2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report

By Michael Stelzner
Published May 19, 2014

Do you wonder how your peers are using social media?

Wondering if you should focus on Instagram or podcasting, or put more effort into blogging?

In our sixth annual social media study, more than 2800 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, which social tactics are most effective and how content plays a role into their social media marketing.

Watch this video overview:

To understand how marketers are using social media, Social Media Examiner commissioned its sixth annual 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

We set out to uncover the “who, what, where, when and why” of social media marketing with this report.

A significant 2800+ marketers provided valuable insight you won’t find elsewhere.

In this free report, you’ll discover:

What social platforms marketers will focus on in the futureThe top social media questions marketers want answeredHow much time marketers invest with social media activitiesThe top benefits of social media marketing and how time invested affects resultsThe most common forms of content for social media marketingAnd much more!

We examine how B2B social media marketing varies from B2C businesses, how larger businesses vary from smaller businesses and much more.

If you’re responsible for marketing your business, you’ll want to closely analyze the pages of this free 50-page report and use it to persuade others.

LIMITED TIME: UNTIL May 30th, you can freely access this report.

>> Download the report here (see instructions below). Alternatively, read report online below…

NOTE: Having trouble downloading? The file is large and may not display properly in some browsers. Try following the directions below (note that the words in the menus may vary by browser):

What do you think about these findings? Please share your comments in the box below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Michael Stelzner

Michael Stelzner is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, founder of My Kids' Adventures and author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers. He's also the host of the Social Media Marketing podcast. Other posts by Michael Stelzner »

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How to Use Behavioral Triggers to Spur Social Media Actions

By Luke Summerfield
Published May 22, 2014

Did you know using facts and figures instead of images can lower interaction?

Do you appeal to your audience’s emotions to drive sales?

Our brains are hardwired to base decisions on emotion and familiarity.

In this article I’ll show you four ways you can use behavorial triggers to get more out of your social media marketing.

As a marketer, your job is to drive behavior in others–whether it be a click, like or purchase.

It can be a challenge to know how to inspire those actions, but a little background on how people process and react to their surroundings can help you do just that.

I’m going to tell you about the basics of our “brain biology,” and then give you examples of how you can use it to your advantage.

Hubspot appeals to our attraction to ‘new’ things.

Don’t worry! This isn’t going to be an in-depth, long, boring study of the brain. I’m going to give you a few points that I hope will give you that “Ah-ha!” moment and boost your ability to reach your audience and guide them through engagement that leads to sales.

In order to understand why any of this matters, it’s important to first understand (at least at a very high level) a bit more about the brain. So let’s get to it.

Your brain is split into two main sections: new and old.

Knowing how each section functions helps you tailor your marketing tactics to engage the part of the brain that drives behavior and influences our decisions.

Your new brain controls all of your conscious, rational and analytical thought. It’s responsible for your language and long-term thinking. When you talk about facts, figures, features and statistics, you’re speaking to the new brain. Decision-making doesn’t happen here.

Your old brain controls behavior, decision-making and emotions, but it can’t process words, numbers or language—it’s the opposite of the new brain.

Think of brains in terms of old and new versus left and right. Image: iStockPhoto

What all that boils down to is that when you use facts and figures or list features and benefits, it has little impact on someone’s behavior or buying decisions.

When you use visual content and appeal to emotion, you get results because the old brain makes a connection with that emotional content and prompts action—clicking, liking, sharing and buying.

Below are four ways you can use the brain’s natural responses to create more effective marketing campaigns.

Our brains evolved many thousands of years ago and we’re hardwired to be attracted to other people’s faces. We subconsciously look for non-verbal facial cues to build context around a situation so we can behave accordingly.

In short, people look at faces to set the tone (gauge the emotion) of an interaction.

The fashion industry takes advantage of this instinct. In the example below, Gucci included their product, but your eye is likely drawn to the model’s face first.

We instinctively look for faces before products.

Although highlighting a model’s face instead of their product sounds counterintuitive, it’s actually a powerful tool. The face catches your attention then pulls your attention to the clothing or accessory.

Marketing takeaway: When possible, focus on the face and use facial expressions in your images to help grab the viewer’s attention and set the tone for your post. Because people react to non-verbal cues from the face, you want the face to match the emotion you’re trying to inspire in the viewer.

