At Design It Up Now, we are fans of using data and research to guide our social media strategy. So when it came to finding the best social media strategy, I read through more than 25 studies on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Snap Chat marketing from companies like Simply Measured, Statisa, PEW Research, News Whip and many more.
1. INSTAGRAM
Instagram’s young audience likes current, creative, and useful content
According to Statista, an online market research portal, the largest user group on Instagram in the U.S. as of December 2016 was the 25 to 34-year-olds, which accounted for 25.2 percent of U.S. Instagram users. This is followed by the 18 to 24-year-olds, which form 20.6 percent of U.S. Instagram users.
Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan American think tank, also looked into the demographics of Instagram users in the U.S. They also found that “Instagram use is especially high among younger adults” — to a greater extent than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
Here are some highlights from Pew Research Center’s study on social media use in the U.S.:
Fifty-five percent of online adults between the age of 18 and 29 use Instagram — the highest percentage among all age groups
Thirty-three percent of online adults between the age of 30 and 49 use Instagram — the second highest percentage among the age groups
A bigger percentage of women (38 percent) than men (26 percent) use Instagram
Instagram strategy takeaway:
If your target audience is between the age of 18 and 49, Instagram could be a great platform to reach your potential customers and engage your existing customers.
To help with your Instagram marketing strategy, Facebook interviewed and surveyed more than 12,000 teens and young adults and offered these recommendations on how to maximize Instagram’s potential for your business:
Showcase what makes you special: If you can share a perspective that only you can offer, you can more likely connect with the teens and young adults on Instagram.
Blend in to stand out: Instagram users prefer beautiful visual content and often post such high-quality content themselves. To engage them, you have to create similar high-quality images and videos.
Inspire the moment: Teens and young adults in the study describe Instagram as current (42 percent), creative (37 percent), and useful (32 percent). Hence, they would expect such content from brands on Instagram.
CREDIT Alfred Lua BLOG WRITTER FOR BUFFER
2. FACEBOOK
Facebook is big. As the largest social network in the world, it has more than 1.23 billion active users, 62% of whom log in on a daily basis. And with such a large user base, ignoring Facebook really isn’t an option for most users. You can bet your ideal market is using Facebook nearly every day. The question is: how do you target all of those users with your marketing?
The good news is that the Facebook advertising platform allows you to zero in and specify the type of people you’re looking for. You can target by location, demographics, and interests.
Facebook doesn’t publicly release data on their most popular age group, but a survey by Pew showed that social networking is most popular with the 18-29 age group. Its popularity decreases with age. It is least popular with those 65 and older.
How Can You Market on Facebook?
Facebook has three tools (pages, ads, and groups) that can be used by anyone. Each of these options has its own purpose, and they can be combined for greater reach.
Pages
Facebook pages are similar to profiles, but for businesses, organizations, and public figures. Users can “Like” a page, which means they’ll automatically receive updates from that page in their news feed. Users also have the option to “Like” a page but not follow it. (Users also can follow some profiles.)
While profiles require a mutual relationship between friends, pages can be liked by anyone, without a requirement for the page creator to accept a fan. They also don’t have a restriction on the number of friends/fans they can have (unlike profiles, which are limited to 5,000 friends).
Advantages: Pages are free and easy to set up.
Disadvantages: It can be hard to get a foothold and build a fan base with a page.
Ads
Facebook offers a fantastic targeted advertising platform. You can create ads targeted at specific geographic areas, ages, education levels, and even the types of devices used for browsing. Facebook also lets users close ads they don’t like and “Like” a page right beneath an advertisement:
Advantages: Ads have powerful targeting parameters.
Disadvantages: Ads can get expensive, depending on your goals.
Groups
Facebook groups are similar to discussion forums, but with additional features that pages and profiles have (like a wall). You can create groups related to your industry or product offerings as a way to reach out to potential customers.
Advantages: Groups are free and have high levels of engagement.
