Social media has been around for over two decades now. SixDegrees.com dates back to 1997 and with MySpace and Hi5 founded in 2003, it’s easy to feel spectacularly old, especially if you’re a millennial. There are now 4.20 billion social media users globally, according to the Digital 2021: Global Overview report. That’s a whopping 54% of the total global population. So, what’s keeping everyone hooked and how can marketers benefit from the latest tools? In light of Social Media Day on June 30, 2021, we’re taking a look at the Big 5 Networks – Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. Let’s celebrate Social Media Day 2021 together!
#1 Facebook
Facebook is still top dog. The stats speak for themselves with 2.80 billion active users checking out the platform as of January 2021. This means that nearly two out of every three people on social media are active Facebook users. It’s also the platform on which users spend the most time with an average of 33-minutes per day. This compares to an average of 32-minutes on TikTok and 31-minutes on Twitter.
Facebook is also a marketer’s dream. Here’s why:
- Facebook Ads have a potential reach of 1.9 million users. This reach breaks down into approximately 817 million female users and 1.08 million male users, with a 47:53 percentage split respectfully. The largest audience in 2021 is men aged between 25 and 34, accounting for 19% of total potential reach.
- Facebook Ads provide the highest return on investment among all paid advertising channels. On average, Facebook advertising generated $9.82 per user in Q4, 2020. (Source: Facebook, 2021)
Dating back to 2004, Facebook has had its ups and downs (let’s not mention the Cambridge Analytica scandal). But it has also stayed fresh and relevant which is why it remains popular.
So, what’s hot? And what tools can you enjoy in 2021? Here are a few examples:
Facebook Shops
Selling through social media is big business right now. And with Facebook Shops, you can sell from anywhere in your online customisable shop. The rollout of this tool was accelerated in the US as a result of the pandemic and huge e-commerce grow. It is now available in the UK and Canada.
As explained by Facebook:
“The Shop experience for consumers will feature curated collections, products and recent posts from businesses of all sizes. People will be able to see personalized content from brands within the News Feed, and through in-product notifications or small business favourites they follow.”
The Tiny Tassel is an example of small business utilising this feature.
Live Shopping Fridays
Being relevant and meeting the demands of consumers is a must. With many people still isolating or not wanting to deal with masks and distancing, Facebook has again made it easy for brands to flaunt their products. And for consumers to make purchases.
Live Shopping Fridays will take place every Friday until July 16, 2021, offering shoppable live videos from beauty and fashion brands. Say what? While shoppers can discover the latest products, ask questions about size and get fashion tips in real time, brands have the chance to build relationships with customers, provide entertaining content, answer questions and streamline the purchase process through convenient checkout with Shops.
It’s this kind of spontaneity and e-commerce relevance that keeps Facebook in the top spot.
Dynamic Ads for Streaming
In April 2021, Facebook announced Dynamic Ads for Streaming – a dreamy tool for marketers who no longer have to configure individual ads.
Before the launch of this tool, an advertiser might need to promote each media title separately. Now, advertisers can automatically generate unique ads for every title. When people see an ad for a service in their feed, they can swipe through the ad to see personalised, relevant titles based on interests they’ve shown on Facebook and Instagram. And the process is easy. Simply set up your campaign once, add new titles, then continually attract users more likely to convert by serving the right title to the right user across devices— from mobile to desktop to tablet.
On Facebook we share articles, events, marketing tips and team fun. Follow our page here.
Social Media Day wouldn’t be complete without Facebook but there are some more big cats to check out in our social media safari!
#2 YouTube
The video-sharing platform, YouTube, is the second most used social media channel in the world with 2.3 billion active users globally. It’s also the second biggest search engine after Google. YouTube viewers watch over 1 billion hours of content on the platform every single day and generate billions and billions of views. It’s localised in more than 100 countries and is available in 80 languages which is obviously of huge interest to global marketers.
According to Pew Research, YouTube is the most popular online platform in America. It’s predicted that the number of US YouTube watchers will increase to 228.1 million by 2024, up from 214.9 million in 2020.
Here’s what’s going down on the platform:
- Views of videos with variations of ‘beginner’ in the title grew 50% during the pandemic with 66% of people in Germany using the platform to learn a new hobby. YouTube is therefore a great place for how-to content and can be used to target various demographics. Beauty tutorials also increased by 50%.
