This Week's Social Updates

Welcome to our weekly roundup of the latest happenings in the world of social media. From platform updates to new features, here's what you need to know to stay ahead in the digital sphere:

1. Meta's AR Glasses Teaser: Meta has teased a glimpse of its long-awaited augmented reality (AR) glasses, hinting at a potential release in the near future. With the promise of seamlessly integrating the digital and physical worlds, these glasses could revolutionize how we interact with technology and each other.

2. Twitter's Algorithm Update: Twitter has rolled out an algorithm update aimed at improving the relevance of tweets in users' timelines. This change reflects the platform's ongoing efforts to enhance the user experience and surface content that is most meaningful and engaging to individual users.

3. Instagram's Shopping Tags Expansion: Instagram is expanding its shopping tags feature to more users and regions, allowing creators and businesses to tag products in their posts and stories. This expansion aims to streamline the shopping experience on the platform and provide users with direct access to purchase products they discover on Instagram.

4. LinkedIn's Community Engagement Tools: LinkedIn has introduced new community engagement tools, including polls and Q&A sessions, to help creators and organizations foster meaningful interactions with their followers. These tools offer new ways to gather feedback, spark conversations, and share insights within the professional networking community.

5. Snapchat's NFT Integration: Snapchat has announced plans to integrate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into its platform, enabling users to buy, sell, and showcase digital collectibles directly within the app. This move underscores Snapchat's commitment to exploring new avenues for creative expression and digital ownership.

Why It Matters:

Innovation and Evolution: Social media platforms are constantly evolving, introducing new features and technologies to enhance user experiences and stay ahead of emerging trends.

E-commerce Integration: The integration of shopping features and NFTs reflects a growing emphasis on e-commerce and digital monetization within the social media landscape.

Community Building: The introduction of community engagement tools underscores the importance of fostering meaningful connections and conversations within online communities.

As social media continues to evolve, staying informed about the latest updates and trends is essential for individuals and businesses alike. By keeping up with these developments, you can harness the full potential of social media platforms to connect, engage, and thrive in the digital age.

5 Social Media Marketing Trends in 2022. Francesca Golden

Today, the average person devotes a significant amount of time to social media. Businesses from around the world began seeing this as an opportunity to market their products and services, using creative strategies to grow a successful online presence across social platforms. If you’re a marketer, these 5 trends are essential to improving your business in the digital world.

Created using data from Hootsuite’s Social Trends 2022 survey, here are the 5 biggest trends in social media marketing:

1. “The Brand Strategy Trend” 

People want genuine connection. 

The social media spotlight is switching its focus from large celebrities toward smaller, more authentic creators. 

As people search for deeper connections on the internet, more niche artists are getting featured on social platforms because of the intimate spaces they create. Today, 50 million people call themselves “creators”, proving that a social media presence is more attainable than ever. However, the big brands are not being left behind just yet, seeing as they too are finding new ways to benefit from this shift. Twitter, for example, is working on a new feature dubbed “Communities”, which they describe as “a dedicated place to connect, share, and get closer to the discussions [people] care about most.”

2. The Social Advertising Trend

Social media makes more sales.

According to Hootsuite’s survey, marketers are planning to invest more of their money into social media advertising.

Why? 

To put it plainly, these methods of advertising are proving more effective. 

Businesses realized that each social media platform has its own unique functionality, so they began catering their marketing material to each one. This makes their ads seem like part of the experience rather than an interruption. The focus is now on blurring the line between regular and marketed content because it encourages higher community engagement. 

Shaping their marketing to fit large platforms like Pinterest has provided businesses with exceptional benefits. For example, Structube, a furniture company in Montreal, is using Pinterest to market their products by creating shopping campaigns for specific keywords like “bedroom ideas” and “living room decor”. Catering their ads to Pinterest’s keyword functionality provided for double the return on Structube’s typical ad spend.

3. The ROI (Return on Investment) Trend

It’s not just marketing.

Although we’re focusing on marketing trends, there’s a bigger shift happening in the industry that we simply can’t ignore. 

Based on the Hootsuite survey responses, companies are looking to “expand [social media’s] impact on other departments” aside from marketing. They are planning to use socials to enhance the experience for their employees, protect their brand and minimize company risks.

