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June 15, 2015

Three Ways to Win with Social Media Marketing in 2015

Screen Shot 2015-06-15 at 4.14.58 PM

Surveying more than 5,000 marketers from around the world, the 2015 State of Marketing report from Salesforce is a powerful glimpse into where some of the globe’s biggest companies are allocating marketing dollars and hours. Not only does it give companies some benchmarks to see how they stack up with their own strategies, but it also helps forecast where to focus energy going forward to compete for consumer attention. Now that we’re halfway through the year, I’m pulling out some of the more salient points from this year’s report to see how they stack up against reality.

Make it mobile first

For some brands, this goes without saying. But others are learning the hard way: With social media more and more serving as a content distribution tool in addition to an engagement platform — and with mobile use ever on the rise — it’s more important than ever that these pathways funnel back to a seamless conversion experience. We’ve seen companies invest thousands of dollars into email marketing or social ad strategies that fall flat when users respond to calls-to-action from a mobile device, pointing to the growing importance of mobile as a central product feature.

What this looks like:
That means ensuring all of your digital assets are designed with mobile in mind: Whether it’s an email leading to a sign-up form, an app that enables better brand engagement, or a tweet linking to a lead capture, all key components of the conversion funnel — from awareness to purchase — must be available via mobile device. Case in point: While last year’s Salesforce report indicated that brands were investing marketing dollars across a variety of tactics, this year saw social and mobile dominate the top five categories. Don’t be left behind!

Invest in Content Development

“Realize that spending more money on social media won’t work if your social presence is negligent or too self promotional,” cautioned Salesforce. “Advertising and organic content must work in tandem.” Most marketers know by now that organic reach of content on social platforms is essentially history — it’s nearly a requirement to boost posts with some ad dollars to see any traction. What many marketers still don’t get is the necessity of producing quality, non-promotional content that can survive Facebook’s strict, user-first standards.

What this looks like:
While we’ve long known that ads on the platform cannot contain more than 20% text, an algorithm update just last week upped the quality content ante even further: Now, Facebook will factor in time spent viewing a story to determine what appears in the proverbial News Feed. Said Salesforce: “Invest the resources — both headcount and budget — to support social as a viable channel, because it is.” This means factoring journalistic approaches, including the time and people to develop editorial calendars, gather sources, interview influencers, take photos and produce videos, etc., into social strategies and budgets.

Experiment with Social Media Platforms and Mediums

A few interesting data points came out of the report that all support the idea of experimentation. And why not, in a space where marketing spend can be relatively low for potentially high impact?

What this looks like:
Many marketers rely on familiar tactics and platforms until the model has been proven — but that’s a mistake when it comes to social, the very value of which lies discovering the undiscovered. For example, many brands assume Pinterest should be a part of their marketing strategy, yet this platform ranked amongst the lowest in efficacy among global marketers surveyed. On the other hand, lesser-known platforms, such as Tagged, ranked higher than even Facebook or Twitter on the effective scale. Similarly, emerging platforms like Meerkat (live streaming video), Periscope (Twitter’s live streaming app), Vine (six second live video clips, also owned by Twitter) and Snapchat (video messaging app) offer some novel ways to create engaging content — something we’ve had some fun (and success!) with for our own clients.

 The bottom line

With social media dominating 2015 marketing budgets — including social media advertising, social media marketing, and social media engagement as the top three areas for increased spending this year in the United States — now is a great time to invest in and experiment with mobile and content marketing strategies.