Last month, thousands of social media professionals traveled to San Diego to participate in Social Media Marketing World, arguably the largest social media conference in the country. Hundreds of sessions at Social Media Marketing World were held ranging from creative content ideas to strategy sessions to emerging channels, but there was one topic that dominated the entire conference – paid social advertising trends.
You Must Pay to Play
As mentioned during Social Media Week in New York, chronological Newsfeeds no longer exist. With thousands of factors determining post placement, one thing is for sure, organic posts need a lot more help than before to get viewability from their audience. One way to find that audience is through new paid social advertising trends. By strategically planning your objective and identifying your core audience, you can create a paid social media plan that delivers the right message to the right user, but make sure the content is worthwhile.
Content + Paid = Winning!
As marketers find new ways to buck the Newsfeed algorithms, there is a common misconception – the more you post, the more likely people are to see your message. Quantity is not the answer. Think about your own personal usage. What kind of posts get you to stop scrolling? With Newsfeed inventory becoming limited and additional ad spaces becoming available, content has never been more important to capture the attention of users. Throw in some strategic advertising dollars and planning, and you’ve got yourself a winning combination to add to your paid social advertising trends.
Instagram is Copying Features . . . And Succeeding
Instagram has seen tremendous growth in the past year and continues to add in new features and offerings to compete with other platforms. One in every four users are active on Instagram Stories, aka what Snapchat does, resulting in more than 150 million users and counting. Instagram has also added in shoppable tags that echo some Pinterest features. Instagram also has been kind to marketers, as 54 percent advertise on Instagram, up 11 points from last year. Seven in every ten marketers want to learn more about paid social advertising trends on the photo platform as it shifts from sharing heavily filtered pictures of your food to driving you to buy that food.
Social Media is Cross-Departmental
Long gone are the days when successful companies left social media to their marketing department. With the rapid growth of each platform and the two-way street of communication, social media is no longer an afterthought. Social media jobs are becoming more granular and less general as there are multiple functions needed to run successful campaigns. A panel of executives from Dell, MGM Resorts International and ForRent.com all shared at Social Media Marketing World that when staffing social media positions, they are broken out into two different functions: roles that focus on content and branding and roles that focus on the digital or paid strategy. Successful companies are growing their social media footprint and staffing it with folks who have different market experiences as they all work together. Social media is the fastest changing industry, where platforms roll out new features on what feels like a weekly basis. At Goodway, we’re staying on top of the evolving paid social advertising trends and landscape and have found that paid social media is an essential part of running a holistic digital campaign. To learn more about our paid social media offerings and to make your digital buy more cohesive, contact us at [email protected] today.