Social Media Archives

March 8, 2014

TIMING IS EVERYTHING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA

TIMING IS EVERYTHING FOR SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS

Getting the right mix of posting engaging social media updates at the right times is a popular topic of discussion among brand managers. Is there a single right time to post on Twitter? Facebook vs. Instagram. All social media aren’t the same. Each social network has different kinds of users and their daily activities vary. They use these networks at various times and days to engage with the updates published. To attain maximum engagement its always advisable to consult various free resources online conducted by social media research companies and trial and error until you figure out the best days to publish your content.

Below is a recent infograph we came across on the best times and days to publish social media updates to receive the highest exposure on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Tumblr.

What do you think? Do your audiences’ engagement patterns with your content follow these results?

March 5, 2014

UNDERSTANDING TWITTER ANALYTICS

UNDERSTANDING TWITTER ANALYTICS FOR BRANDS

With the recently held Oscars stilling providing much fodder for in-house talk on the red carpet fashions, deserving wins, overdue wins (sorry Leo), and more, today’s blog post is inspired by one incident that went viral and apparently “broke” the Internet. For those who don’t know, the Oscars host, comedian and American talk show host Ellen Degeneres did her best to lessen up the customary formalities of the entire event by taking photo selfies with random A-list stars in the audience as well as backstage. This one particular selfie, went on to break Twitter history by being the most retweeted tweet in…well Twitter history. The comedian’s group selfie taken with her Samsung phone (great product placement by the way) quickly garnered retweets from around the world nearing Barack Obama’s record of 778,800 retweets within 30minutes. Within the hour, the tweet went on to surpass one million retweets, making it far and beyond the most-retweeted tweet of all time.

From this we’ve drawn inspiration for today’s short post to put a spotlight on engagement & understanding how to effectively measure twitter for the particular benefit of brands that have a twitter presence.

And so we found a couple of interesting online guides to effective measurement of twitter analytics. Below are a few more links which we’ve bookmarked and will be making our through. Perhaps our blog readers can also find some value.

Complete Guide to Twitter Analytics via Simply Measured

Using Twitter Analytics for Business Success via Business to Community

Twitter gets Comprehensive Analytics via Forbes

February 8, 2014

TIPS TO GET THE MOST OUT

TIPS TO GET THE MOST OUT OF PINTEREST

Pinterest has quickly become a powerful referral tool for online traffic, which is particularly important for eCommerce businesses. With an average of 1.36 million users daily users, Pinterest has surpassed Twitter; and Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn combined in referral traffic. Currently responsible for about 40% of e-commerce traffic, one reason for this is the simple fact that high-quality, visual content sells and it’s highly engaging.

Although the premise of Pinterest’s success underscores the importance of visual content, the platform still offers relevancy for non-visual businesses to promote their company cultures or perhaps recruit new hires by pinning photos of the office, behind-the-scenes events at headquarters, speakers that come to visit, off sites. All in all, photos should be colorful, bright and interesting i.e. things that people would want to share. Always keep in mind that attractive, compelling images are more likely to get repinned over those that obviously look like ads.

Below is a guide we recently came across on how to get the most out of Pinterest for your business.

January 30, 2014

GLOBAL MOBILE USAGE STATISTICS

GLOBAL MOBILE USAGE STATISTICS FOR 2014

A couple of weeks ago We Are Social Singapore published a comprehensive global snapshot of predicted mobile penetration across the world in 2014. The full report presents a rich variety of key statistics, data and behavioural indicators for social, digital and mobile channels around the world. The report also presents in-depth analyses for 24 of the world’s largest economies: Argentina, Australia, Brazile, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the USA.

Click here to view the full report.

January 18, 2014

CREATE THE PERFECT SOCIAL MEDIA

CREATE THE PERFECT SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT

As any online brand managers should know, when it comes to leveraging popular social media networks, posting content that fits the audience type & function of an specific social network will naturally lead to an increase in reach and engagement. When it comes to managing a successful social media brand presence that will contribute to the set business goals, it’s important to tailor each communication piece to a specific audience then drill down to a specific social network.

