19 Dec Five Things We Learned In Social Media This Year
Can you believe another year has passed? Another year of hashtags, pins, stories and #ads. Here’s a quick round-up of what we learned in social media this year:
Stories Aren’t for Everybody
This year we saw Facebook unsuccessfully try to capitalize on the story trend while Snapchat continues to absolutely kill it and Instagram all but change their name to SnapGram with their seemingly copycat features continues to grab share. The moral of the story (get it?) is that stories have a home in social media as a means of capturing your audience through rich, engaging, storytelling style content. If you’re thinking about getting in on the trend consider whether Insta or Snap are right for your audience.
Social Ads Should Still be Social
As social media budgets continue to grow and more and more marketing dollars begin to get funneled into social media we saw an increasing number of clients separate their social media efforts into organic and paid buckets this year. But, let’s face it, at the end of the day, it’s all social, according to eMarketer 80% of consumers forget branded content within 3 days of seeing it; which means the content, paid or not, still needs to be thumb stopping and capture consumers when they are in the mindset.
Having a Strategy Pays Off
Social has gotten increasingly competitive for consumer mind share, being intentional about why you are there and how you want your customers to engage with you is key. We’ve seen brands win big at key points of the year with well executed strategies. Having a strategy with well thought out KPIs will also help measure success at the end of the year.
Pinterest Equals Search
Pinterest changed its gender from social to search. Why? They report over 2 billion searches occur on the platform every month, that’s 24 BILLION (with a B) searches a year! With the additions of guided search and Pinterest Lens for users and a self-served paid search for advertisers this year, Pinterest is clearly in it for the long-haul.
#Ad Doesn’t Equal UGC
As the value of user-generated content (UGC) rose this year (60% of consumers say user-generated content is the most authentic form of content) we also saw the FTC cracking down on influencers and required disclosures to let the public know they were paid for their opinions. Be sure to check those hashtags for #Ad.
