Month: November 2016

by Steve Peterson

Can Anybody Challenge Facebook? Giant Continues Dominant Social Media Position.

The latest Pew Research Center data released earlier this month on social media platforms and their influence reveals that Facebook, as it did in 2015, not only led all other platforms by a wide margin but actually increased their dominant position.

Facebook’s online user population, 79 percent of all adults using the internet, more than doubled their nearest competitors, Instagram (32%, owned by Facebook) and Pinterest (31%). The combination of the Facebook and Instagram platforms under a single organizational umbrella make Facebook ads the compelling choice across a number of important metrics: reach and engagement primary among them. When you take out Facebook ads you get Instagram ads in the package. Right now other platforms are either struggling for relevance (Twitter) or playing some serious catch up.

Facebook’s trouncing of “lesser” platforms doesn’t mean the other channels should be disregarded. If social media teaches us anything, it is that discreet segmentation and niche markets abound based on different platforms. Facebook’s 7 percent growth in 2016 was due in large part to an increase of older Americans’ use of the platform. Young adults are still using the platform at a high rate but the growth, as it was in 2015, has been in older Americans.

If you’re looking to reach younger adults, Instagram, with their roughly six in 10 online adult usage ages 18-29, is a platform that should be leveraged. If you want to reach women, Pinterest is the place to be. Continuing a long-standing trend, women use Pinterest at much higher rates than men. Nearly half of online women use the virtual pinboard (45%), more than double the share of online men (17%) who do so.

The full text of Pew’s Findings can be found here

Demographic comparison of Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest social media channels.

by Steve Peterson

Thanksgiving Treats For Your Black Friday Shopping and Social Media Hopping

With the Thanksgiving holiday upon us we’ll all have little extra time to kick back, relax and spend time not only with family and friends but, inevitably, hammer our keyboards into submission doing that Black Friday shuffle that we all do so well. If you’ve seen any statistics lately on the amount of time we spend on social media you also know all too well that while on the keyboard we’ll be sneaking peaks of YouTube videos, Facebook posts and a myriad of other entertainment and social channels.

If we’re going to simply admit that our devices dictate that we spend time with them to make the upcoming winter holiday gift giving easier then allow me to gift you a couple of full keyboard strategies to make your navigation not only easier and faster but also more fun. With all due respect to those who exclusively use smart phones or tablets to the get the job done (I’m looking at your millennials), there’s still nothing like comparison shopping multiple sites on a computer with the big ass monitor. The problem is that we madly open multiple browser tabs to do the comparison shopping while keeping a number of our social media, recipe, Wikipedia and cat video sites (admit it, admit it!) up and running as well. Here are two cool things you can do you make your next internet odyssey smoother while allowing you to learn a little something in the process.

First is this social media keyboard diagram from the good folks at Hootsuite. It’s for a Mac but worry not PC folks. Most of the Mac commands you can simply substitute the Control key for the Mac Command key. It’s very helpful for navigating a few social media sites and especially beneficial for YouTube navigation.

The second link is this very handy guide to Chrome’s Top 25 browser shortcuts. If you’re even half as badly addicted as I am to browser tabs then you can easily have a dozen or better tabs open at any given time. This easy to understand and informative guide is a bookmarking must, although I have to say that after looking it over once or twice the habits became embedded.

Here’s to faster, better, stronger browsing, shopping, posting and sharing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

by Steve Peterson

Friday Quick Hit Social Media Rundown

Things on the social media front are always busy, no more so then when Instagram, Facebook and some fresh ideas about customer engagement hit the wire. Here’s a quick rundown.

Instagram, as expected after being bought out by Facebook, has announced that their next feature will be live video. It’s been a big hit on Facebook so it’s only a natural that this would be extended to the Instagram platform. In other Instagram news, the company has recently added new features to Instagram stories.

Twitter has announced an anti-trolling “mute” feature in an effort to curb cyber bullying that has long been needed.

WhatsApp, the popular messaging app aimed at easy use worldwide, is rolling out video calling to more than 1 billion users.

Facebook is finally getting around to integrating Instagram and Messenger services into their ecosystem. After a long wait, users will be able to access Instagram and Messenger services in one place. As reported on digitaltrends.com, “The social network announced on Tuesday that it is updating its Pages Manager mobile app with a new, unified inbox that lets page admins access their Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger interactions in one place. The new feature lets you reply to Facebook comments, visitor posts, reviews, messages and Instagram comments directly from the inbox by tapping on the content you want to answer.”

Google+, sometimes justifiably, takes a pretty good pasting in the press and among users. Central to the argument is the platform’s irrelevance. Well, here are five ways to leverage Google+ for your business. The advice offers no real surprises since what you need to do on Google+ is essentially the same things you need to do on other social media platforms (have complete profiles, post regularly and, in the Google+ case, keep expanding your circles). Google+ does have some advantages. Google+ content gets indexed immediately and shows up in search results. Wonder if it shows up immediately in Bing? Hmm…

Snapchat is getting ready to go public with a whopping IPO, targeting March with an estimated $20 – $25 billion valuation. Call me crazy. I still don’t get Snapchat’s allure and I manage social media.

Taming social media for business use takes a regimented, disciplined approach. Of all the trends that came and went in 2016, video was not one of them. Video remains one of the best things you can do for your business. When done right, it creates intimacy and fosters engagement with your clients. 2017 will likely be no different. Here are seven trends to watch for and what they’ll mean for you.

Until next time. Stay curious and engaged.