HANDBOOK. The Essential Social Networks Guide for Marketers. Table of Contents. 1. Introduction. 3 3. LinkedIn. 22 The Multi-Faceted Art of LinkedIn 23 Social Media Marketing 4 Tone and Style 25 What Defines Consumers In the Branding Business 27 Today 5 Advertising 29 Their expectations of your brand 7 Top 10 Takeaways 32 The Trends Defining Social Media Today 8 4. Facebook. 33 Personalized Data is Now Facebook 34 Your Best Asset 8 Strength to Stand out 36 2. Twitter. 12 Tone and Style 37 Twitter 13 Advertising 38 Tone and Style 14 Top 10 Takeaways 43 Customer Service 15 5. Instagram. 44 Power of Influencers 16 Instagram 45 3 Effective Types of Targeting for Twitter Advertising 17 Tone and Style 47 Top 10 Takeaways 21 Advertising 51 Top 10 Takeaways 54 Be Recognizable Across Networks 55 All Marketing is Now Social 56 falcon.io • [email protected] 2 1. Introduction. The Multi-Faceted Art of Social Media Marketing. Welcome to the age of the connected customer. ithin living memory, consumers With that in mind, why would a business, had a choice of exactly one which probably offers its customers many Wphone company that offered product or service options, offer only one exactly two boxy plastic telephones. There content strategy for everybody? were three television networks and one type This guide will help you bring custom of coffee (it was called “coffee”). These things content to each of the main social channels were considered to be the fruits of a vibrant and to your advertising strategy. Use this as free market. To today’s younger consumers, one source of inspiration in your content it sounds like some sort of bleak totalitarian calendar planning process. All stakeholders dystopia. There is no longer any cultural or - such as marketing, sales, and customer economic cue to tell people to make do with service - should consider the diverse needs of anything utilizing a one-size-fits-all format. the modern consumer. falcon.io • [email protected] 4 Traits of the modern consumer: • Socially active • Mobile-first mindset • Willing to do the research • Short attention span • Open to new ideas Expectations of brand: • Relevance above all • Real time response • Social customer service • Personalization • Social fluency What Defines Consumers Today. Does your social strategy acknowledge the following? Socially active Have you ever heard someone lament how anti-social millennials are isolated because they’re too busy on their phones to make eye contact? It turns out that those occupied eyeballs mean just the opposite. The average consumer has seven social media accounts and engages with 3.5 according to the Global Web Index. Life is lived on a screen to an extent more than ever. Everything from casual chat to crucial conversations take place on social media. They happen quickly and spread exponentially. falcon.io • [email protected] 5 Mobile-first mindset 83% of millennials sleep with a cell phone nearby according to Pew Research. Which means the start of a potential customer’s journey is rarely more than an arm’s length away. The rise of mobile phone usage has changed the way we interact with each other, when is the last time you asked someone for the time? Mobile usage has also changed the way we shop, according to a BI Intelligence report, mobile commerce will make up 45% of total e-commerce by 2020. Willing to do the research Consumers are not shy about asking friends for recommendations. They do their homework and post reviews. According to a global study conducted by Nielsen, 53% of respondents use a mobile device to compare prices and 52% look up product information on a mobile device. Short attention span Choices are infinite. The second something gets boring, or it appears that there will not be a payoff, all those options start to look more and more interesting. For example, nobody will stick around for long intros on autoplay videos. Start with a bright pop and draw in viewers before they start getting itchy scrolling thumbs. Open to new ideas The more choices consumers have, the harder it is to be loyal to one brand. This is good for new brands who haven’t established a loyal base and potentially bad for existing brands that risk losing loyal customers. It’s paramount that brands establish an emotional connection and deliver personalized content to win and keep loyal customers. falcon.io • [email protected] 6 Their Expectations of Your Brand. Social media has changed the customer-brand dynamic. Real time response Personalization Have an issue with a product? Chances are you’re not The entire social experience is already personalized. going to reach for a phonebook to find an 800 number. Users pick what they want to see from whom. Advertisers Today’s consumers are on social and expect to find microtarget to tiny niche demographics. People are brands there too. According