Which ones are key to your strategy?
It’s been a big year for Social Media and this infographic (from DigitalBuzzBlog) have provided this great infographic that sums the year up very nicely.
I have split the graphic below into a few sizeable chunks so that I can talk about it more effectively and translate the statistics into food for thought for your business.
2 million new users added in 2011 – the majority of these have come from new market penetration. For example there has been huge growth in Latin America. So unless you’re planning on going global this stat might not be a good indication of a growing potential customer.
Sunday is not the day of rest for B2C promotions – Your brand will receive 30% more potential reach on this day…definitely not a chance to be missed with Facebook becoming tighter and tighter on how much visibility you can achieve.
So many parents helping their kids sign up to Facebook – a sign of growing adoption of this network as a trusted site, whether that is merited or not isn’t important, it’s the changing attitude that is apparent…a good sign for brands.
95% of brand not answer posts…this could be implying a serious lack of CRM or be heavily affected by the amount of spam. My advice – don’t allow your customers to post on your wall unless you have 24/7 monitoring. Instead only allow your customers to interact with the content that you supply. Make sure you have a ‘questions’ tab on your brand page – this should help reduce complaints being made on your wall & the negative PR that will follow you around if you’re not answering questions on your FB page.
Avoid obvious auto-posting, if you need to be scheduling posts try to use language that makes the post feel more personal and ‘reactive’ rather than static brand promotions.
If 77% of consumers feel they are interacting with brands primarily through reading posts then you need to be focussed on increasing the numbers of eyes that will see it. From the other important stat on this infographic those consumers are going to either be a customer or looking to save some money. Consumers clearly like to be a voice for the brand if 17% are sharing experiences, use Facebook to keep your consumers updated about the latest revelations. Try not to be too focussed on using these sites for promotions; these only work if you get the timing, incentive and creative message spot on – if you fail you can immediately disinterest your followers.
Twitter – 34% of marketers generating leads and 20% closing deals, those are some peachy stats and definitely not to ignore. Moreover Twitter is seen more as a network to follow brands whether they are individuals or companies so you’re looking at a much more receptive audience. Twitter has got to be used as a live feed interactive tool but to be really effective your content has to be consistent. With the majority of users following 100+ people the feed can get crowded quickly and so there needs to be a desire for users to seek out your profile. Ask your followers to get involved and don’t be afraid to be a bit more demanding as long as you don’t have a sales pitch. Think of Twitter like a street seller, the louder they are the more it makes you want to put your head down and take a wide berth, keep it friendly, respectful and interesting and you’ll be far more successful.
55% are mobile and 40% don’t tweet…this just encompasses the time poor consumer that marketers are trying to target. As this is the case, one tweet won’t be enough to spread your message; you need to be reminding your customers of the message you want them to receive, but try to be creative about it – don’t just repeat the same tweet later in the day.
Tap in to what your followers are talking about – a great way to do this is by following them back. If you can clearly see what is trending you can find a way to link in with your customers. Not only remaining current but also increasing your Klout score. 92% will only RT interesting content, take a look at your tweets and decide whether you would RT that on a personal level…if the answer is NO then don’t expect it to be awfully effective.
Hopefully this blog has given you some things to think about. Sometimes it's helpful to take some time out of the daily schedule and refocus your content and strategy otherwise you can start to lose touch with rapidly changing trends. If you need any help with that, give us a shout!