Picture Credits: Social Media Examiner 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
In the bewildering array of social media channels I'm always interested to meet people who have shunned their use because they don't see their competitors using them. This is especially true in B2B marketing so I was interested in the latest trends in the use of social media in both the B2B and B2C sectors and some of the key benefits shown in the latest report from Social Media Examiner.
It's clear that not all channels are created equal and choosing to use social media should be based on determining how you believe you can use them to create value for your target audience, rather than copying your competitors. However I was intrigued to read the latest Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Michael Stelzner at Social Media Examiner and their findings.
Most commonly used social media channels
Picture Credits: Social Media Examiner 2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report
The benefits of social media Source: Social Media Examiner
This is the 11th year of research for the report and it reveals several benefits that the industry is seeing from the use of social media channels. The research shows that 70% of those who’ve used the channels more than a year are saying that they’re helping them to get more sales.
ROI - the thorny issue
Less than half of marketers surveyed (44%) were able to measure ROI on their organic social media activity which is still an issue for the majority of marketers.
Key Facebook usage trends by marketers
This was the first time that Facebook has lost share (6%) as the more important social media channel and it’s clear that Instagram has been increasing in popularity by 4% since the 2018 report. I think this is a wake up call for Facebook to assist clients to measure their marketing activities and their recent moves to provide analytics for their videos is a step in the right direction.
Most important channels
The report confirms that Facebook and Instagram are the most important channels for B2C marketers and Facebook and Linkedin are most important for B2B marketers. It’s clear that YouTube has been gaining traction whilst Twitter and Facebook are not used as much as they were and messenger bots and Snapchat are being used less.
Where is the future focus?
It was interesting to note that more marketers surveyed wanted to learn more about Instagram than Facebook and B2B marketers are keen to learn more about Linkedin and both plan to use YouTube more. There was a distinct interest in doing more video and the most used video duration is 1-3 minutes, followed by shorter 16-59 second videos.
The key differences in B2B and B2C use of social media
B2B marketers are making much more use of Linkedin, I have long been a fan of SlideShare as an excellent channel for B2B video marketing as it has more standout than in YouTube. Linkedin is four times more important for B2B than B2C and Twitter nearly twice as important to B2B than B2C.
How much time should I spend on social media channels?
The report offers some helpful insights into how much time marketers are spending on their social marketing. 64% are spending over 6 hours a week with 19% of respondents spending over 20 hours a week.
Key recommendations
Benchmarking with your peer group using this report can be very beneficial but I would also ensure you have a dashboard to track your ongoing performance. Try using the free tools such as the Agora Pulse Barometer which will benchmark your Facebook performance against similar Facebook pages and ensure you have set up your competitors in your Facebook insights page so you can see how they're doing at a glance and key weekly movements in their levels of fan acquisition and engagement.
I encourage you to download the Social Media Examiner report here to learn more and do share your comments below.
This report was based on respondents as follows: 55% USA, 9% UK, 7% Canada, 4% Australia, 4% India and 21% ROW.
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