So, the conference blew all we know about social out of the water!
I will do my best to impart what I learned to our team and to you in future meetings… but I want to summarize a few items here and hope that you can take some time to read them and then help us to help you make more money this year via your social platforms.
Key Take-Aways:
1 – Do Less / Do it Better
2 – Content is Still King and if that is the case, then Video is the Pearl in the Crown.
ie. Video and Animated Content are a Must.
GOING LIVE IS KEY.
Animated content will rank better than static content every time.
Our attention span is 6 seconds – so, make videos with 3 secs of good content.
3 – Instagram is a waste of time if the images are not polished & fun and thematic in color. Pick a theme, an aesthetic and stick to it. Stock images are really pointless as our audiences will know they are not real. Instagram users want eye-candy. (Instagram finally opened up their API to allow other platforms to access their platform, so, those of you on Soci, will now see Instagram posts coming directly out of that platform – this just happened last Tuesday!)
4 – Follow the Data and Adjust based on what it says.
5 – Use a Social tool for management (hence why we have recently signed up for one).
6 – Ai (or artificial intelligence) and retargeting are where the future of social is headed. Know your Audience and Where they are! (Use Bots for Messaging.)
7 – Marketing Departments are going to become Relationship Departments as marketing teams become the location where customer relationship management happens. This equals: #RelationshipMarketing
8 – FB Messenger should replace contact forms on websites since customers want to find you faster and communicate with your brand quickly and directly.
9 – Influencer Marketing is the wave of the future and a way to target a large audience, since they can get around the algorithms (re. Facebook recently sent out a PR that they are going to downplay business posts giving preference to people/families, etc. – so to make a dent in a business page, we need amazing content + advertising to get anywhere).
10 – We should be using Social to tell great stories because we are competing with the things that people love: their family and friends. Hence, our Brands do not want to “bother” would be customers with boring, static content.
11 – Facebook is still KING with the largest amount of users and activity. Instagram is 2nd. Facebook Ads even convert better than Google Ads.
12 – Creative Process should come last – after a Social Media Strategy has been put in place. Remember, if it is FUNNY, it is SHARABLE. And social content should be about the END USER – your customer. Avoid the 4 Deadly P’s: Policies, Products, Programs, and Procedures. Write about PEOPLE! We need to be Concise, Conversational, Compelling and Creative.
13 – Prove to Your Public that CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) is important to your brand.
14 – Have a Crisis Plan established so that in the event of a dire disaster, social will stop auto-posting, or someone will be on-call to make sure nothing insensitive is said to your audience.
There was a lot more that I still have to digest! But… let’s stop here…
We will work hard in the next quarter to implement what we learned and I look forward to calls and meetings in the weeks that come to plan the spring out – well in advance!