Have you ever wondered why you cringe when you see someone fall off a skateboard? You’re not the one falling off the skateboard, so why do you flinch from the “pain”?

This reaction is caused by what’s called mirror neurons in the brain. When you see pictures or video of an action, your mirror neurons make you feel like you’re actually performing the actions you’re watching.

This has huge implications for marketers who want to inspire specific emotions and experiences in their audience.

Have you ever looked at Red Bull’s Facebook or Instagram feeds? They do a phenomenal job of showcasing high-adrenaline experiences like the Strato Jump and windsurfing.

Millions watched and held their breath as Felix Baumgartner jumped from the stratosphere.

When their fans see these incredible pictures and videos, their mirror neurons start firing on all cylinders, which causes them to feel the same emotions, even if only subconsciously, as the people in the picture.

Did you watch Felix Baumgartner break the sound barrier? How did you feel while watching? I’m betting you were just as tense as the rest of us.

Many of Red Bull’s posts don’t even show their product (though they do include their logo). The brand’s intent is to evoke an emotion when fans see their posts. Over time that kind of marketing conditions those fans and followers to feel those same exhilarating emotions simply by seeing the Red Bull logo.

Even still pictures convey intense activity.

Marketing takeaway: Introduce photos and videos that show others having a powerful experience. It doesn’t matter whether the experience shows your product or an unrelated experience. The important thing is to reinforce the emotions you want associated with your brand.

I’m sure you’ve seen (or maybe even created) a commercial, marketing video or picture that really struck an emotional chord—probably because it reminded you of something you experienced in your own life.

Speaking directly to your audience’s previously stored memories is a powerful marketing tool because it immediately evokes emotion. You can then use that emotion to drive behavior or associate that emotion with your brand (similar to triggering mirror neurons as explained above).

P&G produced one of the best online and TV ads I’ve ever seen for the 2014 Olympics. The advertisement played heavily on viewers’ childhood memories and their relationships with their mothers.

Because many of the scenes in the advertisement are probably familiar memories from most viewers’ childhoods, it packed a powerful punch. It left many with goosebumps (or tears) every time they saw it. The ad ended up going viral with over 20 million views on YouTube!

Marketing takeaway: Find a common experience most people have had—memories from childhood or a strong relationship from the past are ideal—then tailor your social media marketing to trigger those memories.

With repetition and consistency, your audience begins to tie those emotions to your brand, product or service. The result is an influence on behavior.

Since our early days, our brains have been attracted to things we’re familiar with because they give us a sense of security and safety from predators so we could go about our daily lives.

However, as much as we’re drawn to the familiar, we’re equally intrigued with new things. It’s human nature to innovate and improve ourselves. Anything “new” promises that opportunity.

People have an underlying urge to share knowledge in order to look good or in-the-know (you want to be an influencer, right?). So when we see something new, we’re attracted to that information in the hopes that later we can tell others about it and build our own social currency.

For example, HubSpot is constantly releasing new tools, content and features. They capture their audience’s attention by offering new products or services to help them learn.

HubSpot consistently offers new ways to improve.

Marketing takeaway: Use the word New to wake up the brain and draw attention to your products and services.

Make a point to showcase all of the new things going on with your company, products or services, especially if they’re different than your competitor’s related products.

Depending on how frequently new items emerge at your company, you may want to consider creating a dedicated Twitter account used only to announce new items.

If you focus on facts, figures and features, you’re talking to the wrong side of the brain. It doesn’t care a bit about buying your product. If you want to inspire action, you have to appeal to the emotional side of the brain.

Create common ground so your audience feels comfortable—provide familiarity. Highlight faces along with products, appeal to empathy and shared memories and provide something new.

The recommendations in this article are just a few of many marketing concepts based on the brain’s instinctive reactions. Use these ideas and read up on others to influence the behavior of your audience.

What do you think? Have you used any of these behavioral triggers? How did your audience respond? Please comment below—I’d love to chat!

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Luke Summerfield

Luke wakes up inspired each day to spark inspiration with knowledge. He currently does this at Savvy Panda, leading their Inbound Marketing strategy consulting team. Meet Luke at LukeSummerfield.com. Other posts by Luke Summerfield »

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Google+ Stories: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published May 24, 2014

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Google+ Introduces Google+ Stories: You can “automatically weave your photos, videos and the places you visited into a beautiful travelogue.”

