To achieve this, monitoring and gathering valuable insights regularly and identifying trends will help you pinpoint areas for improvement, so you can capitalize on your successes. Remember that making improvements is always possible, regardless of the time of year, so it’s important to take advantage of this opportunity to finish the year strong!
Key Social Media Insights To Monitor
Actively monitor platform and industry benchmarks, and analyze your social media insights to measure marketing success and make informed decisions.
One of the important reports to include in a mid-year review is social media performance. Social media has become a powerful tool for businesses to connect with audiences and achieve marketing goals. However, it’s not enough to simply post content and hope for the best. A strong marketing strategy requires actively monitoring platform (and industry) benchmarks and analyzing social media insights to measure success and make informed decisions. Whether it’s Facebook’s audience demographics or Instagram’s content performance metrics, each platform’s unique insights provide key data points to refine your approach and drive results.
When creating your marketing review report, make sure to regularly look out for the statistics found in reliable platforms like Sprout Social or HootSuite.
1. Facebook
As Facebook continues to be an integral part of our daily lives with nearly three billion monthly active users worldwide, the platform has a significant impact on how we connect and engage with each other online. Monitoring Facebook’s new features and algorithm changes, as well as keeping an eye on your page’s active users and engagement metrics can provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing strategies on this platform.
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New Features And Algorithm Changes
With such a massive user base, it’s no surprise that Facebook regularly introduces new features, changes its algorithms and updates its advertising options to keep up with the ever-evolving digital landscape. New features such as Facebook Shops, Messenger Rooms and Avatar offer opportunities for businesses to connect with their customers and fans authentically.
Facebook’s algorithm underwent some major changes this year as well, determining which content appears in users’ news feeds to improve the user experience. While some businesses saw a decline in their organic reach and engagement because of these changes, others were able to adapt their marketing strategies and achieve even greater success. Here are some algorithm changes that businesses and marketers should be aware of:
- Emphasis On Meaningful Interactions – The algorithm prioritizes content that encourages “meaningful interactions” between users, such as comments and shares.
- Focus On Video Content – Facebook has been putting a greater emphasis on video content in recent years, prioritizing “original videos that people seek out” and demoting “videos that are unoriginal or repurposed from other sources.”
- Penalization Of Clickbait And Low-Quality Content – Facebook has been cracking down on clickbait and low-quality content through the reduced distribution of posts containing “misleading information or false claims” and the prioritization of posts that provide “authentic and informative experiences.”
It’s important to stay ahead of the curve and understand how these changes can impact our overall marketing goals. Taking a deep dive into the new algorithm and understanding how it operates allows various organizations to tailor content and strategy and continue to reach their target audience and achieve desired outcomes. After all, in the ever-evolving world of social media and marketing, adaptability is key.
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Active Users And Engagement
It is important to note that with changes in Facebook’s algorithm, a favorable engagement rate is not just about the number of likes or comments an organization receives on each of its posts. What matters is the quality of those engagements. As a result, investing resources into understanding your audience is key to achieving marketing success. Identify topics or campaigns that drive engagement and adjust your messaging accordingly.
Furthermore, observing negative feedback from a campaign or topic can enable you to pivot your strategy and avoid alienating your audience. This insight helps you refine your messaging and ensure your campaigns resonate with your target audience.
To illustrate the importance of active users and engagement metrics on Facebook, let’s take a look at a few case studies of brands that have successfully leveraged these insights to boost their social media presence.
- Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is one of the world’s most recognizable brands, but even they needed to fine-tune their social media strategy to stay relevant and connected to their audience. One of their strategy is the launch of the Coke Studio campaign, their digital-first way to connect with their consumer’s passion for music. As a result of these efforts, Coca-Cola saw a positive increase in the business, with millions of people actively engaging with the brand each month.