- There are now more than 40 million active gaming channels on YouTube. More than 80,000 of those channels have a minimum of 100,000 subscribers. Minecraft was the most-viewed game of 2020 with an incredible 201 billion views. So if you’re a gaming brand – get a slice of the marketing pie.
YouTube has been around since 2005. That’s a long time to be relevant. But the following tools help keep the platform fresh.
YouTube Live Streaming and Premieres
YouTube Live and Premieres allow creators to bring viewers together in real time to learn, discuss and form new social communities. Creators can live stream on YouTube via webcam, mobile or encoder streaming. The first two are great for beginners who want to go live quickly. The Encoder options is more appropriate for advanced live streams such as sharing the creator’s screen or broadcasting gameplay.
Premieres is also a unique marketing tool helping to create a strong digital community. Once a Premiere is scheduled, a shareable and public watch page is created, allowing creators, artists and publishers and their viewers to watch and experience new videos together.
Video Chapters
Long videos can be off-putting if they’re not broken down into sections. That’s why YouTube introduced Video Chapters in 2020 to satisfy an increasingly impatient audience. The feature uses timestamps that creators apply to their videos, allowing viewers to easily jump forward to a specific section of the video or rewatch a portion of video. The platform has now made this service automatic. It employs an AI-based technology to automatically make chapters out of lengthy videos in case the creator has not done it on his/ her own. Chapters also allow for more precise keyword inclusion which is great for SEO.
Quick-fire tips for a successful YouTube strategy:
- Post regularly (from 1x per month to 2x per week)
- Key metrics: Average View Duration, Click Through Rate and Views
- Refine titles, thumbnails and content to increase those metrics
Check out our YouTube channel and be sure to hit subscribe!
#3 Instagram
What started out as a photo-sharing platform in 2010 has become a marketing paradise with tons of new features to help businesses stand out from the crowd and sell directly from the app. But before we check out what’s new, here are the stats you need to know.
- Over 1 billion people use Instagram every month.
- 51% of users are female and 49% are male.
- The average user spends around 30-minutes a day checking out Instagram content while 81% of people use the channel to research products and services.
- 130 million users tap on shopping posts every month and 50% of people have visited a website to make a purchase after seeing a product or service advertised.
Did you know: Many companies are running side-by-side ads on Facebook and Instagram. In fact, Instagram accounted for 33% of Facebook ad spend and 36% of impressions for brands rolling out campaigns on both platforms.
It’s been over a decade since Instagram launched. Yet the rollout of exciting new tools keeps users coming back for more. Some of the best include:
Instagram Shopping
Instagram Shopping is a feature that allows ecommerce brands to create a digital, shareable catalogue of their products right on Instagram. Users can learn more about products in the app, and either purchase directly on Instagram (with Checkout) or click through to finish the transaction on the brand’s ecommerce site. Before, just bio links or shoppable stories offered a similar experience but now users can see it, like it, buy it in just a few clicks. This minimises the steps before purchase helping to boost ROI.
Instagram Reels
Video content is huge. 96% of people watched more video content during the lockdowns and the average consumer now pays for four different video streaming subscriptions. Social media tools such as Instagram Reels are also feeding consumer’s rampant desire for video with Reels allowing creators to record and edit multiple 15-second videos with audio, effects and new creative tools.
Brands are using Instagram Reels to showcase new products, offer tutorials, go behind the scenes, introduce team members, create humorous content, show outtakes and more.
Follow our team on Instagram for videos, behind the scenes and event fun. Expect foody pics.
#4 Twitter
From market moving updates to political messages and global gossip, Twitter is a go-to platform for minute-by-minute information. It has been a great way for brands to keep consumers up-to-date during the pandemic with 59% of users turning to the platform for news. The site enjoys 187 million monetizable daily active users. 70% of users are male vs 30% that are female, and the largest demographic of users are those aged between 25-34-years-old. #Covid19 and #BlackLivesMatter were the two most popular tweets of 2020 and the smiley and sad emojis were the most commonly used.
So how’s Twitter rocking life from a marketing perspective? Twitter has an advertising audience of 353 million. That number is up 8% since Q3 2020, an increase of 27 million users and the userbase is predicted to grow 2.4% in 2021. Twitter also has a range of tools.
