Social Media Day 2016: Preview and Live Updates

Social Media Day 2016 is finally here with a packed line-up and some interesting topics being covered. Whether you’re looking to network or to ramp up your social strategy, this event should be value-packed.

In this post, we will preview the event as well as provide live updates from the conference.

Bold Predictions: The 5 Biggest Trends Of Social Media Day Will Be:

Trend 1: Emerging Social Platforms

Advertisers are always looking for the next best thing so naturally sites like Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram will be heavily discussed. The bad news? People looking to make easy money that missed out on the “Wild West” of Facebook advertising will not find easy money on the emerging social networks. Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram require as in-depth of a strategy as any other channel. The good news? These are great channels to introduce your brands to different demographics and mindsets.

How can you position your brand in front of millennials on Snapchat?

How can you position your brand more visually on Instagram to be most engaged with users?

Trend 2: Give the People What They Want: Video!

Unquestionably, there will be a great deal of emphasis on the impact of video. It almost feels like every year is the year of mobile or video. But video marketing really is advancing at an incredible rate. Whether it’s YouTube or on social media, we’re watching less video content on TV and more on our smart devices.

Naturally, advertising platforms have changed to meet this trend. Look at some of the way we can remarket to users that have watched video content on Facebook or Instagram.

Imagine if television had the ability to recall whether someone watched a percentage of a commercial. Consider the amount of waste they could prevent from serving the same video over and over to users. Or even imagine if television advertisers had the ability to prevent people that hated particular commercials from ever seeing them again?

That would be powerful stuff – and guess what, we can do this on Facebook and Instagram with video. Here’s a few potential applications:

• Users that watched 95%-100% of a whole video could get a really aggressive offer encouraging them to “buy” or contact a brand.
• Users that watched 50-75% of an ad may need to receive a different video to better engage the user.
• Users that watched 25% of a video or less, could be excluded from all future campaigns if they have shown to not have any interest in the brand

Creating different videos with different measures of success is becoming increasingly more important. You only have so much time to keep users engaged while watching your videos, and for that reason, creating videos with specific objectives is increasingly important and depends on the particular user you’re reaching.

Is the user “cold” (meaning they haven’t been to your website before)? That user should receive a video that raises brand awareness.

If the user is “warm” and hasn’t converted, maybe they need to be convinced WHY they should choose your brand. These users may want to see a video explaining the process of working with you.

Video length will be a big discussion here as retaining a user’s attention is no easy task.

We’ve seen certain clients’ cost per acqusition metrics cut by as high as 70% by switching the majority of their efforts to video.

You don’t need to sell us that video is coming, it’s here. And we’re looking forward to learning more!

Trend 3: Audience Segmentation on Social – Different Audiences Requires Different Messages

Imagine you’re a hardware store owner and 2 different individuals walk in. One of the individuals walks to the nursery for gardening supplies. The other needs to get some standard batteries. As a business owner, would you approach each of the individuals the exact same way?

Would you go up to the person wanting batteries and ask them whether they need help with gardening supplies? Or would you walk up to that individual and tell them your brand’s slogan and history?

…no you likely wouldn’t do any of this. If the individual needs help with batteries, offer them help with…well… batteries!

But right now the common marketer is speaking too generally to users. They are the first example. They are the advertiser greeting everyone with a general message.

As an advertiser, we want to create advertisements that are relevant to the intent of the user. Audience segmentationallows us to do this.

Let’s take the Power Digital brand for example, and look at some of the audiences we are tracking.

We are tracking all SEO blog posts, a particular SEO blog post, and a particular paid social post in the screenshot above.

When we plug in those audiences, we want to have the ad copy match the intent of the page. For example – the “All SEO Blog Posts 30D” audience should have ad copy speaking to SEO.

I fully expect to hear about Audience Segmentation at Social Media Day based off of:

• Type of Interest
• Stage of the User in the Buying Cycle
• Lifetime Value
• Quality of Traffic (Retargeting users based on Time on Site, Pages Viewed, etc.)

Trend 4: Branding & Word of Mouth

Branding is becoming really sexy again with digital on its quest to surpass traditional marketing. It used to be easy to make a dollar advertising a no-name brand if you were one of the first brands to capitalize on the digital landscape.

As the black hat days come to an end for internet marketers, and competition increases across all channels, having a strong online brand will be the true differentiator between you and your competition in the long term.

