We’re a few months into this new year and if you’ve been paying attention to social media, you know that the most important thing in managing a campaign is strategy. In order to develop a strong and cohesive social media strategy, you need to know the social media stats data you’re dealing with! We’re going to give you a high-level overview of some of the biggest statistics you need to know as you craft your social media strategy.

1. Facebook Has 2.7 Billion Monthly Active Users

This is an increase of 12% from 2019. You might be thinking to yourself that your audience isn’t on Facebook but the reality is, no other social media platforms offer that kind of reach! Even if your audience is using other social media platforms, chances are they’re using Facebook too and you want to ensure you’re covering all of your bases.

2. 81% Of People Use Instagram to Research Products & Services

With an increase in products and services being offered virtually, people are turning to social media to verify a company’s validity and reputation. If someone is unable to find you or your brand on Instagram, they’ll likely move on to their next option because in their eyes, no Instagram profile means you’re not a legitimate company and they won’t feel comfortable reaching out to you. Even if you have a website and tons of reviews, most people are aware that can be faked sometimes. Social media is where potential clients and companies go to see authentic content from companies, which in turn, makes them feel more secure in their purchasing decision process.

3. Ad Exposure on LinkedIn Can Increase Purchase Intent by 33%

You might think LinkedIn is just for recruiting, but LinkedIn is full of high-level executives who are responsible for a majority of their company’s purchasing decisions. In fact, 4 out of every 5 LinkedIn users drive business decisions. If your target audience is primarily B2B (business to business), you need to have a strong social media plan with proven social media stats centered around LinkedIn.

4. Twitter Has an Advertising Audience of 353 Million People

This is up 8% over last year, with an increase of 27 million users. Twitter is predicted to continue growing throughout 2021 as well. As we exist in an ever-changing society, the need for in-the-moment news and updates is stronger than ever. As with every other social media platform, users are looking to see evidence that you are up-to-date regarding what’s going on in the world around you. The one benefit Twitter has over other social media channels is that you’re more likely to see text-only content versus images and videos. You should take this social media stats tool into consideration when developing your social media strategy for Twitter.

5. The Average Price for a Facebook Ad Actually Decreased by 9% In 2020

If you’ve ever tried your hand at running Facebook ads, this statistic might shock you. As Facebook algorithm continues to improve ad campaigns overall, the cost for advertising has slightly decreased. If you haven’t considered a paid ads campaign on Facebook, now is the time as you’ll be getting your best bang for buck. In reality, there are 1.7 billion Facebook Pages and on average, Facebook Pages publish content 1.5 times per day so it’s possible your organic content is getting lost in a sea of 2.5+ billion Facebook posts per day. Paid Facebook campaigns allow you to hyper target your audience and ensure your product or service is getting in front of the right people.

As restrictions begin to lift and the world becomes more active, the need for a strong social media campaign will become increasingly important. People are looking for new experiences, products, and services as we “re-enter” society. With an increase in activity, you’re likely to see a natural increase in your operations as well and may not have time to craft the perfect social media campaign. That’s where we come in! Let us take the weight off of your back and craft a campaign with your goals in mind. For more information on how we can help you take your business to the next level, email us at info@theadleaf.com or call us at 321-255-0900.

If you’ve been managing any social media campaign, you’ve probably asked yourself this question a million times. You’ve probably heard that posting times are irrelevant now, with behavior-based algorithms having been rolled out among most platforms. While it is true that behavior-based algorithms have affected optimal posting times, it’s ignorant to think that when you launch your content does not affect your engagement rates, visibility, or the number of impressions generated. Are all hours and minutes equal in the eyes of the algorithm? The short answer is “no.” Let’s talk about why.

Is There Really a “Best” Time to Post? 

While most newsfeed algorithms are behavior-based, a few platforms take “recency” into consideration due to social media trends moving so quickly. In-the-moment updates and news are important in gauging whether or not your content should be shown to an audience, so it makes sense that they consider recency. 

As you might have guessed, there’s no one “right answer” or a “one-size-fits-all answer” to this question. The most important thing you can do when determining what time of day to launch your content, is to pay attention to your own analytics. Every target audience is different, and beyond that, every platform is different too. 

While you can apply some generalizations, like “the best time to post across industries is 9 a.m., when people are just starting work and going online for the first time” (Hubspot), it’s essential to understand that your followers could be online at a different time based on their personal attributes. 

If your target audience is mothers with young children, 9 a.m. might not be when they’re active online. They’re likely getting their kids set up for the day, so they may not be on social media until the youngsters go down for their mid-morning nap around 11 a.m. If you’re posting your content at 9 a.m., you could be missing that key audience. 

This is where your social media analytics will come into play. You need to monitor your content and pay close attention to when your audience is online and interacting with your content. You may be surprised to find out when your audience is genuinely online. 

How Do I Find Out When My Audience is Active on Social Media? 

Facebook

Facebook makes it relatively easy to figure this out. When looking at your Facebook Page, you’ll see a list of options on the left-hand side. First, you’ll select the option titled “Insights.” From there, you’ll select “Posts.” Then, you’ll see a graph at the top of the page detailing when your audience is most active. For those that are visual learners, here’s a step-by-step:

Based on the data provided above, we can see a few key points:

• Our audience is most active on Sundays, Thursdays, and Fridays.
• Our audience is most active between the times of 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.
• Our audience is also reasonably active between the times of 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. 

