Social Marketing

Today’s world has never been more connected. And the advent of social media has served as the catalyst to this, connecting people far and wide across multiple platforms and throughout a myriad of interests.

About two-thirds of American adults (68%) say they at least occasionally get news on social media, about the same share as at this time in 2017, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Many of these consumers, however, are skeptical of the information they see there: A majority (57%) say they expect the news they see on social media to be largely inaccurate. Still, most social media news consumers say getting news this way has made little difference in their understanding of current events, and more say it has helped than confused them (36% compared with 15%).

Social media wasn’t the realm of any one person, department or organization. It was owned by everyone and no one. The only thing early adopters of social media had in common was the desire to create change.  

Tesla founder and all-around tech visionary Elon Musk made waves earlier this month when he tweeted that he was considering taking the electric car company private.  The tweet, which generated wild trading in Tesla stock and reportedly sparked a federal investigation, illustrates the perils of C-level executives acting on their own on social media.

54% of U.S. teens say they spend too much time on their cellphones, and two-thirds of parents express concern over their teen’s screen time. But parents face their own challenges of device-related distraction.

Not only do consumers want businesses to be open and honest in their social posts, consumers actually hold businesses to a higher standard than they hold for themselves.

Long-form video is spreading across social media. With the June 2018 launch of IGTV, Instagram joined Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter in a space getting more crowded by the day. Some marketers are placing pre-roll and mid-roll ads in social shows, but the audiences are small and the measurement capabilities are limited.

Hispanic consumers are a key target audience for marketers worldwide. In this infographic, we investigate the social media behaviors of Hispanics in the U.S.A, including bilingual, English-first and Spanish-first consumers.

YouTube announced its first-ever Spanish language YouTube Originals projects in development.

This was not your ordinary Facebook post — if there is such a thing. 

For one thing, it was long — almost 1,600 words. That’s longer than this column. Secondly, it was raw. It was written by somebody in deep pain who laid their soul bare for their entire network to see.  I barely knew this person, and I was given a look into the deepest and darkest part of their lives. The post told the story of the breakup of a marriage and a struggle with depression. It was a disturbing blow-by-blow chronicle of someone hitting the bottom.

When there’s gold stuck in the hills, you can bet your life there will always be a few rogues attracted to a new area alongside the hardworking prospectors. Influencer marketing is the latest incarnation of a well-trodden path of those who are acting legitimately rubbing shoulders with snake oil salesmen.

Recent surveys have highlighted growing unease among consumers about the power and possible political leanings of big technology companies. In the latest episode of eMarketer’s “Behind the Numbers” podcast, analyst Mark Dolliver joins us to dig into the data.

A couple of weeks ago I was at Cannes Festival of Creativity and was struck by an interesting divergence within the creative industry. On one hand we had brands trying to hack the cultural conversation and on the other we had brands using AI to personalize their ads. But could the two trends be mutually exclusive?  by Nigel Hollis

The ad industry duopoly of Google and Facebook may not be all-powerful, but it is still feared by many advertisers.

Technology experts and scholars have never been at a loss for concerns about the current and future impact of the internet.

You’ve implemented a social media strategy—but is it effective? Measuring the return on investment for social media programs often is difficult for marketers. While many businesses are increasing resources to different social platforms, some struggle to determine whether these investments are worth it. It’s hard to see how much revenue a Facebook post has brought in, or whether a tweet has increased your bottom line. Instead of focusing on likes, shares, and followers, marketers must find meaningful data that reveals whether their content is working.

“Search has moved far beyond the traditional search bar,” says Esteban Ribero, Senior Vice President, Planning and Insights, Performics.  “While consumers still ‘search and click,’ search is no longer a channel; it’s a behavior.”  Further, search has gone beyond just plain text.  “People are searching on their voice-activated assistants like Alexa; they’re searching via visual cues on channels like Pinterest,” he adds.  His advice for marketers is to “shift the thinking around search from a channel to a behavior,” so search becomes a behavioral tool that gives great insights in consumer intentions within exact moments.

Social marketing has matured to become a robust and integral part of the modern marketing mix. It is table stakes for almost any agency—with or without traditional roots—and is demanded by today’s always-on consumer.

Jarritos’ sales are growing on the GM side, it’s becoming more and more known and loved by English dominant consumers. More people are posting about it, talking about it on social and that’s when we noticed something; they were pronouncing it all wrong.

The World Cup will account for one in ten of every new ad dollars spent on advertising globally this year. That’s the takeaway from Zenith’s report this year, which predicts the tournament will add $2.4bn to global advertising this year.