Twitter Blue
Like the other platforms, Twitter is also digging deep in a bid to maintain its marketing and general usage appeal. Twitter has recently announced a new subscription service called Twitter Blue which is available in Australia and Canada. This paid-for extra service adds features such as an ‘undo tweet’ button. Note – this is not the eagerly awaited edit tweet which has been in high demand for some time now. It simply means you can undo the tweet. Why Twitter Why? There will also be bookmarks and a reader mode.
Ad Tools
Twitter is a go-to for many marketers as it’s easy to monitor ad spend. Twitter advertising costs depend on your ad type, which includes promoted tweets, promoted accounts, and promoted trends. Promoted tweets cost $0.50 to $2.00 for each action. Promoted accounts cost $2 to $4 for each follow. Promoted trends cost $200,000 per day.
Follow Contentworks Agency on Twitter for financial marketing news, tips and gossip.
#5 TikTok
Social Media Day wouldn’t be complete without TikTok. TikTok has enjoyed phenomenal success over the past year and was a go-to for many during 2020. The app jumped 15 spots in 2020 to become the second highest revenue-generating app behind Tinder, with active users predicted to soar to 1.2 billion people globally in 2021. That’s significant to say the least. TikTok is now available in more than 200 countries giving it wide marketing appeal and was the third most common search term on YouTube in 2020.
As for demographics, TikTok attracts a younger userbase. Research published in April by the Pew Research Center shows that 48% of US adults between 18-29-years-old use TikTok. The figure drops to 20% in the 30-49-year-old age group, 14% among 50-64-year-olds, and 4% for those 65 and up. So if you’re a brand targeting children or Gen-Z, this is certainly the place to be. Indeed, children aged 4-15 spend an average of 80-minutes a day watching TikTok videos.
So what’s in it for marketers?
Influencer Marketing
Well, TikTok is the place to be for spot of influencer marketing. Studies show an engagement rate of nearly 18% with micro-influencers on the platform. This means TikTok has a significant lead on Instagram’s 3.86% and YouTube’s 1.63% engagement rates. This could make it the perfect place to implement a micro-influencer strategy. Influencer marketing is so good for brand awareness you’ll regularly find even the biggest brands teaming up with figures popular on the channel.
Finance influencers AKA ‘fin-fluencers’ or ‘fin-influencers’ are a relatively new phenomenon. But it’s looking more and more like they are here to stay. These influencers focus on investment, trading, money management and other finance-related topics.
Financial trends are viral-worthy, especially among younger generations who are looking to increase their capital. Take, for example, how Redditors recently took on the hedge funds to manipulate the GME stock, resulting in losses of billions of dollars from the large corporations in a David and Goliath-style battle. This phenomenon in the trading industry provided a unique opportunity for fin-fluencers to take advantage of people’s interest in the story by offering information and tutorials on the stock market.
TikTok Challenges
TikTok challenges with branded hashtags and catchy tunes are also a great way to draw in a crowd. When you know you’ve a whole bunch of Gen Z fans, what better way to promote your Khalid-feature song than by heading to TikTok? That’s exactly what Ed Sheeran did, with his sentimental #BeautifulPeople challenge which encouraged users to create videos of the ‘beautiful people’ in their lives. The challenge received 270m views in five days thanks to more than 150k videos. That number has now grown to a staggering 829.5 million views.
Ready to get started with TikTok marketing or video marketing in general? Talk to our team. From executive interviews and product launches to explainer cartoons, viral social media videos, TikTok challenges and advertising preroll, we’ve got you covered. Follow us on Tiktok where we host AMAs and videos from the team!
So as well as these social media giants, what other platform should you watch?
Clubhouse
If you’ve been online lately, there’s a high chance you’ve already heard of Clubhouse. This voice-based social networking app has gained a lot of traction with its invite-only model and allows you to dip in and out of content that you appreciate the most. Released in 2020, it already has 10 million registered users. It’s also currently valued at $1 billion.
Clubhouse is an interesting tool for marketers for many reasons. Firstly, it’s another avenue for socialising with like-minded people. Join rooms that interest you, follow users and participate in discussions for maximum exposure. Connecting with people that might be interested in your brand and what you have to stay is a good way to grow your network. You can also improve your reputation as a thought-leader by contributing to rooms intelligently or setting up your own topics for discussion.
Channel management, social media strategy and top notch content marketing are services Contentworks Agency provides to banks, brokers, fintechs and tech providers. Book a call with our team now to find out more.
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