Where Is Social Media Now – And Where Is It Going?

Where are we with Social Media now?

Let’s start with….you guessed it…

• Facebook is the most ubiquitous social network in both Ireland and the

world, with 72% of the Irish population having an account.

• Facebook is also quickly becoming one of the largest advertising

platforms in the world and is constantly improving its advertising products

for businesses.

• 2.3 million people in Ireland log on to Facebook every month, with 1.8

million using it on a daily basis.

• 62% of the online population use Facebook at least once per month.

• 46% (1.14 million) of these users are male, 54% (1.26 million) are female.

• The largest age cohort on Facebook in Ireland is 25-34 year olds (circa

30% of audience).

• Irish people spend on average 5 hours per month on Facebook (3 hours

on Google sites).

• Almost 1.94 million use Facebook on their smartphones.

• 70% of Irish businesses use Facebook.

Why Should You Use It?

Make It Personal

• Let your personality shine through your page. Stay away from generic

boring posts - things like pictures of your staff, personal stories, and what

makes your brand unique will make you stand out from the rest.

Use Engaging Pictures

• Rich media like photos and videos get more attention and helps your

message stand out in the News Feed. Lifestyle images like the ones you

see from your friends on Facebook are always engaging. Try sharing

images of your products or photos of your customers enjoying your service

and keep your posts between 100 and 250 characters to get more

engagement. Shorter, more succinct posts are better received.

What Should You Post?

Video

• Content that engages potential customers is effective at keeping attention and getting them to focus on your brand amidst the

stream of noise on their newsfeeds. Rich media is much more engaging than text posts and traditional content.

• Facebook and now Twitter have introduced autoplaying videos in newsfeeds and with 4 billion video views per day, Facebook

has truly began to compete with YouTube as a video-sharing platform. Consumer attention spans are shorter than they used to

be as they are constantly bombarded with more and more advertising messages, and video seems to be a great way to grab

their attention.

Create a two-way conversation

• Ask your audience to share their thoughts and feedback on your products and services. This is another way to listen to your

customers and improve your business.Posting content that shows you took their feedback into consideration can build customer

loyalty and show you value their opinions.

Share exclusive discounts and promotions

• Offer special deals or perks to your customers to keep them interested and to drive online sales. Include call to actions with

links to the most relevant page on your website. Facebook Offers can be a great way to measure online traffic and the revenue

received from your social media efforts.

Where is it going?Tips To Stay on Top Of It -

Target your posts

• If your posts are meant for specific groups of people, you can target your post in your Page’s sharing tool by clicking on

the target icon at the bottom left corner and selecting Add Targeting. You can target your post based upon gender,

relationship status, educational status, interests, age, location, and language.

Facebook Advertising

• Facebook has really gone down the paid advertising route. It is one of the only ways you are going to see a good return

and grow your fanbase. At the moment when you post circa 3% of your fanbase will see it organically.

• With a Facebook budget in place each week you will see your fanbase and reach grow. This doesn't have to be a huge

amount, a budget of €20-€30 per week will make a noticeable difference. If you have a limited budget, pick your most

important post(s) for the week to sponsor to achieve the maxmimum impact.

• You can measure how effective your social media campaigns are from the ‘Insights’ page. You can track the reach (i.e.

how many people see your posts), how many new page likes you’ve gotten and how many people have engaged with

you over a period of your choosing. Take note of what is working and do more of that, and go back to the drawing board

(or maybe scrap) what isn’t working.

Are we moving too fast?

Not to worry all slides will be available to download after!

Next Up – Our favourite little birdie…

Why Should You Use It?

• There are roughly 700,000 daily users of Twitter in Ireland.

• We send, on average, 1 million tweets each day.

• Wednesday is the busiest day on Twitter in Ireland.

• 9-11pm is the busiest period on Twitter in Ireland. Early morning is the least busiest time.

• Irish Twitter users are active from 12 midday onwards.

• 30% of the Irish population over the age of 15 uses Twitter.

• 1 in 10 Irish twitter users tweet daily.

What Should You Post?

Listen and observe

• Take a moment to see what other businesses are doing on Twitter. You can find competitors and monitor relevant

conversations using search.twitter.com. When you see how other businesses interact with customers and what types of

content they share, you can try testing similar tactics to see which resonates most with your followers. Engage with your

customers on the topics that they are talking about, for example: Ireland match, UFC fights, etc.

Use the 80/20 principle

• 80% of your Tweets should focus on driving interactions with your followers, such as Retweets, replies, and favourites. Once

you’ve built some rapport, you can mix in direct offers or promotions that get followers to take actions

Let your personality shine

• Strive for an approachable communication style that is authentic and friendly without being overly formal. Wit and humour can

help in providing entertainment value.