Disadvantages: Groups can be very time consuming.
CREDIT: JOEL KLETTKE Conversion Copywriter and Consultant for SaaS & B2B
3. LINKEDIN
No other social network comes close to LinkedIn for professional networking and lead generation. However, while many professionals use the platform to make new connections, LinkedIn is much more than just an online rolodex.
If you’re considering marketing your business on LinkedIn, they offer a comprehensive guide on how to market on LinkedIn which you can read here. how-to-market-on-linkedin
What types of businesses should be using LinkedIn (and why)
Whether you need a personal profile or business page (or both)
Who should be using LinkedIn (and why)?
Businesses in virtually any niche or industry can benefit from using LinkedIn. Some of the key benefits include:
Making connections with like-minded professionals.
Recruiting candidates for job openings Reducing or eliminating the need for cold calling
Optimizing your presence in search engines
Connecting with media outlets and generating publicity for your business
Gaining exposure for your brand
Establishing yourself as a leader in your niche by sharing blog posts and participating in industry groups
Not surprisingly, B2B businesses report seeing the biggest impact from their efforts on LinkedIn. According to the 2017 Social Media Marketing Industry report, LinkedIn is the most commonly used social media platform for B2B marketers; even more popular than Facebook.
Credit Sujan Patel Content Writer FORBES
4. Twitter
Why you should include Twitter in your social marketing strategy
Twitter is a core social network for research, engagement, and awareness. If you’re not working it into your content strategy yet, you can be sure your competitors are.
In case you (or your boss) aren’t already convinced Twitter needs to be part of your marketing strategy, here are a few reasons we find compelling:
Twitter has over 313 million monthly users.
Those users send 6,000 tweets per second—that’s more than half a billion per day.
Twitter users are three times as likely as Facebook users to follow a brand.
A survey by Twitter found that 69 percent of respondents had purchased from an SMB after following them on Twitter. The survey also found that 79 percent of people who follow SMBs retweet content from that business.
In a survey, 63.5 percent of social media managers listed Twitter as one of their top social media platforms in terms of return on investment (ROI), second only to Facebook.
Twitter marketing for business: tips, tools, and strategy
Define success on Twitter for your organization
Start with a list of your organization’s current high-level business objectives, such as:
Generate leads and sales
Increase customer loyalty
Build brand and product awareness
Decrease customer support costs
From these objectives, craft specific goals you’ll work towards on Twitter, making sure your goals are measurable so you can evaluate progress and prove your success. For example, if your business objective is to provide your sales team with high-quality leads through social, your goal might be “use Twitter to drive 30 email sign-ups per month.”
With objectives and goals in place, remember to take time to benchmark the current state of your team’s performance. This will help you measure your progress toward your goals, proving that your strategy is producing real, measurable results for your business.
Defining and measuring success on social media can be challenging, so taking the time to do this right will really set you apart.
Use Twitter tools to get more done
Twitter’s website and apps are great for sending the occasional tweet or direct message—but to manage your Twitter marketing at scale, you need the right tools for the job.
Our list of 33 Twitter tools you can use in your marketing strategy is broken down by function to help you find the tools you need to market your business more efficiently on Twitter. Here are just a few of the things these tools will help you do faster and better:
Generate leads by learning more about the people engaging with your brand, why they’re sharing your content, and who they’re sharing it with.
Find industry influencers to connect with.
Analyze your competition to find detailed information on their tweets, mentions, hashtags, followers, and more.
Find trending topics by content, hashtags, search terms, sources, and more.
Edit and add images to your tweets.
Manage who you follow (and unfollow) to add valuable new information to your Twitter feed—and remove inactive and spammy followers.
Time your posts for maximum impact with tools that analyze both your tweets and your followers’ tweets.
With your Twitter toolbox stocked and ready, it’s time to turn your attention to crafting a world-class profile.