to The Social Habit and Jay getting more and more adept at telling when they are Baer, 32% of users who have interacted with a brand on presented to them with someone else in mind. Social social expect a reply in 30 minutes or less. 42% expect a media platforms are offering more and more ways response within 60 minutes. to show different things to different people. Market research and your own social data will bring patterns Social customer service to light. Profile your customers and show them just the things that resonate with them. Using the phone to place a voice call is increasingly rare. It is far easier to use social media for customer service Social fluency because there is no voice-activated menu system and no hold music. Also, the public nature mediums like No, you don’t need to parse the Urban Dictionary for hot facebook pages make consumers think they can publicly new slang. Fluency means knowing your brand voice, shame brands into getting what they want. Brands can sticking to it, and practicing basic etiquette. Fluency choose to treat this as an annoyance or as an opportunity means not posting big blocks of text on Instagram or to deliver customer service. Often, organizations will using a hashtag for a tragic recent event to sell product. separate service and social responsibilities. Advanced To some extent, this is a matter of recognizing it when brands are breaking down those barriers. you see it. This is where good management and quality control comes in. falcon.io • [email protected] 7 The Trends Defining Social Media Today. The last couple of years saw these trends shape and shake the medium. Chief social trends that are here to stay: Chatbots Mobile Video/live streaming With Alexa, Facebook Internet usage increased Video began to take over Messenger bots and by 26% from 2013 to 2015. social networks this year countless others, chatbots This enormous growth and plans to stay. Cisco are here in force. They’re was largely driven by predicts that by 2020, video mobile friendly and mobile (+44%). Mobile use traffic will account for 82% can handle a deluge of has changed the way we of all consumer internet. customer interactions in interact with one another, a snap. Chatbots are here when’s the last time you to stay and poised to play asked someone for the a major role in customer time? engagement going forward. Organic vs paid advertising Reports eulogizing the death of organic posts may be exaggerated, but it is undoubtedly in decline. Cluttered newsfeeds and the ever-changing algorithms of major networks are the top reasons for this decline. Most brands (86%) these days do both paid and organic, with paid social media ad spend expected to reach $41 billion dollars in 2017. But there is a lifeline for organic posts and it’s precisely the same one that gives a lot more bang to your advertising buck. By curating the most relevant posts to users’ newsfeeds, algorithms have simply codified what already sets successful social marketers apart: whether paid or organic, the success of any post rides on the quality of the content and how relevant it is to the people who see it. Welcome to a more personalized world of marketing. falcon.io • [email protected] 8 Personalized Data is Now Your Best Asset. Personalization is everywhere - it’s almost mandatory. Advertising is not any different. The good news is that when you deliver customized advertising content, consumers are willing to respond with their intention and an open mind. According to research conducted by Yahoo, consumers prefer personalized ads, finding them more engaging (54%), educational (52%), time-saving (49%) and memorable (45%) than general-audience ads.. People Want Personalized Marketing… 54% onsumers prefer personalized ads, finding them more engaging. Research conducted by Yahoo Marketers have been seeking to personalize content for decades, understanding that personalized messages are the most successful in terms of conversions and sales. Initially, the channels available were just too inflexible. If you advertised in a newspaper, you may have been able to choose between a city and suburban edition, but that’s about it. The internet has changed the game, paving the way for Big Data initiatives that allow businesses to collect huge amounts of information, analyzing it to reveal insights about individual customers. You should also use available tools to carry out sentiment analysis that will also reveal how they feel towards brands and marketing. Remember, the ultimate goal of your personalized marketing is to surprise and delight your customers. Targeting, but with fluency Part of social media fluency is exercising good judgement and using common sense. There is a creep-out factor that comes with recognizing that businesses you’ve never interacted with know so many things about you.