Social media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the web. Do I have your attention?
The number of worldwide social media users is expected to reach approximately 2.95 billion by 2020, around a third of Earth’s entire population.
Social media is the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution. Think about this:
Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million users. TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The Internet took just four years to reach the same number of users. Remember the iPod? That little guy took three years to peak. Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year.
This bears repeating – 200 million users in less than a year. If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s 3rd largest, after China and India.
“Word of mouth” is now the world of mouth, and you are the aggregator, reporter, marketer, and purveyor of your products and services.
- 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
- 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.
Do you like what they’re saying about your brand?
Erik Qualman recently said, “We don’t have a choice on whether we DO social media, the question is how well we DO it.”
And it makes sense. We are social beings. Life is really all about various forms of communication when it comes down to it.
Generation Y and Z consider email passe. Some universities have even stopped distributing email accounts. Speaking of passe, only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI. 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.
Alternatively, the era of digital signage has given brands and event organizers a way to not just keep up with the ever-growing amount of content, but easily find, own and showcase your best-earned content. ShareSpring’s tool (lovingly called “Springboards”) gathers these social posts for you, and curates them in one place, like websites or live event walls.
Because more and more consumers will no longer search for products and services, they will find products and services via social media. And many are currently finding brands via social media and UGC.
A social feed aggregator is a tool that enables marketers to collect and showcase an aggregated output of social network feeds. It’s the process of collecting social content from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others into one unified display or presentation.
- Recruitment – you didn’t think this would be the first one, did you? Well, that’s a great brand without great products, made and marketed by great people. 80% of companies use social media for recruitment. And Research shows that 73% of businesses have employed someone they initially found through social media. Use a social hub as your built-in employee engagement tool. Employee-generated content (EGC) is a key component because engaged employees have increased productivity. Imagine if every employee in your company was promoting your company to their own social network.
- Save time & money – Marketing is one of the most important functions of a business. It’s a science and an art. It’s the heart of the business and creativity takes time. David Packard (co-founder, with William Hewlett, of Hewlett-Packard) once said “Marketing is far too necessary to be left to the marketing department.” But nowadays, you don’t need a flashy, traditional marketing campaign (think Mad Men) to get people’s attention. A content aggregator reduces time otherwise spent finding and creating engaging content. And in today’s marketplace (see above), any social media product or service adds value to your business.
- Community & Audience Engagement: Regardless of the industry that you’re in – hospitality, food/restaurant, fashion, beauty, or travel – social walls create buzz, drive more traffic and increase brand affinity. Simply, this is the most effective way to interact with your audience, which has numerous benefits. According to Zendesk, nearly 40% of customers already use social media for customer service. And furthermore, 42% of people who use social media expect a response within 60 minutes. And HubSpot says that 72% of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour. This is where ShareSpring comes in.
- Stay Ahead of the Trend: Social aggregators are an easy way to give you that edge over your competitors. Social hubs enable marketers to see what’s trending in their industry. Find out what your customers love about your brand. Find out what your pain points are. This even keeps you ahead of the game because social media networks are constantly evolving and ShareSpring evolves with them. Analyze the trends and campaigns to determine success factors and keep moving forward.
- Increase sales: Simply, people are more likely to buy after seeing the powerful social media testimonials and user-generated content within your brand (website, event, corporate lobby, etc.). Social media e-commerce has become a powerful avenue for sales and marketing. People come to social media to interact with interesting content. UGC encourages online shopping without directly asking for it.
