50 Stats That Should Guide Your Social Media Marketing Strategy in 2018

holbi.co.uk

In the past year, social media has become the essential part of forming strategies for digital marketing. Using social media, it becomes easier to gather lots of useful information on users and you can sell your products using several different platforms. It also allows you to build your brand making it popular and visible to many users around the world. In essence, you can reach a great number of customers at a low cost.

Your future customers are already on social media, waiting to stumble upon your content and follow you. Find the best platform for your needs and you will definitely be noticed by new different users.

The world of social media is always changing. Be sure to keep up with the numbers.

Here is a list of 50 stats that can help you build your marketing strategy in the year to come.

1. Posts that have visual content are 40 times more likely to get noticed and shared than any other types of posts.

Boost your social media attention by adding images to your posts. Use some engaging images and get more shares and more views. Visual content is something that will always get more attention.

2. Posts that have tags with another user (56%) or a tagged location (79%) have remarkably higher sharing and participating rates.

When adding your next post, be sure to add some tags of people and places. Show your readers where are you and with whom. Let your followers know that you are on the move and that some interesting people are part of your everyday life.

3. It usually takes about 10 hours for a brand to get back to a customer when communicating online.

Try to keep your response time under 4 hours. Your followers and users will appreciate it. In this fast world we live in, everybody wants to get everything done in no time. Efficiency is a great way to show your fans that you take your brand and your customers very seriously.

4. About 89% of messages sent to brands via social media are being ignored.

This is something you should avoid. Your customers will stay loyal if you engage with them. Your presence on social media is all about communicating with your followers. Every customer should get your attention, don’t let them down by not answering their messages.

5. 91% of marketers that spend about 6 hours a week on social media said that this has increased their social media success.

By spending as little as 6 hours a week on your social media presence you can make more sales and get noticed by more new users. The more time you invest, the more success you will get. But, in the world of social media, even a little time can come back as a lot of new fans.

6. Posts that ask questions bring 100% more comments.

Your goal is to get more engagement from your followers. Try to post content that poses some interesting questions. These can be related to your brand or some general questions.

7. When making a purchase, 46% of users turn to social media for feedback.

Social media is the best way to see feedback and reviews from other customers before you decide to purchase from a specific brand. Having a team that is dedicated to social media is very important. They will make sure to answer questions from users and handle customer service problems.

8. Social media is used by 72% of marketers to establish more loyal customers.

Being on social media is the perfect way to create relationships with your fans. Brand loyalty is incredibly valuable and that is something to aim for. And interacting with people that follow you will for sure help you get customers that will stay loyal.

9. 78% of Twitter users that post a complaint to a brand expect a response within an hour.

Monitor your social media everyday. Customer service that responds in a timely manner is very important to keep users happy.

10. Out of all internet users, 72% are active on social media right now.

Your customers are online on social media right now, and you should also be there connecting with them.

11. People under 35 make 90% of Instagram users.

Instagram is the social media to go to when targeting Millennials. Teenagers believe that Instagram in the most important social media platform. Out of all internet users, 38% of women use Instagram, and 26% of men use it.

12. 71% of customers that have a good social media experience with a brand are going to suggest it to others.

Social media is a great way to engage with customers and setting up a good customer service will bring more new consumers. Providing a great social media experience is always a good thing to be known for.

13. Instagram has 58% more interaction per user than Facebook, and 68% of Instagram users interact with brands more frequently.

The Instagram trend is only going to expand. More and more companies are starting to use Instagram as a big part of their internet presence and for social media marketing strategy.

14. Optimal days and time for Facebook posts are Wednesday 3 PM, Saturday and Sunday 12-1 PM and Thursday and Friday 1-4 PM.

To cover all of the popular posting time, try using some tools that allow you to schedule your posts. Most of those tools are free and easy to use.

15. About 64% of marketers use social media for 6 or more hours per week, 41% use it for 11 hours every week.

There are those that spend more time on social media. 20% of marketers spend more that 20 hours every week dedicated to social media activities.