Pair your competitions with Facebook

• If you are running a competition on Twitter, mirror it on Facebook. Ask people to retweet and this can be a great way to grow

your fanbase.

Where Is It Going?Tips To Stay on Top Of It-

Twitter Analytics-• Twitter, like Facebook, offers a wealth of insights into your posts and

followers. Visit

http://analytics.twitter.com and sign in to your account and click ‘Get Start

ed’. You will be met with the ‘Home’ section with a month by month round

up of your tweets and a summary of your performance over the last 28 da

ys versus the previous 28 days.

You can get navigate to the ‘Tweets’ page to see a graph of your impressions (same as ‘Reach’ on Facebook) for the last 28 days as well as information on each individual tweet. You can also navigate to the ‘Followers’ page to see information on your followers; their interests, gender, and other demographics.

• To sign up for Twitter Analytics visit - https://analytics.twitter.com/about

• You can target people based on their location, gender, interests, and more, and you can be as encompassing or specific as you’d like. Your results may vary depending on the details you provide for the campaign but the most important thing is to test things out and bring what you learn to your next campaign.

• Finally, set your budget for the campaign. You must set a daily budget and if you want can include a maximum budget for the campaign which will not be surpassed. You are asked whether to choose the pricing method - Automatic Bid or Maximum Bid. A bid is how much you pay per follower/engagement/link click/sign-up, whatever you selected as your objective. A maximum bid represents the maximum you are willing to pay for a single of the above whereas an Automatic Bid uses an algorithm to get the best results at the lowest price.

• When you are finished, save your campaign and you will now be able to use it to augment your efforts on Twitter.

• Once you have started using Twitter Analytics and Twitter Ads you will see an icon on each of your tweets which allows you to view insights for the tweet and gives you the option to promote it.

Twitter Advertising -

Hang In..Nearly There..

How much does a hipster weigh?

An INSTAGRAM!

Why Use It?

• 18% of the Irish population has an Instagram account.

• 46% of these use it on a daily basis.

What Should You Post?

Showcase your products

• You can post pictures and videos on Instagram and your content is only

limited by your imagination. Appealing pictures of your products usually

go down well. Succulent burgers, latté art, heavenly-looking cakes,

pictures of your fashion brands, pictures of your new car models, and so

on will all usually get a good response.

Show off your staff

• People love to see your personality so you can show off your staff and

premises every once in a while to give your account a human aspect.

Remember, social media is about telling a story so try to tell the story of

your business each day, or each week on your various platforms.

When Should You Post?

Post Regularly

• Depending on your business, posting once a week may be plenty and posting several times a day might be complete overkill, but

for another business the situation might be the complete opposite. Usually a couple times a week is plenty, but you can try out

different posting frequencies and see which gets the best response for the amount of resources spent. The most important thing is

to only post quality content that reflects well on your business. Do not post for the sake of posting.

Post when your audience is online

• Depending on who you are targeting with your Instagram account, you may want to post at different times in the day. Consider

when your audience might be online and post accordingly.

#UseHashtags

• Hashtags are extremely important on Instagram and you should always include a few at the end of your post. Take a look at what

hashtags similar businesses are using and use whichever are appropriate for your business. People search for popular hashtags

and may come across your content purely because of your choice of hashtags. Things like #foodporn (not as inappropriate as you

might think) and #yum are good for food, #thingsorganizedneatly for tidy arrangements of products, and so on.

• Most importantly, see what people are using, and use popular hashtags as they will have more impact than your own personal

ones.

Last but not least –SNAPCHATHere is one Eoin did earlier…

Why Use It?• 22% of the Irish population has a Snapchat account, 66% of whom check it on a daily basis -

that's 14% of the Irish population checking it on a daily basis.

• Snapchat is an often forgotten social network and many brands ignore it as they do not see the value. Snapchat provides a great medium for interacting with fans, and as you are sending a picture rather than just a textual message, it is far more personable.

• Snapchat's 'My Story' functionality provides a good platform for high-velocity messaging. Brands can add a snap to their story which all of their fans can see but only lasts for 24 hours. Also, as you only see the story when you actively look for it, it does not bother the people who don't want to see it and instead rewards the people who do seek it out with a wealth of content.

• The people we have identified who use Snapchat well all have a common element to their strategy - they create content (i.e. take photos) specifically and exclusively for Snapchat that is of significant interest for their fans. They have conditioned their fans to actively seek out this content to the extent that they will contact the brand to look for it if it is not there.

That’s Us Done! Thank you for your time!

Now in the words of Alf Stewart –Rack off you flamin galahs!