Product Vs Promise – Does your brand say what you ARE, or the promise? Your social presences need to reflect your brand’s PROMISE and stay consistent across all channels.

If your brand is hitting your brand’s promise you should generate some great word of mouth and let your following do the selling for you.

Trend 5: Marketing in a Connected (Cross-Device) World

Think about the different mindsets you encounter when you’re using a particular device. When you’re on your phone, there could be a variety of reasons you go on social media. To kill time, to contact friends, creep on your ex, etc.

But consider the case of you watching an advertisement you really enjoyed on your phone. The brand did a great job of hooking you in BUT you have to walk into a meeting. You turn off your phone to avoid interruptions.

The brand just got screwed because life got in the way.

And that’s going to happen…

But as an advertiser, if you notice these trends, you could theoretically position content on particular devices with no intention of driving conversion, but instead focused on building positive brand affinity.

You could then retarget those users on desktop after a few touches on mobile with the action you want to drive.

3 Speeches We’re Looking Forward To The Most

“Speech 1: Cutting Edge Strategies for Facebook Ads” – Rick Mulready

I’ll admit, I had never heard of Rick Mulready prior to seeing him as a speaker at this conference. With that said, Rick has put together some great resources for Facebook advertisers.

What I particularly like about Rick is that he is focused on local businesses. Working with smaller businesses with Facebook ads definitely requires a great deal of scrappiness and unique thinking. From looking at his strategies, he doesn’t disappoint.

Here’s a few links of his I particularly enjoyed:

• “10 Game-Changing Reasons to Use Video Ads in Your Facebook Marketing Strategy” – Good podcast here for someone newer to Facebook video ads. Offers some great practices.
• “How to Make High-Ticket Sales from Cold Traffic” – Good piece of content here, analyzing how to best speak to “cold” users that aren’t familiar with your brand. This really is more on the content side and how to create cues that will help qualify users.
• “The Complete Guide to Facebook Ads Pixels” – The new Facebook pixel has been a NIGHTMARE for advertisers. Rick offers a simple guide here – there are more technical articles out there on how to work with the pixel, but Rick’s article does a great job of keeping it simple.

“Speech 2: Converting Your Casual Audience into Raving Fans” – Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn gets it. He really does.

He created a powerhouse of a company by providing PRACTICAL value to his audience. At Power Digital, we are big believers in ensuring our clients provide value in advance to build trust with their target audiences, and Pat hits this concept straight on the head consistently in his podcasts and writings.

Love this quote …”we Internet entrepreneurs invest our time upfront creating valuable products and experiences. We work hard now to continually reap the benefits later.”

While creating valuable products and experiences undoubtedly comes naturally to Pat, he does a tremendous job of sharing his wisdom with his followers.

Everything on his site is great – but here’s a couple solid resources from Pat Flynn:

• “Passive Income 101” – Good place to start if you have no familiarity with Smart Passive Income. This is where your journey begins.
• 5 “Five-Minute or Less” Blogging Tips that Yield Big Results. I’m using Tip#1 in This Title.” – Pat has a list quick wins to implement into your blogging strategy. From isolating super important links, to starting with a story, there’s some very actionable tips in there to improve conversion and overall engagement.

“Speech 3: Social Media Trends” – Michael Stelzner

Where to start with Michael Stelzner…? Would it be exaggerative to call him the Godfather of Social Media Marketing?

There’s definitely others for consideration – but the guy’s accolades are absurd. He started Social Media Examiner which is an authority for social media marketing resources.

Check out the resources below:

• Social Media Examiner Blog
• Social Media Examiner Podcast
• Social Media Examiner Morning Show

Live Blog: Day 1

Want to sell to millenials on Snapchat once they trust you? Time Bound Sales.UPDATE: June 28 5:20pm (PST): Please come back here for live updates from the event!

UPDATE #1: June 30 8:36am (PST): We’re at Social Media Day 2016 in San Diego! We’re about to kick off. Check back in for updates!

UPDATE #2: June 30 9:11am (PST): “Do not try selling on live video. Once you establish trust, it’s a short step to driving a transaction. ALWAYS provide value in advance.” – Joel Comm

– I think we’re going to be seeing a common theme here!

UPDATE #3: June 30 9:44am (PST): Great Stuff by Carlos Gil!

Really outside the box presentation in regards to not only build an audience on Snapchat, but how to engage your following.