16. 54% of marketers use Instagram, 63% are planning to enlarge their Instargam presence.

70% of marketers want to learn more about how to use this social media platform. Instagram is a powerful platform when it comes to social media marketing. If it isn’t a part of your strategy, you should definitely rethink it.

17. About 61% of marketers are planning to start with live video services like Facebook Live and Periscope.

And there are 69% that want to learn more about how to use and benefit from live video. The live video is just a new trend that you would need to follow to get the most of social media marketing.

18. The number of users between 45 and 54 years old is the fastest growing population on Facebook.

For Facebook, this group increased by 46.

Social media is definitely not just for teenagers anymore. Age makes a difference when it comes to our interests and taste, so keep in mind older users too. Don’t force your content only on younger followers, you could be losing some of the older audience.

19. About 30% of Millenials communicate with brands at least once per month.

If this is your target group, regular posts and updates can get the attention of your young followers. Millenials like fun and visual content, try adding a little humour to your posts and your fans will just love it.

20. 67% of luxury brands in retail are active on Instagram.

On Instagram is all about photos, and this is great for luxury brands because they can show off their products and help their customers visualize that they already own some of their products.

21. On average, every Twitter user follows 5 or more brands.

Twitter users have always been known to be more loyal to brands than Facebook users. Use that in your advance, and engage with your Twitter fans more.

22. People between 18 and 34 years old are more likely to follow a brand on social media.

See what would be the best social media platform for your customers to follow your brand. Every platform has its perks and your new customers are definitely out there.

23. 97% of users between 16 and 64 years old say that they logged into at least one social network in the past month.

There are about 3.7 billion people using the internet and if you target it well, your content will definitely seen by some of them.

24. More than 3 million businesses are advertising on Facebook.

Attract more customers with your ads and make use of the huge reach that Facebook offers.

25. There is a 89% better engagement rate on posts with pictures on LinkedIn, and 200% more engagement on posts that have links.
LinkedIn should definitely be a part of your startegy purely based on the amount of people on the network that have a large budget to play with.

26. 62% of marketers are on Facebook.

Facebook holds the highest spot when it comes to social media marketing. New statistics show that might not be for very long.

27. 93% of marketers use Facebook ads regularly and 64% are planning to expand their ads actions.

Facebook ads have brought lots of success, so this is definitely a thing to consider.

28. 80% of marketers have shown that their social media strive has increased their audience.

29. On Facebook posts usually contain photos (75%) and links (10%)

Photos are most used in posts and they also get most of attention and also more shares. Try a photo editor to make your pictures more unique and eye-catching.

30. People follow brands on social media for five reasons: customer service, product information, discounts, promotions and for some fun content.

31. 83.8% of luxury brands have profiles on Pinterest.

A great way to incorporate your products into some boards on Pinterest. Pinterest users make boards on dream homes, vacations, dream closets and on everything from their wish list. This way they can use some of your pictures for their posts.

32. eBay is the most interacting brand on Twitter.

Learn from the best in order to see what will work best for you.

33. Two new members join LinkedIn every two seconds.

LinkedIn is a platform worth paying attention to. You can connect with other professionals from your industry and a good way to focus on new customers.

34. Social media is used for business by 93% of marketers.

It has become very common and very essential to include social media in marketing strategy and in the overall marketing budget. Be sure to find the best best social media management tool that will fit your needs.

35. Instagram has the highest per-follower interaction rate, wich is 4.21%. That is 58 times more than on Facebook and 120 times more than on Twitter.

Instagram is a very powerful social media platform for marketing and it is just growing more and more.

36. Facebook has about 8 billion video views on a daily basis from 500 million users.

Include some videos in your Facebook posts and those will definitely be noticed.

37. On average, every Twitter user has 707 followers.

Put some interesting content in your tweets to get more shares and more audience. Some fun pictures and interesting questions are always got to incorporate in your tweets and you will for sure get a good feedback from your fans.

38. 1 billion hours are spent every day by people watching YouTube videos.

