In September, our social media specialist, Amanda, attended the Social Media Success Summit (SMSS) presented by Social Media Examiner. SMSS is a four-week summit with live social media sessions from the world's top social media authorities, authors and practitioners. The summit this year focused on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Live, Analytics, Video, and Tools/Apps. Here are Amanda's top five takeaways from SMSS 2016.
1. Video is king across all social media platforms.
The Facebook team predicts that in five years Facebook will be all video
Facebook video has 135% greater organic reach than photos
Social video generates 1,200% more engagement than text and photo
The amount of hours spent viewing YouTube videos increases by 100% year over year
96% of consumers find videos helpful when making purchasing decisions
Four times more people want video over copy for instructions
By 2018, 79% of all global consumer Internet traffic will come from video
2. The human attention span is lower than ever.
The amount of time it takes for people to decide if they will stay or go when watching a YouTube video is only eight seconds. It is so important to make the first eight seconds impactful and concise, and to get your message across quickly in order to draw people in enough that they'll stick around for the rest of the video.
3. Snapchat is one of the best story-telling tools.
Snapchat has 200 million users and garners more than 10 billion daily video views
On any given day, Snapchat reaches 41% of all 18-34 year-olds in the U.S.
It is the most active social network behind Facebook, and is the perfect tool to tell a story, provide value and entertainment, and generate awareness, interaction and insight
People love to see the people behind a brand and Snapchat is a great way to humanize brands
Each story should have a beginning, middle and end, but should be concise enough to keep your audience engaged
There are countless features like tap, screenshot, filters, chat, swipe down, memories, stickers and others that can help your story stand out of the noise. And don't forget Geofilters! We will cover those in an upcoming blog post.
4. Live Video is a great way to build relationships and a community for your brand.
Live video platforms like Facebook Live enable you to interact with your fans and customers at the drop of a hat
You can communicate directly with your audience by asking and answering questions they leave in the comments
There are countless ways to use Facebook Live to market your business, such as Q&As, behind-the-scenes footage, tours, how-to broadcasts, product launches, DIY/project walkthrough, events and trade shows, interviews and more
Facebook Live is currently the most used platform for live video, but Instagram recently launched Live Video and Periscope is another option
Two new Facebook Live features that are coming soon are Facebook Live for desktop and two-party broadcasts, so keep an eye out!
5. Engagement is queen and she rules the house.
The average Facebook user checks Facebook 14 times a day
Out of 1,500-15,000 stories per session, each person sees only 300. That's why it's so important to have a solid social media strategy consisting of compelling content that is highly shareable, timely and relevant.
Of all social networks, the three with the highest engagement rates are Snapchat, Live Video and Instagram
Traffic from Instagram has the lowest bounce rate of all social media because the only links available are in a user's bios so followers need to actively go to your bio to click on a link
Instagram has 300 million daily active users with 28% of all Internet users and has a 58 times higher engagement rate than Facebook
68% of Instagram users regularly engage with brands compared to only 32% of Facebook users
Social media is an ever-changing field and staying educated on new platforms and features is part of our job as a branding company. If you are interested in how z2 can help you stand out from the noise and up your social media game, reach out to us at info@z2marketing.com.