- Nike
Nike is known for its iconic advertising campaigns and the company has brought that same level of creativity to their social media efforts on Facebook. The brand found social media success by focusing on creating visually-stunning and emotionally resonant content, such as their most recent campaigns during Women’s Month and Black History Month. Although they haven’t been active on their main Facebook page, the fact that maintain multiple Facebook pages across the various sports they cater to earned them one of the highest monthly engagement rates and maintained their leadership in the athletic footwear category.
With almost 3 billion active users on Facebook, understanding how to target and engage with the right people on the platform can be a challenge. Through active engagement and user data, businesses can gauge the effectiveness of their marketing tactics.
2. Instagram
With its visually-captivating interface and diverse range of features, Instagram has rapidly emerged as one of the most popular social media platforms. Its ability to connect users in a distinctive and engaging manner, while showcasing daily lives, has resulted in millions of daily users.
As you prepare for your marketing review, We’ll analyze metrics such as growth in user base and demographics, the performance of different Instagram content formats and influencer marketing trends and issues to gain a comprehensive understanding of the platform’s impact for your brand.
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Growth In Instagram’s User Base And Demographics
Instagram has grown significantly over the years, with a whopping 2 billion active users worldwide. In fact, 47% of American adults use Instagram! The app’s demographics have significantly expanded to include a wider age range, as well as more businesses and creators, which makes it a vital marketing platform for any business looking to expand its reach. With engagement rates on Instagram higher than any other social media platform, it’s an ideal tool to meet marketing goals and create a solid marketing strategy.
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Performance Of Different Instagram Content Formats
With the rise of video content and Instagram Stories, simply posting pictures and captions on Instagram is no longer enough for businesses. To stay relevant and engaged with your audience, it’s crucial to adapt your marketing strategy to include newer formats.
Fortunately, Instagram offers a tool called “Insights” to help businesses understand which format resonates better with their audiences. A business may find that its audience prefers video content over images or vice versa. Armed with this information, they can focus on creating more content in the preferred format. If a particular content format is not performing well, the business can experiment with different formats to determine which one works best. For example, a business may find that its image posts receive more engagement than its video posts. The members of the marketing team can then adjust their content strategy to include more image posts to drive better engagement rates.
Analyzing consumption patterns during seasons, holidays and events also allows businesses to tailor their content to maximize engagement and reach their desired audiences.
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Influencer Marketing Trends And Issues
Influencer marketing on Instagram has become an essential part of many marketing strategies. With over 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram offers a unique opportunity for brands to reach a large and engaged audience.
- Micro-Influencers Are Gaining Popularity
In recent years, micro-influencers have become increasingly popular for brands looking for relevancy on Instagram. Brands are turning to micro-influencers as a cost-effective way to reach their target audience swhile still achieving high engagement rates. For example, Daniel Wellington, a watch brand, partnered with micro-influencers to promote their watches on Instagram. The campaign resulted in a 6.7% engagement rate and an ROI of 18x.
- Authenticity Is Key
Consumers today are savvy and can easily spot inauthentic content. Brands are realizing that influencer partnerships need to be more than just a paid endorsement; they need to be authentic collaborations that resonate with the audience. Influencers that are genuinely passionate about the brand or product they are promoting can create more impactful content that connects with their followers.
One example of an authentic influencer campaign is Dove’s #DoveSelfEsteemProject campaign. The campaign featured stories from children and women to promote safer internet experiences, body confidence and self-love. The campaign resonated with followers, resulting in nearly 7,000 organic engagements.
- Influencers’ declining influence
The issue of influencer fraud is a pressing concern in the marketing industry. Brands are investing significant amounts of money in influencer collaborations, only to discover that those influencers have acquired fake followers, use inauthentic captions and artificially inflate their engagement rates. Unfortunately, this type of fraud is on the rise and creates challenges for brands to evaluate the effectiveness of influencer campaigns accurately. According to HypeAuditor’s 2022 global report released this year, 36.68% of Instagram accounts are fraudulent, including both bots and fake followers purchased by influencers to boost their follower counts.
