Social Media Study In a nutshell

We found a few studies, worth a read, since Social Media is something that keeps changing every single day. The next few slides will take you through the current trends on Social Media.

We thought we’d share some of these cool advices with you too.

The 7 Deadly Sins of Social Media Marketing

1. Being all talk : The key to Social Media content is to ‘show’, not ‘tell’. Audience will always prefer engagement with visuals over text.

2. Putting on a one-man show: Instead of speaking continuously about the brand, engaging the audience by making them the centre of attention, sharing content that they will want to click, reaps more engagement. 3. Forgetting to think before you Tweet: Newsjacking is a good option with trending topics. Most brands

piggyback on popularity of top headlines. 4. Thinking all social platforms are created equal: Your social strategy shouldn’t be ‘one size fits all’. Finding

channels that best align with the brand’s TA’s interests is a better way to go about it. 5. Putting Customers on Mute: 72% of customers who complain about a brand/service on a social media

platform, expect a response within an hour. 6. Forgetting to be Human: Corporate jargons & automated replies like robots would drive away the

audience from the brand. The secret is to be human. 7. Assuming your Social Strategy works: Customers are in control in the present day scenario. They expect

marketers to know where, when and how to connect.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2014/08/28/social-marketing-sins/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#

The big picture today: 97% of marketers use Social Media to connect with buyers. Avoid the 7 deadly sins of SMM at all costs to keep the TA engaged, interest and loyal.

Facebook Updates News Feed Algorithm to crack down on Photos with URLs and Click-bait Headlines

Read more: http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/facebook-update-photos-urls-clickbait-headlines

Change #1: Facebook will prioritize link posts over photo updates that have URLs in the caption. Check out how the two formats compared (before):

Photo post with URL in Caption

Solution: when you want people to visit a link via your FB page, post link format, instead of putting the link in the caption.

Link Post

Change #2: Facebook will devalue click-bait headlines. Users prefer headlines that help them decide whether they want to read the full article or not, 80% of the times.

Solution: Either, a) use link post formats, or b) write clear headlines

An example of click-bait headlines

Everything you need to know about Paid Social - SPRINKLER

The decline of ‘Organic’ - the ‘How’ of it.

Volume of social content has exploded, but the impact of each message is diluted. In the same period the number of FB pages ‘Liked’ by a group of users grew 50%, ‘Organic Reach’ dropped by 50%.

For pages with more than 500,000 fans, organic reach is at a measly 2%, heading towards a 0%, according to reports. It’s not FB’s fault, as opposed to what it may seem like, with the new settings and algorithms.

Since 2005, paid social audience has doubled every 2 years.

Audience on Social Media

a. There is a finite number of posts each user is willing and able to view in a day. b. The avg. user is potentially exposed to 1.5k stories every time they log in to FB. Super social users are exposed to

15k stories. c. FB’s new algorithm filters newsfeed using 100,000 different factors to decide which post will get prime real estate on

timelines, and which ones would fade away into the background. d. Brands can now reach only a fraction of their fan base.

The Party at fault is SPACE.

End Result: relying on organic is no longer a viable option. Brands need to develop a paid strategy.

Paid social is growing, maturing and changing rapidly. The paid market totals 4.2 billion users across 8 networks.

Paid social is no longer a choice between Facebook and Twitter. They are the 2 major players in social – 13 billion and 260 million monthly active users in Q1’14 respectively.

New players on paid social: Instagram. It is expected to have 302 million users by 2015 – still not enough to de-throne Facebook.

Emerging platforms worth a second look – Instagram & Pinterest.

Since 2005, the paid social audience has doubled every 2 years. At this rate it’ll reach 8 Billion by 2016.

The 10 commandments of Social Advertising.

Paid social offers brands an opportunity to deliver the right content to the right audience. In order to achieve the best results, you need the right strategy.

The 10 commandments of Social Advertising are:

1. Measure wisely - campaigns should be measured and optimized based on the goals. 2. Choose the right platform - since not all platforms drive the same result.

3. Target the right people - specific groups with content tailored to their interest, improves performance. 4. Create great content - use uncluttered, easily recognisable imagery.

5. Escalate the winners - organic content should be used to inform the audience about the promoted activity. 6. Keep things fresh - ad creatives, ideas, text - to ensure campaigns do not become stale.

7. Test things out for all your campaigns - keywords, demographics, time of posting, image variation, copy, and the likes.

8. Optimize your bidding - keep changing the bids for every campaign. 9. Drop poor performers - it is a good step to cancel spend on segments that are not performing well, and set

up new tests. 10. Learn from the past - document what worked well and use (if applicable) as the starting point of the next

campaign.

Conclusion: adaptation is the only way for brands to survive. Therefore, -Revisit & revise content strategies

- Stay up-to-date on the latest changes in social