“Stories will be available this week on Android and the web, with iOS coming soon.”

The 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report Is Out: Check out Social Media Examiner’s sixth annual social media study, where “more than 2800 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, which social tactics are most effective and how content plays a role into their social media marketing.”

Be sure to download a copy of the 2014 Social Media Marketing Industry Report before May 30th.

Google+ Announces Google+ Movies: You “can produce a highlight reel of your photos and videos automatically—including effects, transitions and a soundtrack.”

LinkedIn Introduces How You Rank Feature: “You can now see where you stack up to others in your network with profile views (this feature is coming to mobile).”

“Take a look at the top profiles in your network to gain inspiration for changes you can make to your own profile, or content you can share to increase views to your profile and drive opportunities for advancement.”

Facebook Introduces New Way to Share and Discover Music, TV and Movies: “When writing a status update—if you choose to turn the feature on—you’ll have the option to use your phone’s microphone to identify what song is playing or what show or movie is on TV.”

“That means if you want to share that you’re listening to your favorite Beyoncé track or watching the season premiere of Game of Thrones, you can do it quickly and easily, without typing.”

Facebook Rolls Out Privacy Checkup: “A new and expanded privacy checkup tool, which will take people through a few steps to review things like who they’re posting to, which apps they use and the privacy of key pieces of information on their profile.”

The Privacy Checkup will be available for existing users.

Facebook Sets Default to Friends for New Users: “When new people join Facebook, the default audience of their first post will be set to Friends.”

“First-time posters will also see a reminder to choose an audience for their first post, and if they don’t make a choice, it will be set to Friends.”

Facebook Goes International With Premium Video Ads: These ads will now be introduced to “a limited group of advertisers in select international markets including Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom.”

“Premium video ads are designed for advertisers who want to reach a large audience with high-quality sight, sound and motion.”

Shutterstock Introduces Shutterstock Music: “A new product from Shutterstock that expands [its] content offerings for customers and generates earnings for musicians looking for new ways to monetize their craft.”

“When searching the site, you’ll find awesome, high-quality music to add to your project, be it something serene to represent nature, something bluesy to signal playfulness or maybe a classical track by Vivaldi that will flow perfectly in your story.”

New updates to follow:

Twitter Rolls Out New Profile by May 28: “Beginning May 28, all Twitter users will have the new profile, which has already been rolled out to new users and some existing users in the past month.”

New http://t.co/JbzACuw5a2 profiles will be turned on for everyone May 28. Get ahead of the curve & update yours: http://t.co/GpCan7yXGw

— Twitter (@twitter) May 6, 2014

Facebook Rolls Out Video Metrics: As a page owner, you’ll start to “see information like video views, unique video views, the average duration of the video view and audience retention.”

“Video metrics will be available for all paid and organic videos uploaded directly to Facebook pages, including premium video ads.”

Here are a few cool social media tools worth checking out:

Epoxy: “Custom-tailored for Facebook and Twitter, and fine-tuned for every screen and device, Epoxy video apps are designed to keep your audience’s attention and keep them watching.”

“Your videos the way they should be viewed.”

Tunepics: “For the first time, share the true emotion of your moments by adding tunes to your pictures.”

Screenshooter: “The simplest way to organize and manage mobile screenshots.”

You can “automatically separate your photos from your screenshots.”

What do you think? Please share your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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Facebook Audience Insights: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published May 17, 2014

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Introduces Facebook Audience Insights: “A new tool designed to help marketers learn more about their target audiences, including aggregate information about geography, demographics, purchase behavior and more.”

“Audience Insights is different from Page Insights because it looks at trends about your current or potential customers across Facebook, whereas Page Insights looks at the interactions with your Page (i.e., likes, comments and shares).”

Twitter Announces Mute Feature: This new feature “gives you even more control over the content you see on Twitter by letting you remove a user’s content from key parts of your Twitter experience.”

Pinterest Rolls Out Paid Test: Pinterest is “working with a small group of brands in the U.S. to roll out a paid test in [its] search and category feeds.”

These brands will help “test promoted pins to make sure they’re tasteful, transparent, relevant and improved based on your feedback—so that Pinterest continues to be a great experience for everyone.”

Buffer Introduces Feeds: ”You can now add RSS feeds to your Buffer social profiles and share links directly from your favorite sites from right inside your Buffer dashboard.”

