by Marelise da Silva | Jan 21, 2019 | Social Media Marketing
Tweets, DMs, mentions and impressions, these are just a few of the terms you will find floating in the pool of social media jargon. Even as a social media marketer or a digitally savvy business owner, it can get overwhelming trying to keep up with the latest trends and hashtags. We have compiled a list of social media terms you should add to your vocabulary if you want to stay in the know.
- User Generated Content (UGC)
User Generated Content is content which is created by unpaid contributors or fans of a brand. Blogs, tweets, videos, testimonials, quotes, etc, are all examples of UGC. It is where users promote the brand instead of the brand promoting itself, and marketers can collect this content to support a campaign or initiative.
Ephemeral content is rich media (images, videos and the like) that disappear after a set period of time. Think of ‘stories’ on Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook which disappear after 24 hours.
First came ‘filters’ then came lenses. But what are they? A ‘Lens’ is an animated overlay effect used when the camera is in selfie mode. It can animate the user’s image to appear as anything from a cat, a clown or any other quirky motion graphic.
Luckily, newsjacking doesn’t involve balaclavas and criminal activity. It actually refers to the process of leveraging trending news to elevate your brand’s message. The logic is simple: if a topic or an event is already generating a lot of buzz, why not insert your brand into the conversation?
A ‘story’ is a collection of photos or videos compiled into one album that can be shared with other users on the platform. Stories are found on Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram. These Stories are only visible for 24 hours, which also makes them ephemeral.
Celebrities, influencers and the like are the ‘Twitterati’. They are users on Twitter who post frequently and have a huge following. If the Twitterati are posting about a particular topic or sharing a certain hashtag, you can expect it to start trending among other Twitter users.
Follow Friday is a trend via the hashtag #ff every Friday on Twitter. Users select other usernames and tweet them with #ff in their post, meaning they recommend following those Twitter users.
Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people seek direction from those around them to determine how they are supposed to act or think in a given situation. In social media, social proof can be identified by the number of interactions a piece of content receives or the number of followers you have. The thought is that if others are sharing something or following someone, it must be good.
If you need help reaching customers on social media, contact WSI OMS today.
by Francois Muscat | Dec 20, 2018 | Social Media Marketing
An increasing number of direct-to-consumer marketers are moving a portion of their Facebook and Instagram ad spend to Snapchat. With Snapchat launching Pixel in June, direct-to-consumer marketers are reporting seeing up to a 50% lower cost-per-acquisition.
What makes Pixel more attractive to marketers is the ability to bid on conversions instead of swipes, which empowers marketers to target ads to people who are more likely to convert instead of simply swipe. This, in turn, is driving their cost-per-acquisition rate down. Another aspect of Pixel that is beneficial to brands is its ability to let companies retarget Snapchat users when they visit their websites.
Bidding on swipes isn’t without merit. This is a great tool for brands that are focused on boosting awareness of their brand on social platforms. The ability to bid on conversions that happen on your own website, however, is something that can make a significant impact on your bottom line.
This is only one of the ways that Snapchat continues to tailor its offering to marketers. In September, it launched a pilot of self-serve shoppable ads called Collection Ads. Guess, eBay and Wish were part of the Collection Ads pilot and eBay saw a five-time higher engagement rate with Collection Ads compared to standard Snap Ads for the same products. Wish reported a 17-times increase.
For many business owners and marketers, Snapchat is still seen as the new kid on the block, but the powerful advertising features they are launching, combined with the platforms’ popularity among the youth, make it something that marketers can no longer ignore.
Need help with your social media marketing strategy? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marianna Muscat | Dec 19, 2018 | Facebook, Social Media Marketing
In October, Facebook rolled out a new feature that will allow users to post photos with 3D effects to their feeds. Despite the name, however, the photos won’t be fully 3D. You won’t, for example, be able to tilt your phone’s screen to see a picture of your dog from different angles.
The reason why Facebook is calling it “3D” photos is because the feature gives pictures a certain amount of depth. Facebook describes the new feature as being able to look at your photograph as if the object is standing still behind a window.
Not everyone will be able to post 3D photos on Facebook. For starters, you will need a phone with dual cameras. Only iPhone 7+ phones or more recent versions have this functionality on their phone.
