Sure, go ahead and join that gym, and make a promise to spend more actual, in-person time with your friends. While you’re making resolutions for 2016, how about ramping-up your social media marketing savvy? It’ll certainly be more fun than running on a treadmill, sweating off those five pounds that mysteriously appear over the holidays.
For the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on the Big 4 social platforms: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
While Facebook is the leading place to stay up-to-date on what your friends and family are doing, it’s also become a destination for video, too. Since advertisers can target ads using demos, behavioral history and good ol’ fashioned CRM data, Facebook video is obviously the next big thing for the world’s largest social network. In 2015, Facebook’s video views eclipsed four billion per day; look for that number to soar even higher this year.
A few video best practices from Facebook:
- Make sure your first images are attention grabbers. Videos on Facebook play silently until the viewer engages them, and amazing pictures are the best way to encourage a click.
- For brands and celebs, post exclusive videos as a way of thanking or rewarding followers.
- Use a line/quote from the video as the Post description to set the tone and expectations.
And with Facebook offering 360-degree video, immersive video and carousel video products, there are more creative units than ever before to choose from.
Is there a hotter social platform? Instagram boasts more than 400 million monthly active users who post more than 80 million photos per day.
And don’t forget this impressive point that came out of Mary Meeker’s latest Internet trends report: young U.S. Millennials and Gen Z see Instagram as the most important social network—even more so than Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.
Given its surge in popularity, it’s no surprise that the Facebook-owned property is expected to double its ad revenue this year—hitting nearly $1.5 billion, according to eMarketer.
What does it all mean? If you haven’t jumped into Instagram campaigns with both feet, you’d better get moving since more competition for the limited ad space equals higher rates. Start testing and learning now so you can deliver flawless, ROI-infused campaigns throughout 2016.
YouTube
As you know, Google is the biggest kid on the Internet block when it comes to search traffic. Pop quiz: which site is number two? It’s YouTube with more than three billion searches each month. One more impressive stat: YouTube on mobile reaches more 18-34 and 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the United States. All of this makes YouTube an ideal place for campaigns that target the desirable, younger generations.
But look before you leap; there is some questionable content on YouTube, and you don’t want your brand/client associated with—for example—a terrorist recruitment video. If you’re planning to run YouTube advertising, make sure the campaigns are brand safe; ideally, you’d want to check which content your ads will run against, pre-buy. (Full disclosure: AdParlor clients get that benefit, down to the actual video URLs.)
This time of year is perfect for the in-the-moment social network. We’re approaching awards season; the SAG Awards kick it off on January 30, followed by the Grammys on February 15 and the Oscars less than two weeks later. There’s also a lot of sports to consider, primarily NFL playoff action which leads to Super Bowl 50 on February 7.
During the Big Game last year, Twitter reported 28.4 million tweets—the most ever for a Super Bowl. There were nearly 400,000 tweets per minute when New England intercepted a Russell Wilson pass with less than 30 seconds left in the game. There were 284,000 per minute as Katy Perry wrapped up her halftime show. And users posted another 379,000 tweets per minute when the Patriots won the game.
Twitter created this cool visualization of tweets as the game went along:
Live events deliver the perfect opportunities to engage the Twitter community as it opines about the best-dressed Hollywood stars, the most outrageous musical performances, or the best/worst on-field plays. That flurry of tweets provides loads of information, and coupled with profile data of each Twitter user, gives brands a great opportunity to launch well-targeted ads.
AdParlor in 2016
We have some resolutions for 2016, too. In addition to the one we set every year—promising to care about your ROI as much as you do—we’re also planning to roll out a new-and-improved ad mockup generator in the coming weeks. We predict that it’ll help every agency and brand that takes it for a test drive. (Watch this blog for news of the debut.)
We’re also resolving to do something no other company is doing: to drastically improve ad effectiveness via cross-channel social media advertising as we take what we learn from running a campaign on Facebook, for example, to improve ad placement on YouTube.
We wish you happiness, prosperity and virality throughout 2016!