Where Is Social Media Now –
And Where Is It Going?
Where are we with Social Media now?
Let’s start with….you guessed it…
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Facebook is the most ubiquitous social network in both Ireland
and the world, with 72% of the Irish population having an
account.
Facebook is also quickly becoming one of the largest
advertising platforms in the world and is constantly improving its
advertising products for businesses.
Why Should You Use It?
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2.3 million people in Ireland log on to Facebook every month,
with 1.8 million using it on a daily basis.
62% of the online population use Facebook at least once per
month.
46% (1.14 million) of these users are male, 54% (1.26 million)
are female.
The largest age cohort on Facebook in Ireland is 25-34 year
olds (circa 30% of audience).
Irish people spend on average 5 hours per month on Facebook
(3 hours on Google sites).
Almost 1.94 million use Facebook on their smartphones.
70% of Irish businesses use Facebook.
What Should You Post?
Make It Personal
your personality shine through your page. Stay away from
• Let
generic boring posts - things like pictures of your staff, personal
stories, and what makes your brand unique will make you stand
out from the rest.
Use Engaging Pictures
media like photos and videos get more attention and helps
• Rich
your message stand out in the News Feed. Lifestyle images like
the ones you see from your friends on Facebook are always
engaging. Try sharing images of your products or photos of your
customers enjoying your service and keep your posts between
100 and 250 characters to get more engagement. Shorter, more
succinct posts are better received.
Video
that engages potential customers is effective at keeping attention and getting them to
• Content
focus on your brand amidst the stream of noise on their newsfeeds. Rich media is much more
engaging than text posts and traditional content.
and now Twitter have introduced autoplaying videos in newsfeeds and with 4 billion
• Facebook
video views per day, Facebook has truly began to compete with YouTube as a video-sharing
platform. Consumer attention spans are shorter than they used to be as they are constantly
bombarded with more and more advertising messages, and video seems to be a great way to
grab their attention.
Create a two-way conversation
your audience to share their thoughts and feedback on your products and services. This is
• Ask
another way to listen to your customers and improve your business. Posting content that shows
you took their feedback into consideration can build customer loyalty and show you value their
opinions.
Share exclusive discounts and promotions
special deals or perks to your customers to keep them interested and to drive online sales.
• Offer
Include call to actions with links to the most relevant page on your website. Facebook Offers can
be a great way to measure online traffic and the revenue received from your social media efforts.
Where is it going?
Tips To Stay on Top Of It Target your posts
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If your posts are meant for specific groups of people, you can target your post in your Page’s
sharing tool by clicking on the target icon at the bottom left corner and selecting Add
Targeting. You can target your post based upon gender, relationship status, educational
status, interests, age, location, and language.
Facebook Advertising
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Facebook has really gone down the paid advertising route. It is one of the only ways you are
going to see a good return and grow your fanbase. At the moment when you post circa 3% of
your fanbase will see it organically.
With a Facebook budget in place each week you will see your fanbase and reach grow. This
doesn't have to be a huge amount, a budget of €20-€30 per week will make a noticeable
difference. If you have a limited budget, pick your most important post(s) for the week to
sponsor to achieve the maxmimum impact.
You can measure how effective your social media campaigns are from the ‘Insights’ page.
You can track the reach (i.e. how many people see your posts), how many new page likes
you’ve gotten and how many people have engaged with you over a period of your choosing.
Take note of what is working and do more of that, and go back to the drawing board (or
maybe scrap) what isn’t working.
Are we moving
too fast?
Not to worry all
slides will be
available to
download after!
Next Up – Our favourite little birdie…
Why Should You Use It?
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There are roughly 700,000 daily users of Twitter in Ireland.
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We send, on average, 1 million tweets each day.
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Wednesday is the busiest day on Twitter in Ireland.
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9-11pm is the busiest period on Twitter in Ireland. Early morning is
the least busiest time.
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Irish Twitter users are active from 12 midday onwards.
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30% of the Irish population over the age of 15 uses Twitter.
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1 in 10 Irish twitter users tweet daily.
What Should You Post?
Listen and observe
a moment to see what other businesses are doing on Twitter. You can find competitors
• Take
and monitor relevant conversations using search.twitter.com. When you see how other
businesses interact with customers and what types of content they share, you can try testing
similar tactics to see which resonates most with your followers. Engage with your customers
on the topics that they are talking about, for example: Ireland match, UFC fights, etc.
Use the 80/20 principle
of your Tweets should focus on driving interactions with your followers, such as
• 80%
Retweets, replies, and favourites. Once you’ve built some rapport, you can mix in direct
offers or promotions that get followers to take actions
Let your personality shine
for an approachable communication style that is authentic and friendly without being
• Strive
overly formal. Wit and humour can help in providing entertainment value.
