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By Liam Dowd - February 18th, 2015
Refer to convert in B2B space, happy tweeting, Instagram usage passes Facebook in UK.
Happy Twitter
Mood has always been associated with marketing, but using Big Data analytics, it now turns out that we are all much more positive than once thought when it comes to the tweets we send.
A study of ten languages used across Twitter reveals that we are all users of positive language when we tweet. However, a closer inspection of the findings does show that the level of positive sentiment communicated with the words used can be massively impacted by not surprisingly the content being discussed. It appears that English speakers tend to criticise music lyrics the most and the Chinese and Russians are hard on Google Books.
Clearly corporate marketers would like to see masses of positive sentiment, but the language that is often used is subtler than that. Listening first before using Twitter within a marketing campaign will maximise its chances of a positive response.
Refer to convert in B2B space
Says eMarketer: “Unlike many marketing channels, referrals have a steady influence throughout the business-to-business (B2B) sales pipeline, especially when it comes to closing the deal, according to October 2014 research by Implisit. Among nearly 500 US-based Implisit clients, who all used Salesforce.com as their CRM system, 3.63% of leads generated from customer and employee referrals resulted in a sale.
“This was more than 2 percentage points above the lead-to-deal conversion rate for second-place websites (1.55%) and No. 3 Facebook, Twitter and other social networks (1.47%). No other channel passed 1%.
“Breaking down the sales funnel further, Implisit found that on average, it took 84 days to convert 13% of leads to opportunities. Nearly 25% of leads generated from customer and employee referrals resulted in an opportunity—that is, a prospect who is engaged in an active sales process.
“This was the second-highest lead-to-opportunity conversion rate, with websites leading here at 31.3%. All other channels studied didn’t break 20%. Third-place webinars saw lead-to-opportunity conversion of 17.8%, with Facebook, Twitter and social networks close behind (17.2%). Though the order was relatively similar to that of lead-to-deal conversion, marketing and advertising (15.3%) ranked higher than paid search (14.3%) and sales generated (13.9%) by this metric.”
Social media then still has some way to catch up, but it accelerating it power as a conversion driver. Corporations would be advised to look closely at the trinity of customer/employee, website and social media, and how their marketing across the B2B environment will increasingly become dominated by the social media channel.
International tweeting
Where your corporations target audience is located can have a profound impact on how your tweets are received. With Twitter recently reporting it had added several million new users to its network, understanding the geographical dispersion of a customer base is vital marketing information to collect.
According to the latest figures to come from Statistica, reveals that nearly 80% of Twitter users are outside of the USA. All of the uptick in Twitter users has come from international markets. Indeed, Q4 last year for Twitter was flat with zero growth in the US. For corporate marketers the advice is clear: you had better dust of your phrase book to reach the millions of new potential customer joining Twitter whose first language isn’t English.
Instagram usage passes Facebook in UK
According to the latest research from the GlobalWebIndex (GWI), when it comes to UK social media users, they have shifted their allegence to Instagram. GWI said to SocialTimes: “During the past 12 months, Facebook saw a 7% drop in the U.K. in terms of active usage — hardly the dramatic decline that some headline-writers like to report, but still illustrative of the rise of smaller platforms like Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr. Indeed, Instagram grew its active user number by 18% over the same period, driven by the trends toward multi-networking across numerous social media services.
“Compared to Facebook, Instagram can also boast a much younger audience: 39% of its U.K. users are aged 16 through 24, compared with just 16% on Facebook. Instagram’s users also spend longer per day on social networks, although they have a much bigger skew toward women.
“One place where Facebook still leads all other networks is in relation to usage frequency. Some 53% of its U.K. users log in multiple times per day, versus just 29% on Instagram. This pattern is repeated globally, too, underlining the key role that Facebook plays even as members use it more passively.”
The level of interactivity is the main takeaway for corporate marketers attempting to generate relationships with their social media users. Consumers clearly use multiple social media networks, but it the level of interactivity that is fascinating to see. Understanding the different user patterns across the social networks your corporation has a presence on, it critical to developing the right relationships at the right time.
Facebook launches Product Ads
Yesterday Facebook announced its latest business orientated ad service called Product Ads. The new ads will become available through the Power Editor over the next few weeks. Facebook explained:
Product ads offer businesses a number of ways to highlight different products on Facebook. Marketers can upload their product catalogue and create campaigns targeting certain products to specific audiences, or let Facebook automatically deliver the most relevant products to people. Products can be shown in single or multi-product ad units.
Product ads can be customized for use throughout the customer journey, from discovery/awareness through purchase. Here are some options:
Advertisers can automatically reach people who visited their website/app (via Custom Audiences), or reach people based on specific interests, locations, etc.
Advertisers can curate ads as they see fit. For instance, they can highlight products that were viewed on their website/mobile app or showcase best selling products. Or they can create a multi-product ad that highlights the different benefits of a single product.
Kristi Argyilan, Senior Vice President, Target commented: “With dynamic product ads, Target has been able to more easily engage consumers with highly relevant creative. The early results have exceeded expectations, with a 20% increase in conversion compared to other Facebook ads. Performance has also been especially strong with people shopping on mobile devices — an important and fast-growing area for Target — where we’re seeing two times the conversion rate.”
Until next time….
The Useful Social Media team.
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