It’s not easy to keep up with the recent developments and trends in social media – they simply change too fast for us to properly acknowledge each and every modification in how users interact with those networks. Fortunately, countless of research studies bring that changing reality closer to us. Here are top 10 social media insights you probably weren’t aware of.
1. Brand evangelists have fewest followers
This might be surprising, especially if you assumed word of mouth marketing to be the best marketing strategy ever. Apparently, not on social media. In a recent analysis (https://mention.com/uploads/whitepaper.pdf) published by a social media monitoring venture called Mention, it turned out that 91% of social mentions came from people with less than 500 followers.
They analyzed over 1 billion social mentions over the last two years, so their findings must have a ring of truth to them. This is shocking, but it also gives you an idea about what to focus on when setting up your social media marketing strategy.
2. On Facebook, go visual
10 things you probably didn’t know about Social Media
Social media experts are usually aware of the role visuals play in the virality of a Facebook post. But we’ve never had such statistics to back up this instinctive claim. Social Bakers recently unveiled a report, where they claim that 87% of a Facebook page’s interactions happen on posts that feature photos.
Posts with links, on the other hand, get only 4%, those with status a meek 2% and posts featuring videos around 3% of overall number of interactions on a page. If you’re planning to post on Facebook, visuals are a must.
3. Daily trends on Pinterest
Pinterest is growing to become one of the most significant social media platforms ever. Recently, Pinterest team revealed on their blog an interesting statistic showing daily trends on the platform. (http://blog.pinterest.com/post/85824761394/pin-trends-of-the-week)
While Monday is a day for Fitness posts, Tuesday fosters Technology, Thursday is the day of Fashion and on Saturday, users tend to pin and share posts about traveling.
4. Twitter has 6 communication networks
We all thought Twitter is a pretty simple tool, but apparently it isn’t. A recent research by the Pew Research Center together with the Social Media Research Foundation found out that there are as many as six different conversation schemes happening on Twitter (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/02/20/the-six-types-of-twitter-conversations/).
From polarized crowds and broadcast networks to tight crowds and support networks, Twitter was shown to help develop various relationships between brands and customers. Having a look at those schemes, you can decide which ones can work for your brand. Will you fit more in a brand cluster or a tight crowd? This knowledge can only help in any kind of Twitter promotion strategy.
5. Facebook posts generate most engagement in the first 5 hours
A recent analysis brought by Digital Insights shows some very interesting facts about the life of Facebook posts. After performing a close analysis of the most popular social media platforms, they came into a conclusion that 75% of interactions on a post happen within the first 5 hours after its publication.
In other words, after 5 hours pass, prepare for the possibility that your post will be completely forgotten. Make sure those first few hours count every time you share something on your Wall.
6. Twitter changes the way brands communicate with consumers
Lithium Technologies has recently unveiled (http://www.lithium.com/company/news-room/press-releases/2013/consumers-will-punish-brands-that-fail-to-respond-on-twitter-quickly) that the real-time nature of Twitter can be a double edged sword.
On the one hand it allows brands to spontaneously communicate with consumers, but on the other – it has over the years created some expectations. The research showed that 53% of users who Tweet a brand, expect a response within an hour. Those Tweeting a complaint are even more impatient – 72% of them expects you to reach out and respond to their Tweet.
7. Posting on Facebook, go for Friday
A recent report from Adobe (https://files.acrobat.com/a/preview/82076e0e-c4c3-41c9-9f13-42813d579c7a) shows some interesting facts about social media too. After analyzing over 225 billion Facebook posts from the last two years, Adobe came to a conclusion that the best day to post on Facebook is Friday. On this day, posts get most likes, comments and shares. No wonder – slacking off at work is best done on the last working day!
8. Retweeting makes sense late at night
TrackMaven analyzed over 1.7 million Tweets and produced a report that clearly shows that the best strategy for Tweets to be retweeted is if they are tweeted in the late evening. From 10 to 11 pm. ET, your Tweets stand the biggest chance at being retweeted – use this opportunity of increased after-hours engagement for sharing some potentially viral content.
9. Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest drive most traffic
Having a close look at the leading social media trends, Shareaholic shared an interesting report that makes it clear who are the biggest players on the social media scene. (https://blog.shareaholic.com/social-media-traffic-trends-04-2014/) If you want to reach a maximum number of followers and spread the word about your brand, go for Facebook, Twitter and, surprisingly, Pinterest. Those three drive most traffic on the web.
10. There exist Facebook interaction standards – 18, 118, 385
Apart from showing us the importance of visuals on Facebook, Social Bakers analyzed over 40.000 pages and also came up with some interesting standards for the number of Facebook interactions (http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2181-finding-the-right-interactions-for-your-facebook-page). Depending on the number of your fans, you should be counting on at least 28 (pages that have 1 to 9,999 fans), 118 (10,000 to 99,999 fans) and 385 (100,000 to 499,999 fans) interactions per post.
As you can see, social media influences not only the ways in which consumers and marketers use them for their specific purposes, but also how the global usage of the web has changed to incorporate new behaviors and trends. Knowing some of them, we can make better market predictions, carry out more effective promotions and be increasingly professional when representing our brands in social media.
The article was contributed by Isabel Wiliams of http://www.bizdb.co.uk/.
