👀 Social media outperforms search... Here's the social media updates you need to know.
Social media data, trends, updates and content ideas to fuel your inspiration and help you drive growth.
Happy Friday!
The pace of change on social media is unrelenting (I mean, please, could it just take a week off?...). BUT, fear not, this newsletter is here to break down what you really need to know.
For new readers, this is a monthly newsletter focused on simplifying social media marketing. Each issue covers:
Key new social media trends, data, and platform updates
Practical tips to help grow your brand's online presence
No fluff, just the important details you can actually use. Let's dive in.
View on web for the best experience.
📣 The social media data, trends and new features you need to know
Here’s the slide deck, giving you a network-by-network run through all of the most important updates you need to know for June.
TL;DR Here’s the four key themes that dominated this month.
1️⃣ Pay attention to Instagram's changes, particularly the importance of Reels and ‘send rates’. Also avoid Reels that are over 90 seconds long and using engagement bait.
2️⃣ TikTok and Instagram are leaning in on creators. With new analytics tools and tools to help work with creators, it's showing the continued importance of brands collaborating with others to grow their presence.
3️⃣ TikTok's leaning heavily on GenAI tools to make the platform more accessible to brands, including new AI avatars. But, what do we feel that does for transparency authenticity?
4️⃣ Search and social continues to evolve. Search is not dead, but it's clear there's a need for a good balance between both search and social in our strategies.
—> Watch on LinkedIn
👀 The shift of consumer behaviour from search to social continues
We’ve been talking about this for a while and this data demonstrates the impact that this trend is having on businesses.
So, let me get this straight; for 25% of businesses TikTok content ‘outperformed’ search, including paid ads? That’s massive.
Whilst I don’t think this means we all need to abandon SEO and head to TikTok, it demonstrates how consumer behaviour is changing especially related to business-orientated content like tutorials, or product reviews. What I feel is happening here is a shifting of trust. The authenticity and relatability of the human touch offered through TikTok content gives buyers a more reassuring lens through which to evaluate products.
That said, this shift from search to social is most pronounced in younger demographics. Comparing the data of the categories that encourage GenZ to go to TikTok, Instagram or Google is fascinating…
The reason why I say we need a balanced approach to search and social, is that it’s clear from this data that ‘lower consideration’ purchases like gifts, beauty and well-being products are searched more heavily on TikTok, whilst higher value and high-consideration purchases like cars or electronics orientate more towards Google.
🚨 Stat of the month
Facebook’s growth continues to confound expectations. They experienced their first ever quarterly decline in Q3 2021, and since Q3 2022, it’s been nothing but growth.
So, what’s been driving it?
They are successfully winning back younger users with Marketplace and Dating. (TBH, I forgot dating was a thing on FB. But those days are long gone for me…😅)
They are pushing towards a ‘recommended’ media model. That means people are seeing much more content from outside of their network (like TikTok and Reels) and it’s resulting in video making up 60% of the time people spend on Facebook.
What does that mean for us?
Organic growth is returning to Facebook, more users and more time spent means more opportunity for organic reach.
Video is now the dominant format (just like on IG), so if we want those eyes on our content, video is the way to go.
📣 New feature of the month
LinkedIn have released Premium Company Pages. The price is reasonable ($99 per month) for some features that I feel are pretty valuable.
You can easily invite viewers of your page to follow you.
You have more freedom to customise the CTA to encourage your page viewers to take a specific action.
You can highlight customer testimonials more prominently.
There’s a bunch of AI stuff too, but there options look more gimmicky than genuinely useful right now.
If you’re trying to grow your LinkedIn page, this feels like a worthwhile investment to me.
👉 Tip of the month
I feel grateful that Instagram decided to add a more human touch to their brand in Adam Mosseri. It means that every month, we get some new, additional insight into how we can maximise our growth on IG.
Here are the important snippets I’ve taken from him this month and what I feel they mean for us…
“More than half the amount of time spent on Instagram is video at this point.” —> We know this already, Reels are crucial to drive reach.
“There are hundreds of millions of pieces of content posted today that are from accounts you don’t follow, and a few of those might be really exciting for you.” —> Expect Instagram to lean even more into the “recommended media” model. Followers are less important than they used to be.
“One of the most important things to look at if you’re trying to evaluate how you are doing on Instagram, is definitely the sends. I would look at sends per reach.” So, ‘sends’ are now an important determiner of how far our content will go. We need to think of ways to encourage people to share our content with others.
“It’s important to understand that we won’t recommend Reels that are over 90 seconds long.” —> Try and keep your Reels under 90 seconds if you want to reach new audiences.
“Don’t try to hack engagement, and here’s what we mean by that: If we believe your content explicitly asks for engagement through shares, comments, tags, or other actions, then we won’t recommend it. An example of this is asking people to comment with a specific word, number, or emoji.” —> You can still prompt for comments, but be mindful of engagement ‘bait’.
🗓️ A couple of other things to know
The first season of the SOCIAL 3.0 Podcast is out now. This for any of my friends working in B2B marketing. I’ve been loving creating it and learning from others. I hope you enjoy it too!
Register for July’s live social media update. You know the drill for this by now. 😁
📬 See you next soon!
That’s it for this week, I hope you found this useful 🙌
Made with ❤️ by Andy