What’s Next in Social? With Etsy and Birchbox

Laura Chin Etsy

@lorwich

Rachel Silver Birchbox @racheljo

Our conversation focused on all the crazy changes in social media and how marketers are keeping up.

The key themes of the evening were…

…how social keeps getting more mobile.

…the rise of social spending.

…social’s more visual look.

…the pace of change in social.

…the move towards social data. Offerpop CMO Mark Cooper moderates a conversation with Rachel and Laura.

First, let’s face it. Social is going mobile. And marketers need to figure out how to adapt.

FFacebook is increasingly mobile. As of late last year, the social network had 680 million mobile users.

BTwitter naturally aligns with mobile given its texting-like features. It makes sense that 63% of users access them from a mobile device.

60% of smartphone owners access social

networks from their device on a daily basis.

22% of time spent on Android phones and iPhones is on social

networking apps.

Meanwhile, social media’s getting more respect – and more money. Spending on social is on a steep upswing.

$ Brands will spend 37% more on social this year.

And social’s slice of the budget is expected to rise from 8.4% to 21.6% over the next five years.

Social networks are getting more visual, too. Marketers need to think in pictures. Call it the Pinterest effect.

Sept. ‘12 Jan. ‘13

Pinterest broke into the most visited sites list in the US in September at 50th. By January it had rose to 39th.

"Facebook’s redesigned News Feed – where 40% of users time is spent – heavily emphasizes visual content, both for people and brands.

Shortly after Twitter released its Vine product, the new service saw more than 100,000 videos uploaded over a single weekend.

P Y

F U

H M

On January 15, Facebook ups its search efforts by announcing Graph Search

Two weeks later, Twitter releases Vine – inventing the six-second film

By February 5, Instagram decides to introduce a Web platform

On February 20, Twitter announced its Ad API

March 7 rolls around, and Facebook rolls out a new look for the News Feed

Not even a week later, Pinterest unveils analytics for business pages

Change is a constant. Almost every major social network has announced new features since January.

Social data is a huge opportunity for marketers. It’s also a big challenge.

Clearly, people are sharing data. 30 billion pieces of content are shared on Facebook every month.

500 million tweets are processed on Twitter per day.

Yet, CMOs consistently report that they don’t feel social media is well integrated with other marketing efforts.

So with all these topics, changes and challenges in mind, we got together to talk with Laura and Rachel.

Thinking about all the shifts we just mentioned, I’m curious: what’s the biggest way your job has changed over the past year?

It’s shifted from a community management role to a marketing strategist role. We’re working across departments, and sharing data about how customers are interacting and engaging with us.

We’ve become the educators internally. Social media is becoming much more important and it’s changing so rapidly that we’ve all had to pitch in to explain how it works, and how to be effective.

Of all the big updates to major social networks, which are you most excited about?

I’m really excited about the new Facebook News Feed. I think people will start to consume it like a personal newspaper, replacing services like Google Reader and RSS. I used to read like 300 articles a day on Reader, then I shifted to Twitter. But now I think Facebook could be the news aggregator. If brands do content well, then they’ll be able to take advantage of this change because it’s more visual.

How do you keep up with all the platform changes? What’s the vetting process?

Try everything that’s new, even if it doesn’t end up working. The idea is to get a sense of what works and what doesn’t. That way, you’re ahead of the trends.

Social is now the testing ground for new campaigns and ideas. Social has become an immediate focus group. Through our social campaigns, we get a sense of what content or campaigns are resonating.

How much do you pay attention to influencers? Are you targeting and identifying them?

We have a very active blogger and influencer community, and are always looking at ways to find new influencers to interact with. We create authentic relationships by engaging people that are fans of the brand who post, comment, or ask questions through a variety of platforms. We provide them with Birchbox news and content, invite them to exclusive events, and listen to their feedback.

We have relationships with all types of blogs with a range of followers, and we make sure we interact regularly with all of them.

Can you share some of your strategies for Facebook ads?

Our fans would rather see content than ads. So we’re ramping up Sponsored Posts, rather than creating traditional ads.

Our growth over the last two years has really been organic. When we do use Facebook ads, we often use Sponsored Posts to target fans and friends of fans, which makes our ad spend relevant.

How are you tackling the growing number of mobile users engaging with social campaigns?

We’re always surprised at how many people engage with us and shop on mobile, which is why we are constantly brainstorming ways to innovate. Our goal is to make the user experience enjoyable and seamless.

We’re trying to go from bucketing mobile as one thing to establishing the nuances between tablets and smartphones. It’s not all the same experience. So we try to design with these different experiences in mind, but don’t design exclusively for mobile.

How do you connect the physical experience of your brand with the social media experience?

We look to Etsy sellers to see how they market themselves. A lot of these tactics can be used across the company. Lately, they’ve been using Vine to show off their product features. So we’re looking into replicating that.

What I would do is setup an Offerpop campaign and then ask people to share the experience, using a specific hashtag, for a reward. We find people are really willing to share for a reward.

What is Social Marketers NYC? Expertise and insight. That's what it takes to be a social marketer in NYC - and every month we deliver. We bring together journalists, analysts, social marketers and even scientists to discuss trends, strategies and cultural shifts that impact our brands. Each session includes a short presentation and then a discussion with top experts. Members are encouraged to ask questions and share their own insights. And we leave plenty of time for networking with food and drinks. Join us at http://www.meetup.com/Social-marketers-nyc/

About Offerpop Offerpop is a super easy-to-use social marketing platform for Facebook and Twitter. Marketers across the globe use Offerpop to build active fan bases, optimize their social content, and unlock rich, actionable data that converts fans into customers. From small businesses to top brands like Amazon, Pepsi, and MTV, companies use Offerpop to drive success across their key marketing channels – engaging and converting fans like never before. Offerpop is a Facebook® Preferred Marketing Developer, qualified by the PMD program in Apps. Try us out for free at www.offerpop.com.