There are numerous resources freely available online to help brand managers understand and make better use of the functionality and content marketing opportunities offered by the current popular sites: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest & Google+ . Below is one such resource; an infograph we came across created by ‘My Clever Agency’, which gives some indication on how to achieve better fit between your brand content & these four channels. Do you agree? Have you noticed an increase/decrease in engagement when including pictures?

January 4, 2014

ON ZAMAN’S RADAR – FIRST WEEK OF JAN 2014

Kicking off the new year, our first post is a roundup of news and happenings that are on our radar as we gear up for another year of exciting year of inspiring projects and continued collaborations with our valued clients.

1. 2014 Digital marketing trends

a) Content continues its royal reign as king

2013 saw an incremental embrace by marketers that content is a critical resource in their efforts. So much so that studies conducted by social media blog Social Media Today reported that 78% of CMO’s believe custom content is the future of marketing. Likewise, on the platform side 2013 also saw the influx of content discovery apps which support the growth trend: Flipboard, Pulse, Fancy, Houzzer, etc. This trend is expected to continue in 2014, with marketers, more likely to consider allocating better budgets to the content development process.

b) Video marketing will continue to grow

In past posts we’ve underlined the power of story telling. The delivery format of the story is just as important. Videos have the ability to convey a message that is ten times more powerful than text content. Campaigns such as KONY 2012 that gained viral fame are proof that great video content has the potential of becoming an overnight viral success. Also, with apps like Instagram, Snapchat and Vine, videos are increasingly being easily created, viewed and shared on mobile devices. Facebook has also introduced and enhanced their mobile ads platform.

2. Five brands that are winning on Pinterest

When it comes to Pinterest, many brands aren’t quite sure how to turn boards and pins into followers and potential customers. However, now more than ever it is important to not overlook this image sharing social network. Numerous studies suggest that online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest. The same studies indicate that Pinterest generates 4x more revenue per click than Twitter and 27% more per click than Facebook.

3. Augmented reality continues to inspire brands

Today we live in a world where brand and project launches have to compete to create amazing, engaging experiences in order to win the attention of intended audiences; and experimenting with interactive technologies is certainly a good place to start. In a promotion for the recently released game, Forza Motorsport 5, Pizza Hut UK has teamed up with Xbox One and augmented reality app, Blippar, to provide customers with exclusive game content directly on their smartphones.

4. The power of brand advocacy

In previous posts we have mentioned our belief that brands that act in an authentic manner & stick to a clear brand story will be rewarded by loyal customers. People who love your brand will introduce you to your new customers. Recommendations come from your advocates – a network of highly satisfied, passionate and connected customers who love your products and service. It can create awareness of your brand, help increase your sales, and increase consumers’ trust in your brand. 50% of advocates recommend a brand because they had a good experience with a product or service.

Recently we came across an infographic, which illustrates the importance of brand advocacy in your marketing strategy using the digital space as a context. Customers trust people like them, and that is who you’re brand advocates are. They are customers who love your product and want to recommend it to the people they care about. Click here to view infographic.

October 13, 2013

THE SHARED BRAND EXPERIENCE

These days the division between traditional and digital exists only in the minds of marketers and techies. Consumers simply see digital as part of their daily lives. What this means is that a brand that is encountered online is no less a real world encounter than when it is seen in a store. The gravity of this digital status quo holds a lot of significance for brands that are seeking long-term success.

Regardless of what industry you operate in, as a brand manager you have to create the experiences you want people to have and subsequently share. This in turn goes some way in reinforcing your brand promise. The first step to achieve this is to ensure that every touch point of your brand is streamlined to deliver the same experience.

With popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube (& others) making it as easy as possible for a user to immediately share with their networks what they are doing, where & with whom – in whatever media form —once published it too becomes a shared experience. Ironically this notion of shared experiences has always existed, more in the form of offline/real world conversations between neighbours, colleagues, friends, etc, albeit: 1) they’ve been limited to some extent by the proximity between the sharer & her/his recipient audience, 2) by not tuning in many brands have missed the opportunity to defend themselves (if needed) or even leverage a would-be customer’s positive experience by trying to upsell. So today this digital status quo is such that these conversations, which did indeed exist before technology, are now searchable, retrievable and building on each other. Shared experiences, whether solicited by the brand in aggregate, become the brand.