Credit Curtis Foreman From Hootsuite
5. SnapChat
Snapchat claims a total of 58.6 million users, and considering millennials are the original instigators of the selfie, it’s no surprise that they make up the majority. Sixty-one percent of Snapchat users are those aged 18 to 34, according to eMarketer. They’re followed by generation Z, considered by eMarketer as those aged 12 to 17, at 23 percent. These numbers are expected to rise, particularly among individuals 12-to-24 years old, with 73 percent of smartphone owners between 12 and 17 and 70 percent of those 18 to 24 estimated to be regulars on the platform by the end of this year.
Based on these numbers, Snapchat is on track to double the amount of users on both Twitter and Pinterest by 2020.
“What makes Snapchat different from other mobile messaging apps – and more established social networks – is the short-lived nature of the messages, the highly visual interface and the features that enable users to get creative with the images they share, and tailor them to specific locations or events,” said eMarketer principal analyst Cathy Boyle in a recent report. “The fun aspect of Snapchat should also be credited for its success. In a world in which there is an app for nearly everything, Snapchat has cut through the clutter by injecting fun back into social sharing.”
And it’s exactly why millennials and gen Zers are so enamored, along with the app’s tendency to update frequently and anticipate user wants before they’re realized.
Released in September 2011 as a way to communicate short-lived pictures and messages with friends, the app has evolved over time to now allow Snapchatters a plethora of options for sharing and discovering content, including:
1. The ability to edit photos and short videos with filters, effects, captions, text and drawings
2. Posting of public “stories” to others on the platform, much like a Facebook update
3. Use of graphical overlay geofilters to show approximate locations, such as cities, events or destinations
4. Messaging between users with ability to leave audio or video notes, as well as recent camera photos
5. Lens feature that enables users to add real-time effects into their snaps using facial detection technology
However, Snapchat is quickly attempting to reposition itself from a “this moment only” social media channel to a greater discovery platform. The release of the “Discover” section last year created opportunities for users to find relevant content to them in short form video format. The channel provides updates on the latest news and trends from major publishers (think BuzzFeed, CNN, ESPN and Mashable). In true Snapchat form, a year later, the brand is again attempting to move into another space as an “experience storage” channel. The new “Memories” option allows snaps and stories to be saved into private storage to be edited or published again at a later time – completely shifting the original purpose of the vanishing, uncollectible photos that originated with Snapchat.
All of this is great news for marketers seeking a newer, creative way to reach the elusive millennial generation and the still developing generation Z, as they now have more opportunities than ever before to create native experiences to the platform that feel very different from the traditional advertisements of the past.
The lens feature is the newest option for marketers, which debuted in September. Snapchatters use it to add colorful veneers to the photos they take (there’s nothing scarier than the unicorn rainbow vomit one), and as they’re updated almost daily, they never get old. Brands have the ability to pay for the creation of their own versions that are designed by the makers at Snapchat.
Although the cost of the sponsored lenses can be pretty steep, the payoff if is worth it.
“The typical lens in a day gets a couple million of uses,” Elias Plishner, executive vice president of digital marketing for Sony Pictures Entertainment, told Adweek. “The real value however is not the number of times it’s being used, but the number of people who view content created by Snapchat users with the lens, which could be in the tens of millions.”
Another perk for those advertising with the app is its recent partnership with global information and measurement company Nielsen to measure the audiences of its 3V advertising on mobile devices. This will expand the platform’s current measurement capabilities, allowing them to deliver mobile audience reach, frequency, demographic composition and gross rating points (GRPs) – metrics seen commonly in other digital advertising space.
Measurement of the sponsored geofilter and the lens campaigns are reported to be implemented in the near future, potentially giving marketers even more supporting points for agreeing to a hefty price tag.
Although the exact numbers are out for now, there’s no denying that Snapchat is in with the most influential generation of our time – making it worthy of love from all brands.
Credit Skyler Huff Millennial Marketing