These big trends will have a major impact on how we conduct social media marketing in the coming year
We are now in a social media dominated world, and marketers and businesses are taking full advantage of it. However, this means that trends and the way brands should best communicate with their customers are constantly changing. Brands need to ensure they keep up with the latest trends to ensure they can achieve their goals, whether that is to increase conversions or improve ROI.
The popularity of social media continues to rise, and 2016 was no exception. Facebook was the clear stand out social media platform and reached 1.79 billion monthly active users in the third quarter of 2016. This was followed by YouTube, which has 1.3 billion users. It is clear social media is here to stay, and businesses need to know what to do to capitalise on it and use the various…
How you can replicate the success of the most engaging brands on Instagram
When it comes to social media marketing, Instagram continues to be one of the most successful platforms available to brands. But with so many users and so many different brands using it, some more successfully than others, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. In this blog post, I’m going to share with you some of the best examples of successful brands on Instagram and what you can learn from them to improve your own Instagram presence.
Oreo: speed drawing
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Chart of the Day: Sainsbury's Stop Motion Animated "The Greatest Gift" races to 14 million views
Christmas is only days away - retail stores are competing for consumer attention with high profile multichannel marketing campaigns, all hoping that they can report a successful holiday period with increased sales in the new year. It seems that every year the competition to create the best Christmas advert - popularised by Coca-Cola in the the eighties with the Coca-Cola truck advert (still my favourite every year since) is getting fiercer. In the last few years the John Lewis advert has been the one that every other retail brand is trying to match - this year the retailer who is coming closest is Supermarket chain Sainsbury's with their Stop Motion Animation ad "The Greatest Gift" voiced by James Corden which tells the story of Dave, a hard-working and devoted Dad, who realises that the greatest gift he can…
Snapchat and Instagram battle over the future of online video sharing - marketers need to utilise the platform most relevant to their audience.
Marketers aiming to attract a millennial audience need to implement and actively engage with social media messaging apps to reach this active yet time-poor target audience. Millennials are those aged between 18 and 35 who have grown up as digital natives where they access technology at the touch of a button. Their time-poor nature means visual communications and particularly video is the format that can capture their attention quickly and effectively.
Video as a Marketing Tool
Video has become the single most important online format. According to Cisco it is predicted to account for 80% of all global consumer internet traffic in 2019. As a result, marketers have to constantly look at ways at integrating video into their social media marketing mix to keep up with the pace of…
Your LinkedIn and social media audience is an asset. Focus on nurturing relationships with them before you start worrying about how well you're managing your social media channels.
Between 75% and 97% of buyers are on-line, researching the type of services you provide right now and approximately 52% of them will buy something, immediately, as a result of this research. In fact, a recent study of social media demographics by author, marketer and speaker @WarrenKnight, indicates that 88% of all Pinterest users purchased a product they'd pinned. However, with many Pinterest users following big brands, it's not going to be easy for you to be included in the list of companies who benefit from this activity unless you've built and nurtured an audience.
There is a growing movement, on the web, of marketing experts, who are suggesting that even some of the most revered social…
Chart of the Day: Customers around the world chose retailers with loyalty programs over ones which don't.
As this chart from Nielson shows, customers spending decisions are highly likely to be influenced by the presence of a customer loyalty program, with 65% of US and European customers reporting they'd buy from a retailer with a customer loyalty program over one that didn't, all else being equal.
A majority of those surveyed also reported they'd be more likely to continue doing business with a company that has a loyalty program, and on average over 60% said they'd be more likely to shop at online retailers if they provided similar loyalty benefits as in-store retailers.
That said, before you go rushing off to start a customer loyalty program for your online store, there is one caveat. All the survey respondents for this data set were themselves already members of a customer loyalty program. This means they may be predisposed to…
Virgin Holidays Case Study: How to use virtual reality to show off your product
Particularly relevant for travel retailers, virtual reality provides an opportunity to showcase their product in a way that was previously impossible. Perhaps it's the best new technology for the sector since the jet engine! This first example shows how can now take your customers under the sea, to the top of mountains and onto the sunniest of beaches without them having to leave the branch, as this 360° video from Qantas shows.
The Virgin Reality initiative
Many travel brands have started experimenting with using VR to let customers 'try before they buy', and have done so by creating 360° videos which viewers can pan around. We've got to admit, they're pretty darn cool, and a lot of fun. But technically, they aren't virtual reality. Virtual reality means being able to look around the virtual world…
Chart of the Day: Top 20 Instagram Mobile App Advertisers in the USA
This week saw Instagram release a bunch of new features to their increasingly popular Instagram Stories. They announced what they called 'the biggest update to Stories since launch in August'. The app now allows you to tag your friends and integrates Boomerang, so you can add the 'wacky' looping videos into your stories.
Notice how the Disney account has tagged the Mickey Mouse and Good Morning America accounts - Oh and Happy 88th Birthday Mickey.
A unique feature released just for verified users (the ones with the blue tick) is the ability to add links to websites. This has always been a downside for marketers and influencers using the platform to promote their brands. Before this update, you could only add one link to your profile unless you were willing to invest in advertising spots. This…
Facebook's updated inbox will allow marketers to manage messages across different Facebook-owned networks on a single platform.
As social has grown, it has diversified. Where once a marketer focused on social media may have just had to manage the company Facebook and Twitter accounts, with LinkedIn on top if they were B2B, now there is an abundance of networks. We can add Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat to the list of major platforms, and then there are Messenger apps likes Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp that also require attention. More niche sites like Reddit, Tumblr, SoundCloud, SlideShare and Imgur may also deserve a social presence, depending on the brand in question.
No one ever had success on a social network by quickly setting up a profile, posting a few times and then forgetting about it. To drive results these platforms need constant attention and effort from marketers, so inevitably the increasing number of platforms that…
Chart of the Day: New consumer research shows why it's important to get into the primary inbox
Here's some useful insight for email marketers who are looking to understand changes in the inbox behaviour of consumers. It's a new report from the DMA showing how busy consumers manage their busy inboxes. The research looks at a range of issues including 'ghost' accounts; unsubscribes and in-depth focus on the behaviours of younger consumers, including 'Millennials and what motivates consumers to share their email address.
How many email addresses do consumers have?
This is the specific question we'll look at here. The answer is... more than you might think, although as a marketer you may have more than most.The chart shows two is most common which will typically be because people have a work and an inbox email.
The proportion…
