I recently saw some family members that I only see once in a great while. Since we don’t know much about each other aside from what we see share online, that quickly became the topic of conversation (“oh, your kid’s are so cute!” “I’m so jealous you went to that concert! How was it?”).

A few of my cousins commented that I seem to leave a “cool life” based on what I post on social media. I explained that I didn’t post about the bulk of my life, which is spent working or sitting on the couch.

It’s no secret that we post the “cool” things in our life on social media to nourish this public perception we’ve all been able to create because of the Worldwide Web. And, as much as we hate to admit it, a lot of us love the instant gratification of likes and comments that come with a post.

Aside from that, there may be some legitimate psychological reasons behind why people post on social media.

First, 94 percent of people say that they share online to better the lives of others. This can be found in posts that are geared to make people laugh, to inform people of events going on in their area, or to teach something new.

Second, as I mentioned before, 68 percent of people post content that they want to reflect their online identity.

If you have an Instagram feed designed to be a “lifestyle influencer,” you may be found posting fashion pictures, pictures of meals, or travel photos.

Third, 80 percent of people want to grow and nourish relationships. This can include posting on a friend’s timeline for their birthday, or sharing an event and inviting people to come.

Fourth, 81 percent stated that they enjoy that aforementioned instant gratification. These individuals like the feeling of having others comment and engage with their posts.

Finally, 84 percent want to spread the word about something that they believe in. This can include sharing online theirreligious posts or posts regarding charity.

There are a variety of reasons to post on social media, some that we’ll admit and some that we won’t. I have a feeling that in the future, there may be a college-level course titled: “The Psychology of Posting on Social Media.”

One trend that marketers and entrepreneurs alike are trying to utilize is the mining of dark data from social media. It may sound like something a supervillain in a made-for-TV movie may use to “hack the mainframe,” but it may be the crux of your next marketing strategy.

Research firm Gartner defines dark data as “information assets organizations collect, process and store during regular business activities, but generally fail to use for other purposes.”

This data is frequently unstructured, making it difficult to utilize effectively. Structured data is easy to analyze, it populates spreadsheets after a customer enters their information on your website and other clear roads of analysis.

Unstructured data, in contrast, is information that may be collected but its not utilized effectively. Almost 90 percent of unstructured dark data falls through the cracks and is never put to use. One big source of unstructured data is social media posts.

Customers will share insights into your business and brand through their posts about their purchasing habits. This is frequently done through not just through the selfie, but the captions associated with the photo as well.

A picture can tell a lot of information to people (what times of items you sell, their quality, and their overall experience) but the caption can help you understand more what their attitude towards those events are.

A picture may show an attractively plated meal, but the caption may talk about how there was a long wait for the food as well as poor customer service. These captions, and subsequent comments, can offer a keen insight into what people like and dislike about your brand called sentiment analysis.

Sentiment analysis can be utilized to understand attitudes toward your brand, and there’s multiple ways you can go about this. One method of analysis is through the building of word clouds which examine the most used words in a few days of dark data. Pro-marketers can easily pull dark data from those who like or follow a business’ social pages into software which can do the legwork for you.

Small business owners have some options that are less sophisticated but can still do sentiment analysis of dark data effectively.

The IProspect blog suggests to use “a blend of monitoring tools,” many of them free, to complete a sentiment analysis.

A better understanding of dark data means you aren’t limited to just basic social media analysis tools. With these concepts, you too can illuminate your dark data and shine some light on future prospects.

If you’ve dealt with user onboarding, activation, or retention for your website, odds are you may have heard of or used the software Appcues. Typically Appcues specializes in user welcome tours, new feature announcements, or those oh-so-annoying yet oh-so-useful NPS surveys. (If you don’t know what a Net Promoter Score is yet, here you go. You’re welcome.)

Instead of the typical onboarding tours, Appcues is taking it a step further with the new Onboarding Checklists feature that has us impressed. As a veteran UX designer in SaaS, I’m usually leery of any new product that claims to do wonders for user onboarding/retention.

As we’ve looked through the inner workings of the onboarding checklists, our skepticism has turned into delight. And we’re not alone — this was recently the #3 “Product of the Day” on Product Hunt.

Rather than obnoxious pop-ups on your website, this gives the user the responsibility to complete the onboarding tasks at hand. Even though there are varying onboarding checklist tools out there, this is currently our favorite.

Here’s why:

1. The steps are backed by behavioral science.

This is the best part. The tool is built to encourage positive behaviors (activation) through a bias to completion, reward, and consistency.

2. It’s unobtrusive and unannoying.

Users don’t like to think they’re being manipulated into a new feature. (Looking at you, Facebook stories.) By allowing users to complete the onboarding process on their own time through a simple, unobtrusive UX, user loyalty is maximized while user frustration is minimized. Win-win.

3. You can segment checklists with different user bases.

By allowing to segment different types onboarding checklists, you’re allowed to make informed, data-driven decisions on the demographics of users more likely to complete certain portions of the checklist and alter as needed *swoon*.

Even though the new onboarding checklist feature is legit, you still need to do your homework in applying best practices to ensure it’s effective.

Make sure to know your user personas to segment properly, conduct user research, understand the most important steps, and make the checklist clear, concise, and rewarding. Need help with some UX best practices? This blog might help.

To test the user onboarding checklist, go to this site to register for a trial Appcues account. Starter accounts begin at $159/mo and up. #notanad