Through messaging, creative campaigns and maintaining service delivery or the quality of products sold, if brand managers spend more time designing how to bring the brand promise to life instead of just talking about it in elaborate and budget-backed ad campaigns, this would definitely go some way in matching the expectations of the target customer. At the end of the day, the volume of positive shared brand experiences, both online & offline, would contribute to continued brand success.

August 4, 2013

INFOGRAPHIC – WHAT HAPPENS

INFOGRAPHIC – WHAT HAPPENS ONLINE IN 60s?

A few days ago I discovered this interesting infographic below, created by MyCleverAgency, which presents what exactly happens on average every minute of every day on the most popular digital platforms. Highlights include:

2 million search queries are entered on Google
41 thousand posts, 1.8 million likes and 340GB of data are shared on Facebook
278 thousand tweets are published on Twitter
72 hours of videos are uploaded to Youtube
204 million emails are sent
3,600 photos are shared every second on Instagram

Original article spotted on Wamda.com

September 17, 2012

Charting the social path

Charting the social path for Middle East corporates

Social media tools have become a staple in the everyday lives of many people. Enabling individuals to merge their offline and online experiences, it has become one of the lead methods of social connection and interaction across many societies. Yet, it seems that brands in the Middle East are still trying to play catch-up, when it comes to engaging with a consumer base that is clearly quite active online.

Earlier this year Bayt.com published a report on Corporate Usage of Social Media in the Middle East, following a poll it had carried out among communication professionals across more than 12 countries in the MENA region. The report goes some way in shedding light on why this is happening:

The majority of respondents (29.8%) are looking for content on social media that is educational and informative.
Eight out of every ten respondents (81.6%) claim that the potential for social media to damage a company’s reputation is one of the biggest challenges to overcome.

Now, while brands/corporates struggle to overcome their fear of the social media platform, from the consumer side, adoption of all things digital is steadily going from strength to strength; with Facebook undoubtedly leading the pack among social networks (see the Social Media Cheat Sheet we shared last week).

Although figures suggest that corporate are struggling with strategically linking their participation in social media to their business goals, it is clear that adoption of social media in our region is steadily increasing and the value that social networks have to users in MENA countries is highly significant.

The graph below illustrates the penetration of three of the most popular social network services in select Arab countries.

A couple of weeks ago Econsultancy published a report on the growth & impact of social media usage across the Middle East. The fuller Internet Statistics Compendium 2012, which covers Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Qatar, Tunisia & the UAE, is available from here and is a worthwhile investment for companies/brands keen to understand the digital landscape across the region.

Interesting report highlights:

LinkedIn outperforms Twitter across many countries – most significantly, in the UAE where the business-focused network reaches more than 12% of the population (compared to around 3% for Twitter).
In the UAE, Facebook penetration is more than 40% of the population, followed by Kuwait at 34%.
Eight out of every ten respondents (81.6%) claim that the potential for social media to damage a company’s reputation is one of the biggest challenges to overcome.
The majority of respondents (29.8%) are looking for content on social media that is educational and informative.

Here in the UAE, we are in a unique position in that we have a consumer that is brand savvy & very familiar with digital tools. Likewise as managers of global brands we have access to case studies and industry reports on successes and wins on the adoption of best practice social media from our counterparts in more advanced markets such as the UK & US.

Combine this with efforts by ‘local’ platforms such as Bayt, Govt, etc that are publishing more reports with comprehensive insight & highlights from ME markets helping us to better understand the relationship between users and social networks as something more than a superficial past-time – marketers and businesses have the opportunity to leverage the growing significance of digital and chart the social path for a Middle East audience.

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August 27, 2012

INFOGRAPHIC – CHEAT SHEET

INFOGRAPHIC – CHEAT SHEET FOR TOP SOCIAL NETWORKS

As Facebook steadily approaches the 1billion users mark and image based platforms such as Pinterest and Fancy are proving that visual content really is king; sometimes an infographic can be a handy tool to help make sense of the social platforms that are ‘hot right now’.

Below is an infographic on the current state of the 9 hottest social network platforms that brand managers should consider.

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