If YouTube wasn’t part of your social media marketing strategy, you should definitely consider it now.

39. More that 50% of YouTube views come from mobile devices. 40 minutes is the length of an average mobile device viewing session.

With more and more users use their phones all the time, brands have the possibility to reach them on the go.

40. After Instagram launched videos, more than 5 million were uploaded in 24 hours.

Instagram videos are something you sould not take for granted. That is a great way to get more shares from your followers. It is a great way to tell a little story about your brand in a short video.

41. 200 million users are actively using Pinterest every month. 67% of those users are under 40.

Pinterest is a great way to target younger population. Try incorporating your content into a good picture so that your follower can include it in their board and share it on.

42. The best time for Pinning is Saturday from 8- 11 PM.

Pinterest also has it’s prime time for pinning. When planning your Pinterest content, also try some tools for scheduling your pins.

43. Social media is the number one activity on the internet.

Social media is here to stay. More and more platforms are created and social reach continues to grow. If you were not putting your 100% into your social media marketing strategy, this stat should definitely make you rethink that.

44. YouTube has more users between 18 and 34 than any cable network.

It is time to consider putting YouTube in your strategy. Start with simple and short videos about your company.

45. 95% of people between 18 and 34 years old are most likely to follow a brand page on their social media.

See where could you find most of your customers. Do a bit of research about your targeted audience and what social media platforms they are using.

46. About 189 million of Facebook users access it only from their mobile device.

There are surely more users that are mobile-only. See how your content looks when viewed on a mobile device and on a small screen before you post it.

47. Over the year, Snapchat’s Daily Video Views have expanded about 400%.

Snapchat ads are viewed more that 1 million times a day and this means that there are more opportunities to stand out on this social media platform. Snapchat now has more video views than Facebook.

48. 67% of Twitter users would buy from the brands they are following on Twitter.

This is why you should be present on Twitter and interact with your followers. Fans will always appreciate the effort you put into your social media appearance.

49. 66% of marketers have a team that is dedicated only to their social media marketing.

Managing social media can be a lot of work when done right. More and more brands have their own team for managing social media marketing strategies or they hire an agency to do that for them.

50. 1.65 billion social accounts are active globally and every day that number rises by 1 million.

Mobile ads are not expensive and are very easy to make. These numbers are telling you that you need to optimize your mobile social media strategy right now. Now what are you waiting for? #GetCracking.

Original Post: https://www.holbi.co.uk/social-media-marketing-stats

With Blockchain, Ownerless Businesses are on the Horizon

coincentral.com

Owners Schmowners

Almost every industry now is utilizing blockchain technology to improve their processes and become more efficient. However, there’s still one bottleneck that every employee, middle manager, and executive deals with on a daily basis: sweet, sweet bureaucracy. How effective can a business really be if most decisions need four levels of approval before you can take action?

Ownerless businesses may seem like a bad storyline from a Sci-Fi movie, but we’re actually closer to this reality than it seems. Let’s build a business from the ground up and see exactly how we get there.

Step One: Ownerless Formation

To form our ownerless business, we’re going to set up a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) using smart contracts on the Ethereum network. Before moving on, though, we should define a few of those terms.

A smart contract is a piece of computing programming that executes automatically when certain conditions are met. These can be as simple as “Jan pays Bob $10 each day it rains in Chicago,” where the smart contract pulls data from a weather service. Or, you can string together multiple smart contracts to create complex legal documents like land registry and business ownership. We’re doing the latter.

Simply put, a DAO is a decentralized model for businesses. It’s comprised of smart contracts governing how the business should operate. All of a DAO’s business decisions and financial actions are recorded on a public, immutable blockchain. Each participant (token holder) in a DAO gets a vote on how the company is run. There’s no single leader.

Now that we’ve created our DAO with some simple business rules, it’s time to host an initial coin offering (ICO). We’ll name our coin Ownerless Business Token – OBT for short. Investors buy OBT tokens in the ICO so they can have a say in company actions and receive compensation according to the rules of the original smart contracts.