After looking at this data, we should optimize our content to launch between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. throughout the week. If we wanted to switch things up, we could also launch our content between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. This will help our campaign connect with most of our audience as it may be different target audiences who are active in the evening hours versus the engaged audience in the morning hours.

Instagram

When looking at your Instagram profile’s main screen (hint: make sure your profile is converted to a Business Profile), click on the “Insights” button. From there, ensure you’re looking at a 30-day overview as 7-day analytics can provide a false positive or a false negative. The more data you’re taking into consideration, the better. Select “See All” next to the “Your Audience” section. Then, scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll be able to see the Hours or Days your audience is most active. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown for my visual learners:

In reviewing the analytics from our Instagram profile, here are a few key takeaways:

• In terms of daily activity, our audience is pretty even across the board. There isn’t a specific day that stands out significantly. 
• Our audience is most active between the hours of 12 p.m. – 3 p.m. across the board. 

When optimizing our Instagram content, it would serve us well to launch our content within that time frame each day. This will capture the bulk of our audience. In looking at the last graphic, it appears our audience is equally as active around 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. as well, so if we wanted to test our strategy against itself, we could choose one of those times to post as well. Like our Facebook strategy, it’s essential to consider multiple audience groups and determine which posting strategy captures your most active audience. 

This is just two out of the many social media platforms that exist now, so you can imagine it takes a significant amount of time and effort to track peak activity times across multiple platforms. As an agency, we have access to various tools that allow us to compile, track, and present this data to you, along with a comprehensive social media marketing strategy that takes all of this (and more) into consideration. If you’re looking to streamline your social media strategy, email us at info@theadleaf.com or call us at 321-255-0900 to get started with your unique social media strategy today. 

Why You Need Great Social Media Content

So, you’ve committed to creating social media content. You’re ready to kick off your social media marketing strategy, and you’re going to kill it!

There’s only one problem. What are you going to post?

Social media is all about engagement. If your social media content is stale and lifeless, people won’t interact. We all know sharing is caring! If your audience doesn’t care about what you’re posting, they won’t share it. They won’t repost, retweet, like, comment, or follow either!

So how can you get that engagement? With valuable content, of course!

Social Media Science

There’s a science behind what people will or won’t share on social media. Studies have shown that a majority of people sharing content do so because they are entertained, and want to entertain their friends. Another motivation? Information. People like to educate themselves, and will share content that will be useful to their friends and followers. From a psychological standpoint, it’s simple: people want to look good. People are more inclined to share interesting and engaging content because it makes THEM look interesting and engaging. What’s more, great content helps people to connect with and even help their friends, family and followers.

So, now that we know what people share, what kind of content is best?

Great Social Media Content Makes You Feel Something

Feelings are a part of daily life for everyone, so it makes sense that content that invokes an emotional response will get a good reaction. But which emotions are the best ones to target? Studies have shown that positive content tends to get more shares than negative content. Furthermore, laughter and amusement are at the top of the list. So, give people something to laugh about!

Don’t Forget the Visuals

We all know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Images tell stories, and people love storytelling! Content that includes visuals gets 94% more views than content without. That’s because the brain processes things visually. If you want to draw your audience’s eye, images are the way to do it.

When it comes to your images, size matters. Make sure you’re posting images of a high enough resolution that they’ll show up clear and sharp. Nobody likes blurry, stretched out images. Not sure where to get images to post? The best ones are the ones you take yourself! If that’s not an option, stock images can work well, too.

Attention is Everything

We live in an age of pocket-sized information. If your content isn’t immediate eye-catching, people will scroll on by. It’s easier and faster to absorb information in bite-sized pieces. Lists and infographics are the way to go! When you put things in list format, people know exactly what they’re getting when they click the link. Lists and infographics get shared more than other types of content, so they’re a great tool for engagement! Infographics are also easy to make with tools like Canva, Vizualize, and more. If you don’t want to make one, find one to share.

Who hasn’t clicked through to find out what kind of pizza matches their personality? Interactive content like quizzes are great for interaction and engagement! The benefit of interactive content is that it encourages users to engage instead of just scrolling past. Luckily, creating quizzes, polls, and other interactive content is a breeze. There are many tools made just for that.

Hashtags Get You Found

There’s a hashtag for every day. #MotivationMonday. #ThrowbackThursday. #FlashbackFriday. Daily themes are a great way to engage! This trend doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so get on board. Similarly, there’s a wacky holiday for almost every day, week and month as well. Did you know there are national food holidays almost every day? With a little pre-planning, you can have some great content prepared to celebrate these observances.

Want to know the best way to engage with your audience? Post THEIR content. Your best salespeople are the people who are using your products and services and talking about the experience. Take GoPro for example. What better way to sell their product than show you ALL the ways in which it can be used, and ALL the videos it can take? Every GoPro user can be a content creator. That gives GoPro unlimited resources to showcase exactly what their product is capable of.

Great Social Media Content Builds Connections

Did you notice something similar about all of these pieces? That’s right, none of them are links to your business website!

That doesn’t mean you can’t ever post about your business! In fact, there are times when that’s beneficial.

If you’ve got information that is relevant, educational, engaging and everything we’ve talked about, post it! Just don’t drown your audience in it, because nobody likes when people talk about themselves all the time.

It’s called social media for a reason. People want to connect! They want to engage with causes they care about, they want to support and help their friends and families, and they want to feel and share those feelings. Make your page a place where they can do just that!