“You have total control of your feeds—from finding and discovering to organizing and updating. Fresh content will always be at your fingertips.”

Here are few cool social media tools worth checking out:

Contextly: “Build your audience via awesome content recommendations.”

Contextly’s “tools are built with a deep understanding of online publishing.”

ReShare: This new app gives you the ability to reshare “what you like to a whole new audience of readers in a different language!”

“ReShare the articles that you love to others who are interested in reading the same articles. Conveying these articles in a different language allows you to share your interest with a brand-new audience.”

BreakFree: “A revolutionary mobile app aimed at controlling smartphone addiction and helping you maintain a healthy digital lifestyle.”

Litely: “Add gorgeous, film-inspired tones to your photos in seconds. Adjust crop, exposure, sharpness, vibrance and vignette for lovelier photos.”

“Subtle tones. Well-made.”

Moju: “A whole new way to capture and share life’s best moments.”

“It’s as simple as point-and-shoot up to 24 frames, then pivot/twist the device to see your images come alive!”

SketchVid: “Create videos of your drawings and share them with your friends on Instagram and Facebook.”

“Draw anything you want and SketchVid will convert your drawing into a 15-second video from a blank canvas to the final masterpiece.”

Tapsule: “Moments that matter, captured by you and those you’re with, strung together in a modern day ‘time capsule’.”

What do you think? Did any other social media news items interest you this week? Have you found any other social media tools worth sharing? Please share your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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Facebook Video Metrics: This Week in Social Media

By Cindy King
Published May 10, 2014

Welcome to our weekly edition of what’s hot in social media news. To help you stay up to date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.

Facebook Rolls Out New Video Metrics: “These new metrics are designed to help you learn what’s resonating with people and determine how to more effectively create and promote your videos on Facebook.”

“New video metrics in Page Insights and Ads Reporting are coming soon.”

LinkedIn Introduces Language Preference Targeting: “Through language preference targeting, brands with an audience from around the world can now target their company updates by the users’ selected language.”

“For example, a U.S.-based company targeting Portuguese-speaking professionals in Brazil can now share updates in Portuguese with followers who have selected it as their preferred language on LinkedIn.”

Vine Reveals New Look: The brand-new version includes “a bunch of new features that will help you discover Vine videos on the web.”

“The first thing you’ll see when you visit the website is the Explore page, which features familiar channels like Places and Animals, alongside Trending Tags and Popular Now.”

Evernote and LinkedIn Announce New Card Scanning Service: “LinkedIn members can scan a business card using Evernote’s mobile app and then directly connect with this contact on LinkedIn to maintain the new relationship.”

In Evernote, “members will be able to view profile photos, job titles and company information from LinkedIn right in the notes created when they scan business cards.”

Twitter and Amazon Introduce #AmazonCart: “An exciting new way to add Amazon products to your cart without leaving Twitter.”

HipChat Introduces Video and Screen Sharing: HipChat’s one-to-one video chat and screen sharing are now available on all of their apps.

“Start a video chat and share your screen with anyone on your team.”

Here are a few cool social media tools worth checking out:

Adobe Voice:  A free app to “turn your story into a stunning animated video.”

Base: “An innovative tool that brings your mobile notifications to life.”

“Instead of browsing through dozens of unnecessary notifications every day, Base delivers only what’s really important exactly when you need it.”

Twoople: An app that “makes it easy for others to chat with you.”

Jobr: “Connecting talented individuals with the job they never knew was waiting.”

“Engage with recruiters at top companies and only spend time on those interested in hiring you!”

Mela: “Capture and share videos of moments from your day-to-day life, and watch as they are tied together with moments generated by other users into a seamless themed video.”

“Use the Mela app to record a video of up to 15 seconds, then select 2.5 seconds that embody the essence of that video, come up with three appropriate hashtags and publish it on the platform.”

Mingle: This app “was built from the ground up to make connecting with your contacts faster, easier and more enjoyable in every way!”

What do you think? What news inspired your social media marketing this week? Please share your comments below.

Tweet!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,'script','twitter-wjs'); About the Author, Cindy King

Cindy King is the director of editorial for Social Media Examiner. She spent 25 years abroad in international business development and then built her own international business from scratch by using social business networking. Other posts by Cindy King »

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