Pair your competitions with Facebook
a competition on Twitter, mirror it on Facebook. Ask people to retweet and
• Ifthisyoucanareberunning
a great way to grow your fanbase.
Where Is It Going?
Tips To Stay on Top Of ItTwitter Analyticslike Facebook, offers a wealth of insights into your posts
• Twitter,
and followers. Visit http://analytics.twitter.com and sign in to
your account and click ‘Get Started’. You will be met with the
‘Home’ section with a month by month roundup of your tweets
and a summary of your performance over the last 28 days
versus the previous 28 days.
You can get navigate to the ‘Tweets’ page to see a graph of
your impressions (same as ‘Reach’ on Facebook) for the
last 28 days as well as information on each individual
tweet. You can also navigate to the ‘Followers’ page to see
information on your followers; their interests, gender, and
other demographics.
Twitter Advertising •
To sign up for Twitter Analytics visit - https://analytics.twitter.com/about
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You can target people based on their location, gender, interests, and more, and you can be as
encompassing or specific as you’d like. Your results may vary depending on the details you
provide for the campaign but the most important thing is to test things out and bring what you
learn to your next campaign.
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Finally, set your budget for the campaign. You must set a daily budget and if you want can include
a maximum budget for the campaign which will not be surpassed. You are asked whether to
choose the pricing method - Automatic Bid or Maximum Bid. A bid is how much you pay per
follower/engagement/link click/sign-up, whatever you selected as your objective. A maximum bid
represents the maximum you are willing to pay for a single of the above whereas an Automatic Bid
uses an algorithm to get the best results at the lowest price.
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When you are finished, save your campaign and you will now be able to use it to augment your
efforts on Twitter.
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Once you have started using Twitter Analytics and Twitter Ads you will see an icon on each of your
tweets which allows you to view insights for the tweet and gives you the option to promote it.
Hang In..
Nearly There..
How much does
a hipster weigh?
An INSTAGRAM!
Why Use It?
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18% of the Irish population has an Instagram account.
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46% of these use it on a daily basis.
What Should You Post?
Showcase your products
• You can post pictures and videos on Instagram and your
content is only limited by your imagination. Appealing pictures of
your products usually go down well. Succulent burgers, latté art,
heavenly-looking cakes, pictures of your fashion brands,
pictures of your new car models, and so on will all usually get a
good response.
Show off your staff
• People love to see your personality so you can show off your
staff and premises every once in a while to give your account a
human aspect. Remember, social media is about telling a story
so try to tell the story of your business each day, or each week
on your various platforms.
When Should You Post?
Post Regularly
• Depending on your business, posting once a week may be plenty and posting several times a day
might be complete overkill, but for another business the situation might be the complete opposite.
Usually a couple times a week is plenty, but you can try out different posting frequencies and see
which gets the best response for the amount of resources spent. The most important thing is to only
post quality content that reflects well on your business. Do not post for the sake of posting.
Post when your audience is online
• Depending on who you are targeting with your Instagram account, you may want to post at different
times in the day. Consider when your audience might be online and post accordingly.
#UseHashtags
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Hashtags are extremely important on Instagram and you should always include a few at the end of
your post. Take a look at what hashtags similar businesses are using and use whichever are
appropriate for your business. People search for popular hashtags and may come across your content
purely because of your choice of hashtags. Things like #foodporn (not as inappropriate as you might
think) and #yum are good for food, #thingsorganizedneatly for tidy arrangements of products, and so
on.
Most importantly, see what people are using, and use popular hashtags as they will have more impact
than your own personal ones.
Last but not
least –
SNAPCHAT
Here is one
Eoin did
earlier…
Why Use It?
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22% of the Irish population has a Snapchat account, 66% of whom check it on a daily basis - that's
14% of the Irish population checking it on a daily basis.
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Snapchat is an often forgotten social network and many brands ignore it as they do not see the
value. Snapchat provides a great medium for interacting with fans, and as you are sending a picture
rather than just a textual message, it is far more personable.
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Snapchat's 'My Story' functionality provides a good platform for high-velocity messaging. Brands
can add a snap to their story which all of their fans can see but only lasts for 24 hours. Also, as you
only see the story when you actively look for it, it does not bother the people who don't want to
see it and instead rewards the people who do seek it out with a wealth of content.
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The people we have identified who use Snapchat well all have a common element to their strategy they create content (i.e. take photos) specifically and exclusively for Snapchat that is of significant
interest for their fans. They have conditioned their fans to actively seek out this content to the
extent that they will contact the brand to look for it if it is not there.
That’s Us Done! Thank you for your time!
Now in the words of Alf Stewart –Rack off you flamin galahs!