As an investor, your ownership is almost completely liquid. You can sell your OBT at any time on the open market to relinquish your votes and stake in the company. This is vastly different than the oftentimes illiquid equity you find in private companies.

After the ICO, our DAO runs a few polls to determine what type of business we’re running and how certain roles will receive compensation. For the sake of this example, let’s assume we voted on an e-commerce platform for shoes.

Step Two: Robotic Automation

We’re already running an ownerless business, but why stop there? The world is moving towards automation, and so should we. Additional smart contracts through the DAO voting structure determine the majority of our business decisions, but operations still require significant human interaction. On a daily basis, we need a labor force to receive shipments, store inventory, package shoes, make deliveries, etc…

With the advancement of the Internet of Things (IoT), this doesn’t need to be the case. We can automate every step of the process, from when the customer orders to when they receive their product, and integrate it all with our smart contract system. With automation, a typical order goes something like this:

1. Order Generated. A customer orders a pair of shoes. In doing so, they enter into a smart contract that states, “When I (the customer) receive my shoes, send payment from myself to Ownerless Business.”
2. Order Received. Our shoe warehouse receives the order and prepares the shoes for shipment. After some initial set-up, a fleet of robotics can control this entire process. It may seem far-fetched, but Amazon has already been using robots in their warehouses for a few years now. At each step of the process, a machine monitors the status of the customer’s shoes and records the status on, you guessed it, our blockchain.

3. Product Shipped. Because the shoes are recorded on the blockchain, our customer can confidently check the status of his order at any time. Once packaged, our warehouse robotics team sends the shoes out for shipping. For further destinations, an autonomous truck would carry the shoes. For closer ones, a drone suffices. Luckily, in this example, our customer is just a mile away.
4. Product Received. Using GPS coordinates for the address, the drone autonomously flies the package to our customer’s location and drops off the shoes. Upon successful delivery, the smart contract executes and we receive payment from our customer.

Step Three: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Delegation

Now, our business is ownerless, and we’ve automated our operations, but there’s still room for improvement. Let’s remove the final human factors from this business, and delegate the rest of the tasks to our AI underlings. Roles involving marketing, business strategy, and advertising have historically been human-centric, but even this is changing.

Blockchain projects like DeepBrain Chain and SingularityNET are working towards making AI more accessible and more intelligent. Both projects are creating a supercomputer network capable of complex analytics and intensive deep learning. Marketers and business leaders alike are already incorporating this type of data deep dive into their operations, and adoption is showing no signs of slowing down.

Integrating with one of the previously stated projects provides the opportunity to automate almost all of our business strategy processes over time. Marketing, finance, process improvement – all done through machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Already, this new technology has proven to be more effective than human analysis in several financial sectors. And, there’s no reason why this shouldn’t carry true for other practices.

With that final piece, we’ve expanded beyond an ownerless business to a truly humanless company.

A Brave New World?

Now, this is clearly an extreme example. We’ll probably never live in a world completely operated by artificially intelligent machines. We still need human thinking to create innovative and creative ideas. But, it is reasonable to believe that some simple, ownerless businesses will exist.

Imagine efficient, worldwide food delivery at the cheapest prices because, as a business with no owners, there’s no need to force profit. The business just needs to make enough to stay afloat. When you take a look at how this can be applied to providing basic human necessities, the implications are pretty amazing.

“This article was originally published at CoinCentral.com”: https://coincentral.com/blockchain-ownerless-businesses-horizon/

From Idea to Market-Ready: Understanding the Mobile App Development Process

business.com

Want to create a mobile app but don't know where to start? From idea description to marketing tips, here's how to navigate the complex mobile app development process.

The process of creating a mobile app is not limited to coding. It involves many stages, including idea description and clarification, communication with a software development company, cost estimation, prototyping, design, back-end and mobile development, release and marketing.

Yes, it’s complex – but the game is certainly worth the candle!

According to GeoMobile, users spend three hours, 23 minutes a day in apps (compared to 50 minutes on mobile web and a little over two hours spent on PCs). Whether you plan to deliver the ultimate experience to your mobile customers or build an app-based business, you’re on the right track.