Back in May, Facebook vaguely announced that it was planning on launching a 3D option. Soon, users will see a “3D photo” option within the list of post options when they go to make a status update. Some pictures are truly enhanced by the 3D option, while others don’t look too much different. The new feature is still a work in progress, and we look forward to seeing how the social media giant will improve these functionalities in the future.
Need help with your social media marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marelise da Silva | Dec 18, 2018 | Social Media Marketing
According to research by Mediakix, people spend five years and four months of their lives on social media. But where are they spending their time?
In a lifetime, the average person will spend 8 months on Instagram, 1 year and 2 months on Snapchat, 1 year and 7 months on Facebook, 1 year and 10 months on YouTube and 18 days on Twitter. To put this into perspective, here is how much time people will spend on other daily activities over the course of their lifetime:
- Watching TV: 7 years and 8 months
- Eating and drinking: 3 years and 6 months
- Grooming: 1 year and 10 months
When looking at a person’s daily social media activities, the average person spends 40 minutes a day on YouTube, 35 Minutes a day on Facebook, 15 minute a day on Instagram and 1 minute a day on Twitter. LinkedIn, however, isn’t a place where people spend a lot of their time online, with the majority of people using it less than two hours a week.
If anyone tells you that social media marketing is a waste of time, they simply need to look at these statistics to see that this is where people are spending their time online.
Need help with your social media marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marianna Muscat | Dec 14, 2018 | Social Media Marketing, LinkedIn
People who have a large, highly engaged audience on Facebook and other platforms often report that their content simply is not getting a lot of clicks and shares on LinkedIn. Here are some top tips to create a high engagement in your LinkedIn posts:
- Don’t Use The Platform For One-Way Communication
All too often, people launch a LinkedIn strategy and only focus on the content that they are going to be posting. Many business people are guilty of posting thought leadership pieces or links to their company’s promotions without ever checking in to see whether their followers are engaging with them online.
To truly get value from LinkedIn, you need to spark discussions. You can do this by asking for feedback, responding to comments on your post and posting your own comments on the content that you are sharing. Be friendly and open to discussion and see how your engagement skyrockets.
- Post Directly To LinkedIn Instead Of Driving Traffic Elsewhere
A common content marketing strategy is to create blog posts and then post the links to various social media profiles, including LinkedIn. There is value in posting blogs and thought leadership pieces directly to LinkedIn instead of trying to get a person to click on a link that will take them off the site and to your website.
You don’t have to write long form content for this to work either. LinkedIn’s native content system enables you to create short stories that can grab your audience’s attention without forcing them to click to a different site. While this won’t boost the traffic to your website, it can help you build a long-term relationship with your LinkedIn followers.
According to research by Mediakix, people spend an average of 40 minutes a day on YouTube, 35 Minutes a day on Facebook, 15 minute a day on Instagram and 1 minute a day on Twitter. LinkedIn, however, is not a place where people spend a lot of their time online, with the majority of people using it less than two hours a week.
When people get onto LinkedIn, they browse fast and efficiently, with video content dominating the screen. Keep your posts short and easy to digest for the best engagement rate on LinkedIn.
Need help with your LinkedIn marketing or social media marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today.
by Marelise da Silva | Dec 13, 2018 | LinkedIn, Social Media Marketing
With an increasing number of brands and business people trying to show their thought leadership online, the internet has become flooded with content. The result is that LinkedIn especially is flooded with content pieces and thought leadership pieces that get lost in cyberspace.
To cut through the clutter and get your content under the eyes of potential clients, you need to make sure you have something meaningful to say. People are becoming increasingly disappointed in the quality of thought leadership content being published, with authors rehashing old ideas, opinions and research instead of contributing something new.
One way to do this is to know what type of content is the most popular on LinkedIn. Industry trends, news, best practices and jobs are known to be the types of LinkedIn content that are clicked on the most. Understand your company’s place in the market, your target audience and your skills when you start drafting a thought leadership piece on these topics. If there is a new trends report or statistics that you want to do a thought leadership piece on, look for a unique angle on the topic within the constraints of your unique position and perspective in the market.
Instead of trying to push out more content to increase your engagement, it is often better to post less and spend your time focusing on creating high-impact content for your followers. You can also consider spending money on media placement to get your thought leadership pieces seen by more people instead of creating more content.
Need help with your LinkedIn marketing or social media marketing? Then contact WSI OMS today.