For instance, Ochsner Health, a nonprofit in Louisiana, runs an ambassador program on Instagram that offers opportunities for new recruitment as well as for current employees to earn credits toward their annual appraisal. Brands are beginning to see the potential in socials aside from traditional marketing campaigns, which promises a more communal experience within the workforce.

4. The Social Commerce Trend

Social media IS the brand.

A few years ago, social commerce was a brand new concept, so only large companies would use their resources to invest in social marketing.

However, when lockdown happened, social commerce became crucial for making all kinds of purchases. With this change came a shift in the perception of social marketing. Social used to be “an extension of the brand’s voice”, only a portion of a company’s outreach. However nowadays, “it is the brand’s voice. It is its core platform to engage with, sell to, and service customers,” according to Étienne Mérineau, cofounder of conversational AI platform Heyday. Consumers are no longer using socials to simply “Add to Cart” and “Checkout”, there are now dedicated spaces that take them through “every stage of the purchase journey, across almost every product category.” According to Hootsuite and We Are Social’s Digital 2021 report, “Social networks are now the second most important channel for online brand research after search engines”, meaning that social marketing is the way to go if you’re looking to increase engagement.

5. The Customer Care Trend

Customers need YOU.

As a result of lockdown, brands are expecting a global shortage of supplies, which will cause a wave of unhappy, unsatisfied customers. In preparation for this, they are increasing the demand for customer service over socials.

Trends are showing that socials have become a vital part of customer service, seeing as the service is faster, more convenient and more effective. In a survey commissioned by Facebook, 64% of people stated that they prefer online chatting over directly calling a business. 

And where are companies looking to fill these customer service positions? 

According to Hootsuite, “business leaders will look to social marketers to take a greater role in customer service” in 2022, because they are already trained to understand the customer’s needs. This means more opportunity for YOU as a social marketer.

The takeaway:

When looking at these 5 trends, there’s a clear connection between them: Social marketing is bigger than ever, and the growth won’t be slowing down anytime soon. If you’re a marketer, no matter the size of your business, you will see significant growth once you hop onto the social marketing bandwagon. 

So when do you start?

The time is now.

Facebook Stalking? Nah, It’s Just Business

By: Carolina LaFuente

If you go on Google today and type your name, images of you can show up as well as your different social media platforms. With an instant search, others can figure out what city you live in, that you changed your hair two weeks ago and that your brother Elliot is getting married to Samantha in the Spring.

Just like this, online retailers can also find out about their customers without even having to do any of the research themselves. Technology has provided us with data gathering tools that can track consumer behavior online and catch repeated actions that form into trends. Have you ever gotten an email from a store where you’ve shopped before and it happens include a message about an item you’ve had your eye on…and it’s on sale?

Customers are more likely to visit your website when they know you’ll have something they’re interested in, whether they saw it in an email, and social media ad or an online ad while on a different website.

With sponsored content growing on social media, as a business, one can specifically target whose page to show the content on based on previous pages they’ve visited. The same goes for online ads on other websites. By tracking consumer behavior online based on what other stores customers shop at, what they click on while they’re on your website and what social media pages they follow, one can cater to them more successfully because they will feel your brand relates to them.

By collecting data about customers it is also easy to anticipate customers’ needs so that the product they are looking for is always in stock. As Bridge Mellichamp of Stitchlabs puts it, “Using data to understand how a customer thinks extends beyond service and logistics. From anticipating customer needs to testing and personalizing communications, successful retailers are using data to make more informed business decisions.”

Tracking online shopping data from customers also helps facilitate the shopping experience in terms of navigation for customers. By testing out different website layouts, online retailers can learn about which one works best for their customer. Office Depot for example, contains a side bar online not only welcoming the customer by name but by also suggesting items related to previous purchases. They tested out the suggested items section as a pop up that had to clicked on and then as an open side toolbar that displays the suggested items automatically. Office Depot found out that customers bought items more often from the version of the side bar that contained the automatically visible display of suggested items. Customers in this case did not have to take any extra steps either to find what they were looking for.

