Customer Experience

By Nick Johnson - September 10th, 2013

Below is a roundup of the latest news in corporate social media...

The sex of social media

A new piece of research makes interesting reading if your business is focused on one gender. According to Social Fresh, Facebook users liked brand images of women 41% more than images of men, but they shared images of men 19% more than images of women.

The theory is that when it comes to liking an image on Facebook this will be driven by the image content, which invariably is product. Liking an image is very easy and offers little barriers, whereas, sharing requires more effort. What is clear from this research is that calls to action must be embedded within images to move the viewer into sharing mode – just showing product isn’t good enough.

As Social Fresh point out: “Content that evokes an emotional response from your audience will drive shares for the brand. Product-oriented content, like a model wearing a dress, can certainly engage an audience, but expect lighter engagement (likes) in return for this content.

“Improved shareability of image content does not mean removing products from images, but instead giving the images more meaning. Don’t remove products to boost the shareability. Instead keep the products and brand in the image, and add elements that make the content more meaningful to your target audience. Weave products into a visual story with themes like sex, compassion, joy, and patriotism.”

B2B marketing equals LinkedIn

The B2B sector has taken a little longer to adopt social media networks. New research shows that not surprisingly in this sector, LinkedIn tops the charts of most favoured social media network. The survey used a small group of B2B websites, but does clearly show that social media is now a driver for these companies. Last year eMarketer also looked at this sector and showed that 5% of leads to B2B companies can be attributed to activity on social media networks with LinkedIn and Twitter leading the pack.

Webbiquity – the research’s authors concluded: “Drilling down into the social traffic segment specifically, the dominance of the big three is even more evident, as these sites combined account for 90% of all social traffic. LinkedIn alone accounts for more than half of all social B2B website visits, and Twitter nearly a third.

“What is perhaps surprising though is that more than 20 different social sites drove at least some B2B website visits. This suggests that while few B2B marketers can afford to spread their efforts (effectively, at least) too broadly across social networks, some experimentation at the least is in order well beyond the big three.”

Social media is now an essential component of the B2B sector’s marketing activity. The messages that these businesses are placing on their social media networks need to be highly tailored, but this research shows that if these messages are well designed, LinkedIn and Twitter are the networks to use.

Tweet at the weekend

When to use social media in a marketing campaign is one of the most important aspects of engagement. According to the latest estimates, brands can see a 17% hike in their engagement on Twitter if these tweets are sent at weekends. Tweets with images are also becoming increasingly popular and important for brand awareness.

Your corporation’s brands can expect twice as much engagement with tweets that include images. And tweets with more than 100 characters gain 17% more engagement. And cultivating your brand’s amplifiers – your brand advocates – gains a massive 122% increase in direct messages.

Understanding how Twitter should be used within any campaign is critical to ensure these messages are on target, and sent at a time and in a format that ensures they have the maximum chance of delivering the conversion they are designed for. Twitter is now less of a hit and miss affair. Research like this offers solid statistical evidence that marketers can use within each of their campaigns, and show real world ROI.

Six second branding

Only launching in January of this year, Vine has seen a meteoric rise within the social media landscape. Offering just six-seconds of video many seem restricting, but brands have used this new platform to become even more creative across their social media networks. A new infographic from the 7^th Chamber places Vine into perspective, and should be read by all brand owners looking for new innovative ways to engage with their audiences.

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.