4 Social Media Platforms you shouldn’t ignore
In an industry that continues to evolve on a daily (hourly?) basis, it comes as no surprise that marketers often find the world of social media marketing overwhelming. With so many emerging platforms, betas and feature releases, it’s easy to get distracted. Jumping on the latest shiny platform can mean you’re in danger of diluting your focus and resource across too many platforms, and, as a result, not really nailing a single one.
So, where do you focus your efforts?
As any social expert worth their salt would tell you, your strategy should always start with one question — who are you trying to engage? It’s a lot easier to understand which platforms you should probably be looking at, once you know where your target customers hang out.
While there are certainly ways to streamline and make your social media activity work harder through picking the right channels for your objectives, there are, however, a few key platforms I would be keeping an eye on when it comes to optimising conversion, potential for mass adoption and simply under-leveraged communities that could help marketers get their foot a rung up on the social ladder with potential for greater ROI…
1. Engagement that drives results: Instagram Stories & IGTV
Instagram Stories is now twice as big as Snapchat with 400m daily users*, just under half of their 1 billion monthly users (while in Q1 Snapchat reported just 191m daily users). Alongside the raging success of Stories, Instagram recently launched IGTV, their “most exciting feature to date”, allowing for longer form video and setting its sights on engaging the otherwise loyal YouTubers…
But what do both of these platform features have in common that’s so exciting?
Brand commerce. The ability to seamlessly move from inspiration to transaction. A crucial aspect of any digital marketing or advertising strategy to drive business results, as evangelised by Isobar, leading digital transformation agency and member of Dentsu Aegis Network.
While Snapchat is slightly ahead of the game when it comes to AR and gamification, Instagram users can add music, questions, GIFs, lenses and many more elements designed to drive greater quality engagement with their content (how that impacts measurement & engagement rate benchmarks is worth a separate blog post alone…), while being able to drive that golden path to purchase through a simple swipe-up on Stories or tap on IGTV.
I know that since we’ve started using Instagram stories to engage with aspiring talent and drive focused traffic to our Careers site at Dentsu Aegis Network, we’ve seen a significant and continual uptick in traffic and job applications through social.
This isn’t just about jazz-hands brand building, it’s about driving business results, quickly.
https://instagram-press.com/blog/2018/06/28/introducing-music-in-stories/
2. Embracing the streaming & gaming communities: Twitch
When it comes to engaging audiences between 18–35, gaming and streaming communities often get overlooked in favour of more mainstream channels like Facebook or Snapchat.
But since Twitch launched in 2011, the platform has continued to grow in popularity, particularly among gamers, with 15 million daily active users of which 2.2 million are active monthly broadcasters — its growth comes as no surprise given eSports is projected to reach $1.1billion in revenue this year.
What’s more, nearly half of all Twitch users spend more than 20 hours a week on the platform. The opportunity for brands and publishers to build loyal relationships and influencer programmes with a highly engaged and active audience goes without saying.
3. Next Gen Social VR: Facebook Spaces
While there was much talk at Cannes Lions this year around VR lagging behind AR in reaching critical mass adoption, if anyone has ever read “Ready Player One”, I don’t need to tell you how significant Facebook Spaces could be…
Launched in April 2017 with prospects of scaling this year, the beta has continued to drive development in avatar customisation options as well as opening Spaces to Groups for improved virtual hangout experiences (houseparty on steroids, anyone?).
Don’t get me wrong, you still look like a deranged Looney Tune and until everyone has bought themselves a VR headset (have you?), it’s far from being a mainstream platform, but when you look at the rate of growth seen by other apps receiving heavy investment from Facebook (look at Instagram vs Snapchat), it would be wise to keep a watch out, as early bird brands investing in Social VR could reap the rewards in the long run.
4. The Evolution of 121 Brand Engagement: Messenger Bots
I wouldn’t work in social media without mentioning the importance of messaging apps & bots.
Of the top five social platforms in the world in terms of active users, three are messaging apps (Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat).
Most famous social network sites worldwide as of July 2018, ranked by number of active users (in millions). Reference: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/
With 2 out of 3 customers actually preferring to message a business, the growth trend is clear: users are shifting from phone and email to messaging apps when it comes to engaging with brands and businesses on a one-to-one basis.
Though messaging apps have of course still got some way to go in terms of tracking and measurement, with more than 100,000 bots for Facebook Messenger alone, the ability to triage, process payments, shop and explore via Messenger is fundamentally changing the face of mobile commerce, servicing and brand building.
It’s important to add that, while it’s clearly a great time to embrace messaging, this should by no means nullify your email marketing strategy, rather add to it.
Customer behaviour is changing, and it’s crucial that brands move along with them, but it’s equally important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The platforms you use need to make sense for your business challenges, operational model and revenue streams.
Finally, as we enter a world where AI is increasingly interacting between itself as well as to humans, I think we’re likely to see some exciting integrations between Messenger Bots and Voice Assistants in the near future. Watch this space.
And yes, I’m going to leave you with THAT demo by Sundar Pichai…
What do you think? Which platforms will you be looking out for in 2019? Have you embraced any of the above successfully? Would love to hear your thoughts & comments below.
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*Correct as of June 2018