To combat influencer fraud, it is important for brands to take a more holistic approach to influencer evaluation. Instead of relying solely on follower counts and engagement rates, brands should consider factors like audience demographics, content quality and the influencer’s reputation within their industry.
3. Twitter
Twitter has become an indispensable tool for businesses and individuals alike in reaching their audience and engaging with them in real-time. The platform’s 280-character limit has made it easy to share opinions, ideas and announcements with a wider audience, while hashtags and mentions have enabled users to join conversations and discover fresh viewpoints.
If your business is on Twitter, it is important to track the effectiveness of your campaigns using metrics such as topics and hashtags and the paid advertising feature. Incorporating these metrics in your marketing review can provide valuable insights and help optimize your social media strategy for better engagement and reach.
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Trending Twitter Topics and Hashtags
Monitoring top trending Twitter topics and hashtags can provide valuable insights to brands about what is capturing the attention of your audience. This can help brands stay relevant, engage with their audience and check what their competitors are doing.
Topics such as #BlackLivesMatter, #COVID19, #MeToo and the more recent changes in Twitter’s management and policies spark meaningful conversations; while others like #MondayMotivation and #ThrowbackThursday inspire people to share positive and nostalgic content. It’s fascinating to see how a simple hashtag can unite people and bring attention to important issues!
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Effectiveness Of Twitter’s Paid Advertising
Twitter’s paid advertising feature can be an essential tool for businesses looking to reach and engage with their target audiences. The platform’s precision targeting ensures ads reach the right audience, resulting in higher conversion rates. Recent studies from Socialbakers show that Twitter’s paid advertising is highly effective in ad placement and amplifying existing content.
However, opinions are divided on the platform’s ad algorithm, with some believing it may not be as sophisticated as other platforms. Nonetheless, Twitter’s paid advertising has the potential to reach a large audience and generate valuable conversions for businesses.
Emerging Social Media Trends To Watch Out For
Make sure you stay updated on social media trends and incorporate them into your marketing strategy!
With the constant evolution of the digital landscape, there are a few emerging social media trends that are worth keeping an eye on, including:
- Short-form video content – These are videos under 10 minutes in length and designed to be consumed quickly and easily on social media platforms.
- Social commerce – The integration of shopping features into social media platforms.
1. Short-form video content
Have you explored integrating short-form videos into your marketing strategy?
Short-form video content has become a staple in many users’ daily routines, thanks to content shared in TikTok, in Instagram Reels and in YouTube Shorts. This easily consumable content is not only entertaining but has also inspired a new wave of content creators who leverage the accessibility of this medium to build immense followings and communities.
The engagement rates of short-form video content are much higher than traditional long-form content, making it an attractive option for marketers looking to reach their audiences in an authentic way. With the rise of mobile usage, short-form videos are becoming a preferred method of content consumption, and the impact this format has had on user behavior and engagement is only set to grow further as these platforms continue to evolve and new ones emerge.
2. Social Commerce
Integrating e-commerce into your social media can streamline your sales processes, reach a wider customer base and create a seamless customer experience that outperforms your competitors.
Social commerce also offers a platform for online advertising and customer reviews that can be unified into a few steps, making it easier for businesses to connect with customers and reach their marketing and sales targets.
Are You Ready For Your Mid-Year Marketing Review?
It is essential to refine your marketing approach, track your progress and identify trends for a successful year – and there’s no better time to start than today! When preparing for your mid-year marketing review, pay attention to the latest updates and trends within your industry to stay competitive and take advantage of new opportunities that arise. You can then re-focus your efforts and drive even greater success for the remainder of the year and beyond.
Keep in mind that this review should be a comprehensive analysis of all marketing efforts and should include a plan for implementation and continued monitoring. Don’t forget to integrate social media insights and tools in your marketing review to inform your team of the steps you are taking to enhance your brand’s digital presence. Let’s all finish this year strong!
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