Social Media Trends in 2017
Social Media Update
Hi, it’s Tracy here and welcome to the Saucy Horse Social Media Services Update.
We’ve spoken about the need to brush up your inbound vs outbound marketing in our recent blogs, but there’s another aspect of inbound that you’ll need to concentrate on –
Inbound messages and social media services
Inbound messages for social media customer service are going up. Big time.
We’ve seen plenty of examples of this across the multiple sectors our clients operate within – and sadly, plenty of examples of brands and businesses either ignoring them, or handling them badly. You need a game plan for answering your social inbound communication – 82% of messages that brands receive go without response, according to Sprout Social’s report. You need to build in the resource for some 1:1 engagement in your social strategy. If you don’t, you’ll never maximise the opportunities that social media offers for lead acquisition and for building a warm relationship that encourages people to buy from you. We saw an example recently on a sadly neglected Facebook page where a customer had actually posted on the page to ask for an emergency call out on their Breakdown and Recover policy – you never know when your customers are looking for you on social media – whatever sector you’re in – so you better be there, with a sound social customer service strategy.
Live social media broadcasts
Next – Live social broadcasts are something you shouldn’t ignore – and it’s not just for the big brands of the world. People are more likely to trust a business that can show exactly what’s happening as it’s happening. How could that aspect of your social media communication fit in with your business objectives?
We’ve used it for authors to discuss their books (and seen a nice spike in book sales), app developers to promote the launch of their apps and B2C companies to show followers what’s happening in their centres – and also to encourage their involvement in focus groups and product development.
The options are growing – it’s been possible to run live Twitter Q & A’s for a while and to generate real engagement from your followers. Programs like Periscope and Facebook’s Live Broadcasts mean you can look at this as a real possibility in your marketing campaigns. Instagram and Snapchat made 2017 the year of real time posting. Just be clear what your call to action is and the outcomes you’re working to achieve if you’re using this as a business marketing tool.
The most critical marketing step
If live broadcasts don’t excite you just yet, videos however are critical!
We’ve said this a million times – but it’s worth reiterating that the world is catching up with the saucy horseys! Video is the most engaging content for social marketing. 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week. (HubSpot, 2016) and 100 million hours of video are watched every day on Facebook. (TechCrunch, 2016) (Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)
If you’re not producing short, compelling videos for social, with a strong Call To Action, and a subsequent email nurturing campaign to convert leads, that one thing alone is worth setting as a goal for your digital marketing content strategy
Social Media as a sales tool
Finally, social media searches are generating more sales. Pinterest has a visual search feature which means a user can now click any part of an image to open a new search and they will be taken to results for products like that one. Just think of the opportunities for e-commerce with that. Some social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook are offering Buy buttons on their channels. The others will follow suit. This means it’s much easier to buy products directly through social media channels and that’s why you need a social strategy that optimises the sales you can make.
Real people want to see, watch and hear from real people. And that’s the whole point of social media marketing. So if you’re struggling to resource a successful social media strategy in-house, talk to us. We’ll show you how we can partner with you to ensure your social media activity starts delivering a real return for your business.
Full social media marketing and management packages, run by experts, from £950 per month.
Instead of trying to do it all without expert help and experienced guidance and being destined to fail, or burying your head in the sand because you don’t know how to make this a revenue generating activity for your business, now is the time to find out how to get a social media marketing plan in place with a social media agency that specialises in a results driven approach, underpinned by understanding YOUR business, and its objectives.
Call on 0333 0113389 or Contact us today for a discussion on integrating Social Media into your Digital Marketing Strategy