The App-Making Process: 3 Steps to Success

1. Idea description and requirements analysis

Contact a software development company and give a general description of your application. For example, “I need a food ordering app, like Domino’s, with the restaurant menu displayed on the home screen."

The software development company will then prepare a ballpark cost estimate using the app you referred to as a reference. The cost of building a restaurant app depends on various factors. These include the country you outsource the development work to, the size of a development company, platform choice, the pricing model, the scope of work, etc. No software development company will give you an accurate estimate based on your general description – and that’s where the requirements elicitation process begins. Be ready to meet your Account Manager and tech lead in person/on Skype to decide on your app’s feature set – that is, the list of features that will help your customers pick a meal, place an order and make a secure payment.

Together with the vendor, you’ll choose the target platform. As a rule, it’s Android and iOS, so you’ll have to build two native apps to ensure seamless experience on multiple devices. Also, you need to decide on a pricing model. Building a food ordering app is not rocket science, so you’ll probably sign a Fixed Price (FP) contract and be able to plan software development costs in advance. Depending on the complexity of your project, the communication part may take up to several weeks. In the end, however, you’ll have a detailed technical vision listing all the functional (what your app should do) and non-functional (how the app is going to do it) requirements for your project.

If you’re going to take the Fixed Price approach, make sure the tech vision covers all the features you’d like to enable in your application. If you realize you want to add extra features to the scope in the midst of the development process, you’ll have to sign a supplementary agreement and pay for those features separately. According to your FP contract, you won’t be able to review your team’s work until the very end of the dev process.

As another option, you can sign a Time & Material (T&M) contract and be more hands-on with the project – that is, prioritize the app features on the scope, review the work at the end of each sprint (which usually last for two to four weeks) and conduct face-to-face and phone meetings with your team. The T&M model is more suitable for complex and knowledge-intensive mobile app projects dealing with cutting-edge technologies like the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence or augmented reality. However, your cost will be harder to predict. 

2. Mobile app design and development

The user interface (UI) part of an app is just the tip of the iceberg. The mobile app logic is enabled by a server, which is built with web development technologies like PHP, .Net, Ruby, etc.

Here the “app logic” term refers to many things, including live chat (your customers might want to message call center employees or delivery personnel directly), social features (including the integration with social networks, comments, ratings, etc.), referral/customer loyalty program elements (invitations, bonus points and discounts) and payments. Also, you’ll need a web-based admin console to update menu and pricing information, manage locations, track orders and define delivery area.

A great mobile app is a set of modules which can be developed and deployed independently. Going back to the food ordering app example, it will feature multiple modules like communication, social features, payments, delivery service and chain management.

How do you know what features will prove useful to your customers? You can only tell once you try, so you probably should start with a Minimum Viable Product (aka the very basic version of your app), conduct testing and expand its feature set based on user feedback.

Finally, there’s the design part. Your design decisions should be based on a through user research; you might even get a bit more technical about it and create simple app wireframes in Balsamiq before you address a mobile app development company to explain your idea better. Together with a user experience (UX) designer, you’ll figure out how app screens should be connected to each other to help your customers place orders in the most convenient way and make sure the design meets the App Store and Google Play requirements.

3. Mobile app marketing

Four to five months later your app will be ready to launch – and here comes the hardest part: app marketing. Although apps now consume over 90 percent of the total mobile time, most smartphone owners use just 30 apps on a regular basis. These include Facebook and Instagram, mobile games, educational apps and business tools.

Marketing the app to customers who attend your physical restaurants is one thing; what if you’re operating an online food delivery business only? Obviously, you need to create some buzz around your project before the app goes live. Be sure to allocate a sufficient marketing budget (expect around $30K-plus) to do the following:

• Think of an app feature that will help you stand out from the competition (something like Domino’s Zero Clicks will do).
• Build a simple WordPress promo website with an explainer video and information about your project. Then start a Google AdWords campaign to get some traffic and encourage users to subscribe for updates.
• Run a blog documenting the app making process and share news on social media.
• Start with an MVP and conduct early tests to refine your product.
• Plan a soft launch to test your business model.

