Social Media Day 2016 Recap

Did you miss Social Media Day this year? Don’t worry about it… we’ve got you covered! Here are our key takeaways from Mashable’s Social Media Day Conference #SMDaySD!

Live Video Is Here & It’s Going To Be Big!

It was hard to find a speaker at the conference who didn’t mention that Live Video has arrived and is here to stay. The conference started off with Joel Comm, a NY Times best selling author, discussing how marketers and companies can utilize Live Video to tell stories on a wide variety of different Social Media Platforms. He predicted that Periscope will become Twitter Live and compete with the likes of Facebook Live as one of the major players in the space.

As a marketer, I had been wondering for a while how Live Videos might actually help my social media marketing efforts. The speakers throughout the conference had some super helpful ideas on the value of Live Videos for marketing purposes. Here are a few examples:

• Facebook just announced that they are decreasing Businesses’ organic reach even more. So, if a business page publishes content on their timeline, even less fans will see it than they did before. But there is one key caveat to this announcement: Facebook wants users to start utilizing Live Videos! Facebook is still willing to give Live Videos larger organic reach on Facebook. Therefore, businesses with large followings that don’t want to pay for advertising, should utilize Live Videos as a way to get engaging content out to their fans.
• Brands can upload Facebook Live Videos onto their Feed and then turn videos with high engagement into actual ads. This way, brands can take advantage of Facebook’s mass targeting capabilities to remarket these videos to key audiences they are trying to reach.
• If you’re anything like me, you are probably wondering what kinds of content brands should be posting on Live Video? Many speakers recommended Live Video as a useful avenue to introduce team members or go behind the scenes with the day-to-day business processes.

Don’t Get Scared Off By The Overwhelming Intricacies Behind Creating Video Ads – They Are A Great Way to Deliver Content that Converts

Videos are becoming a cheaper avenue to advertise brands and products on social media. However, many companies and marketers get too scared to try video ads because they don’t have much practical experience creating video content. Sunny Lenarduzzi, the creator of the Recording Your Revenue digital course, outlined a simple strategy that companies can easily follow to create video content that will convert.

The main strategy is to figure out who your audience is, figure out what they want, and create content tailored to them. One simple way to find out what your audience wants is to look at the FAQ pages; you can look at what people are asking over and over again then turn that into great content! Another simple way to get ideas for engaging video content is to see what your competitors are doing! Look at local businesses that serve similar customers and see what video content is getting the most engagement.

To keep things simple for you, I did the heavy lifting for you (you’re welcome). Here are five types of video content you can create with the corresponding social media platform you should use to promote it:

• Educational information or tutorials = YouTube
• Displaying or Selling a Product = Instagram
• Video Blog & Testimonials = Facebook
• Providing Customer Service = Twitter
• Thought Leadership = Snapchat

You Need To Start Thinking About Advertising On Other Social Media Platforms… Not Just Facebook!

We all know that Facebook is king when it comes to social media advertising, however a lot of marketers have been wondering if they should be investing their dollars into other social media platforms. Michael Stelzner, founder of the Social Media Examiner, stated that as the organic reach of Facebook continues to decrease, businesses with large followings on Facebook will be forced into paying for advertising on Facebook which will, in turn, drive up the cheap pricing of Facebook ads.

If Facebook starts becoming more expensive, companies and social media marketers need to start looking at other social media platforms to advertise on. Luckily, there are many different social media platforms popping up. However, many advertisers are unsure about which ones are worth investing in. Here are a few social media platforms you might want to think about advertising on:

• With the rise of Snapchat’s massive teenage audience and 200 million daily active users, this widely used social media platform is one to keep an eye on. Did you know Millennials will actually outspend the Baby Boomers by 2017? Businesses should start thinking about utilizing Snapchat as a marketing platform to reach out to this valuable demographic. Snapchat is a great platform for businesses to supply short branding content to the teenage masses. Currently, Snapchat’s GeoFilters are the most economical way for advertisers to reach millennials.
• As of today, LinkedIn’s advertising platform isn’t very advanced (you can’t remarket users and the engagement rate on ads is pretty low). However, Microsoft just bought Linkedin, and if anyone has the capabilities to build LinkedIn into a very robust advertising platform, it’s Microsoft. With Microsoft’s ownership of Skype, we might even see another Social Media Live Video player on the scene. With LinkedIn’s strong niche in the B2B market and this new acquisition, LinkedIn is definitely a platform to keep your eye on.
• What about Pinterest? Pinterest is still a key player that has been consistently updating their advertising algorithm. On June 28th, Pinterest released new eCommerce features that could be very valuable to advertisers. They released buyable pins for all devices and added shopping bags, so users can add multiple items to their cart. They also announced a new tool that will allow users to search for items in brick and mortar stores by simply aiming their camera phone at items they see in real life through their mobile Pinterest app. If your business is in the eCommerce space with a large target audience of women, you really should start thinking about spending some money on Pinterest Ads.

…And that’s a wrap! The three main takeaways from Social Media Day (at least in our opinion) are:

• Be ahead of the game and start using Live Video to reach more users on social media.
• Create video content that will convert and then advertise it.
• Depending on your target audiences you’ll want to keep your eye on Snapchat, Linkedin & Pinterest as potential social media advertising platforms.