an explicit "not publicly available" state — never a guess. Daily run window moved to 09:30–10:30 (was fixed 09:00). (User, 2026-08-17)

• Idea Strategist (2026-08-17): Topics Queue gets an ideaType field

(content / business / auto) — auto lets the agent decide per idea whether it needs a full content-strategy treatment or a fuller go-to-market treatment (positioning, pricing angle, target client, funnel). Every processed idea gets a FULL strategy written natively in both English and Arabic (not a translated summary) — reports/ideas/<id>-en.md and <id>-ar.md, linked back onto the topic record (reportEn/reportAr). (User, 2026-08-17)

• Dashboard requested (2026-08-15): a companion web app where Yaser can add

topics and browse generated strategy reports, focused on the GCC market. Queue + viewer architecture — no live API key, no runtime AI cost. Adding a topic just queues it; generation still happens via this Claude Code skill (Phase 1-3), not inside the deployed app. Light mode only. Lives at ~/Desktop/agents/ux-marketing-strategist/dashboard/, pushed to the same private GitHub repo, deployed on Vercel at https://ux-marketing-strategist.vercel.app. Repo-as-datastore: topics.json + reports/*.md committed to the repo; a serverless API route commits new topics via GITHUB_TOKEN (currently the gh CLI's own OAuth token, reused for speed — broader-scoped than a repo-only PAT; optional hardening later is to swap in a fine-grained, repo-scoped PAT created manually on github.com, since GitHub does not allow scripted PAT creation).

• Scope expansion (2026-08-15): user now also wants (a) a dashboard page to

paste any social link — post/reel/video/channel, any platform — and get a full breakdown of why it works and what to adapt (queue-based, same pattern as topics — see SKILL.md Phase 1b, link-queue.json); (b) closer "same exact career" peer designers tracked and compared against daily, not just big-name educators (see Competitor tracking tier column); (c) a dedicated stats/history page on the dashboard, separate from Overview; (d) a strategy-intake questionnaire page whose answers feed About me/ Learned answers; (e) scheduling folded into the existing Topics Queue page (a scheduled-date field) rather than a separate page; (f) a daily automated run at 9am, ~30 min budget, read-only comparison (see SKILL.md Phase 1c) — this reverses the earlier "on-demand only" decision.

8. Platform best-practice data (secondary, from live 2026 search results — cite when used)

LinkedIn posting cadence/timing:

• Sweet spot: 3–5 posts/week; posting 3–4x/week in optimal windows can lift impressions 30–50% vs. irregular posting.
• Best days: Tue–Thu (Wednesday strongest).
• Best windows: 10am–12pm and 1–3pm audience-local; 2026 trend shows late-afternoon/evening also pulling strong engagement (shift from 2025's pure-working-hours pattern). Wednesday 4pm = single best slot found across sources.
• Avoid Sat/Sun (weekend engagement drops sharply on this professional platform).

LinkedIn video hooks:

• 0–3s: contrarian claim, surprising number, or direct question aimed at the viewer's job title/identity. No "hi everyone," no logo bumper, no slow zoom intro — every second before the hook = a second the algo/viewer uses to decide "skippable."
• 3–15s: one sentence of context — who this affects, why it matters now.
• Videos autoplay silently — burned-in captions are mandatory, not optional.
• Shoot vertical (9:16) for talking-head.

Talking-head video setup:

• Camera at eye level, subject looks straight into lens.
• Frame from mid-chest/mid-stomach up; leave ~2 inches headroom above the head.
• Lighting at 45° angle to the face to avoid glare; diffused window light (sheer curtain) is a fine free option; ring light/softbox for more control.
• Background: simple and "feels like you" — clean wall, a few books, a tidy desk/office. Avoid clutter — it pulls attention off the speaker.
• Audio: even a cheap lavalier/clip mic beats built-in camera/laptop mic.

Instagram carousels:

• Highest engagement rate of any IG format in 2026 (~0.50% avg by follower count); saved ~35% more than single images.
• Optimal length: 7–10 slides for most content; 8–12 for deep educational; 3–5 for quick-tip/brevity formats. Below 5 reads as thin; above 10 triggers swipe fatigue.
• Cover slide (slide 1) is the make-or-break asset: bold hook headline (5–8 words) + visual pattern-interrupt (high contrast / expressive face / dramatic graphic) + curiosity trigger (partial reveal, surprising stat, or open question).
• Ratio: 4:5 (1080×1350) throughout — never mix ratios within one carousel.

7. Famous/competitor UX designers (LinkedIn creators, secondary via search)

• Jesse Showalter — product design educator, known for tutorials/courses/videos, high accessibility of modern design workflows.
• Andy Vitale — design leadership + AI strategy content; ex-Chief Design Officer (Constant Contact), ex-EVP Design (Rocket Companies); leadership-angle authority content.
• Gemma (Gemma Copeland-type senior product designer/educator) — accessible/inclusive design; practical UX tutorials, case-study templates, career reflections, accessibility tips, personal industry-navigation stories.
• Common pattern across all three: practical/tutorial framing, personal experience woven in, daily/frequent posting, AI + design-systems + career topics recur — same topic territory Yaser is already in, but delivered more personally and more visually (video/tutorial format) than Yaser's blog-style text posts.