Easier said than done, right? With the average cost per install (CPI) in the USA hitting $ 1.64 (iOS) and $ 1.91 (Android) last year, marketing a new app on a tight budget is a real challenge. Perhaps you can draw inspiration from Eat24 – a food delivery company that decided to advertise their services on adult websites and won big.

How ‘Mobile-Only’ Audiences Stack Up To ‘Multi-Platform’ Audiences

pymnts.com

While consumers are still using multiple platforms — such as desktop and mobile — “mobile-only” users are on the rise. In fact, “mobile-only” users surpassed 30 percent of users in almost half of the markets studied by comScore in 2017 for its “Global Digital Future in Focus” report.

“Global digital landscapes continue to evolve in often surprising ways,” Will Hodgman, EVP of International Sales at comScore, said in a press release.

With the rise of mobile, merchants are adapting mobile to their omnichannel strategies. In fact, 70 percent of the top 10 tier of merchants offer geo-aware apps. And 100 percent of the top 10 tier of merchants offer product purchases through apps, according to the PYMNTS OmniReadi Index.

— Google and Facebook dominate the top five app charts around the world — In the U.S., for example, the top five apps are Facebook, YouTube, Google Search, Facebook Messenger and, now, Snapchat. Advertisers are taking note of Snapchat. Advertising intelligence company Media Radar estimated that advertisers will spend around $1.7 billion on Snapchat campaigns this year. Nike has already released a pair of new Air Jordan sneakers on Snapchat last month — and the shoes sold out in just 23 minutes.

— The size of mobile audiences grew almost universally — In fact, “mobile-only” audiences are second to “multi-platform” users, according to the report. In the U.S., for example, the reach of “mobile-only” audiences increased by 4.6 percentage points, while Mexico saw 9.0 percentage point growth. Mobile is important because just about everyone in the world had a mobile device as of 2016. About half of those devices were smartphones — the fastest-selling gadget in the history of gadgets. By the year 2020, about 80 percent of the adult population will own one.

— Apps account for more than 80 percent of mobile time in the markets studied in the report — In the U.S., for example, 88 percent of mobile minutes were spent in apps. A new report, for example, shows that the mobile app economy is healthy and shows no signs of slowing down. App Annie recently released its annual end-of-year retrospective report, finding that there were 175 billion downloads globally in 2017 — a 60 percent growth from 2015. In addition, consumer spending has more than doubled, exceeding $86 billion, while time spent in apps increased by 30 percent, with each user spending nearly 1.5 months in apps per year.

— India, Indonesia and Mexico have large and mainly exclusive mobile audiences — There is an almost even divide on the relative overlap of mobile users with desktop users in India, Indonesia and Mexico, suggesting that mobile has created new digital audiences in these countries more than other nations with large mobile audiences. The news comes as India overtook the United States to become the world’s second largest smartphone market in 2017. According to news from a report by Canalys, smartphone shipments in India grew 23 percent year over year in Q3 2017 to reach just over 40 million units, making the country the world’s second largest smartphone market after China.

— Video growth was led by — but not only on — mobile devices — More specifically, minutes spent on watching online videos grew three times as quickly on mobile devices than on desktops over the past 12 months — which is an opportunity for marketers. In the Reedeux CONNEXT app, for example, consumers can use it to connect to goods through interactive programming, which can be done via a separate mobile device — or, in some cases, directly through the television the customer is watching. The company has already partnered with Samsung’s U.S. business to integrate its CONNEXT app with the South Korean electronics giant’s phones, laptops and televisions, while also showcasing these products on television shows.

While it may seem that the shift from time spent on desktops to mobile has shrunk the desktop marketplace, the comScore report offers an important caveat: “Many country / category desktop audiences [in fact] remain larger, with corresponding considerations in reaching and marketing to these users.”