While online shopping may lose the physical connection between customer and company because of a computer, phone, or tablet screen, it doesn’t mean the entire shopping experience can’t be just as personal as walking into a store and speaking with a sales associate. By tracking consumer behavior online, you can get to know your customers just as well as the regular ones that walk into a store. The sites themselves can be personalized to ease the experience and future purchases can be anticipated by previous search history on the website. Personal emails can be sent to customers inviting them to in-store events and you can even then thank them by sending a coupon for a necklace since they recently purchased a ring from the same collection. Customers remain loyal to brands that get them simply because they know they can count on you to find something they need and will like. It’s not creepy, it’s smart business. Make your customers your crush, just be careful not to accidentally like that photo from 5 months ago on their Instagram.

Public Relations: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By: Carolina Lafuente

So you’ve just wrapped up an event one of your clients was hosting, thanks to your social media coverage and the feature you got on yesterday’s 5 p.m. news, the turn-out was excellent. More people are now familiar with your client’s brand, they now have a larger following on social media and sales are estimated to go up.

    But what if something went wrong and suddenly negative news comes out about your client’s company? Do you spin the story around? Is that really the right thing to do? Or do you own up to it and apologize?

Public relations specialists sometimes get a bad reputation of being dishonest based on stereotypes. Simply because some brands have had PR nightmares, doesn’t mean we are all made equally. Our jobs are to sell brand images; nowhere does it say this cannot be done by presenting factually based evidence about products. Yes, at times things go wrong. Thankfully there are guidelines to ethics of public relations, which can be found on Public Relations Society of America’s website.

According to the PRSA Code of Ethics, we must “Act promptly to correct erroneous communications for which the member is responsible and investigate the truthfulness and accuracy of information released on behalf of those represented.” In the simplest terms, we must remain transparent. Transparency allows customers to build a trust with brands, in turn creating a loyal customer base. We are in the communications field, let’s communicate effectively.

Cross-Posting on Social Media and Why You Shouldn’t Do It

BY: Carolina Lafuente

As a brand, sharing on all your social media platforms is key to engaging with your audience. However, if you’re sharing the exact same post across different platforms, you’re probably not going to get much interaction. Your followers will notice and it comes off as impersonal and lazy from your part.

First and foremost, not all social media platforms are created equally. Therefore, each post should be appropriately tailored to specific outlets. Your Twitter audience wants short, in the moment updates, while your Instagram audience is much more visual. Twitter works great with links to lead your followers to your site. Instagram, not so much since you can’t embed links into captions.

Facebook might be the trickiest to reach your audience through. Facebook’s strange algorithm punishes you for that one video you might’ve posted that didn’t get much attention. This however may work to your brand’s benefit by challenging you to really get to know your audience. It is important to keep in mind that with Facebook, the amount of people your posts reach varies on how much interaction your previous posts receive.

Social media shouldn’t be taken too seriously though, unless you’re a serious news outlet. Instagram is one of the best ways to showcase your brand’s personality through photographs, videos and text. Your followers will resonate with posts that are personalized. Sometimes, the amount of likes and comments go further than the number of followers you have. Speaking of followers, don’t forget to reply to your followers on their posts to let them know you’re there and you’re listening. So go ahead, post that TGIF gif or photo, and don’t forget to add that hashtag.

Why You Should Use Snapchat for Your Business

By: Carolina Lafuente

    Snapchat is slowly growing more and more each day. Today, it’s even used as a news media outlet with its Discovery feature that features stories by media outlets such as ESPN, The Food Network, and CNN to name a few. Celebrities have it, bloggers have it, my friend’s little sister has it and has more followers than I do fresh out of high school.

    The truth is, the world is becoming more social media conscious to where if you don’t have a presence in a certain outlet, you might as well not be real. Snapchat can be used to a brand’s advantage to grow its presence by giving consumers an inside look to a company’s everyday functions, a behind the scenes experience.

    Snapchat can become a way to get consumers to get to know the people behind your brand and the work put into how products are made. It can also be used for promotional purposes to get your audience out to events your brand might be participating in or hosting. Show them the venue, talk about activities that might be included, and on the day of the event show them the end result. It may encourage others who didn’t make it to come out next time once they see what they’re missing.

    The best thing, and main purpose, of Snapchat is that it’s to tell stories. Tell your brand’s story, keep your audience engaged by giving them a treat at the end of story such as a discount code. Don’t be afraid to get creative, that’s what visual social media outlets are for. We are storytellers by nature, add your brand’s story to Snapchat.

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