HKSBP 45 [2018]

MEDIA – VIRAL POWER

STATUS QUO(s) :

- In business management

- Harassment and abuse issues

- Things went viral for wrong reasons

- The rise of negative virality

- The power of new media

BENEFIT(s) :

- Promote goods and services about a business entity

- Spread news fast

- Community can aware about something fast

- Rise up popularity

- Motivating somebody

- Spread new culture fast

DISADVANTAGES(s) :

- Demote a business entity, mostly because of one small matter that the whole world will notice
about it

- Spread rumours fast

- Spread negative influences fast

- Rise up the sensitive issues

- Spread new culture fast

5 Case Studies Of Social Media’s Viral Power

Jeff Bullas

When I first experienced social media what started to become very apparent was its power to
influence through its inherent features and design. The ability to be able to create an impression

and influence many people from just one post,

whether that be on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube was obvious but not seen by all and to many is
still a mystery.
Seth Godin in his book “Tribes” says “Welcome to the age of leverage…. the new leverage
available to everyone is means that the status quo is threatened more than ever..” and some of the
status quo is the publishing industry, newspapers and mass media as we know it.
The platforms (software) and channels (social media environments like Myspace and LinkedIn)
are free, all we need is some imagination and creativity and your social media technology,
marketing and sociology experiment can commence. Social media is the crossroads of these three
different but now intertwined disciplines.

We live in a time where we have the democratization of marketing, where you can reach millions
of people without spending a cent on traditional marketing (read and view Conan O’Brien’s
experience). It doesn’t mean you don’t work hard and smart but with the tools currently at hand
and careful selection of channels to post your content, publishing your message to the world has
never been easier or faster.

So how have some companies and personal brands used social media to influence hundreds of
thousands and even millions of people.

5 Case Studies On Social Media’s Viral Power and Influence

1. Conan O’Brien‘s “The Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour”
 The Program

 One Tweet promotion program

The Numbers

 One Tweet and a national 32 city comedy tour sold out in 2 hours
 Channel used Twitter.. Followers 939,000
 40 staff on Production
 The bank account ($32 Million in severance pay from NBC to bankroll the production)
 The number one ranked tour on leading ticket vendor websites in the US, according to The AP.
“[This] is unheard of for a comedian,” said Glenn Lehrman, spokesman for the Stub Hub online
ticket site. “The top spot usually goes to a sports event or big-arena pop concert.”
2. Ford Motor Company’s Ford Fiesta Project
The Program
Ford Fiesta Movement that involved selecting 100 socially vibrant individuals who were
provided with the European version of the Ford Fiesta 18 months prior to it being manufactured
and released in the USA. These socially media aware fanatics were encouraged to share their
experience with the Ford Fiesta over the 6 months on their Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and
YouTube channels.
The Numbers

 11 million Social Networking impressions

 5 million engagements on social networks (people sharing and receiving)
 11,000 videos posted
 15,000 tweets.. not including retweets
 13,000 photos
 50,000 hand raisers who have seen the product in person or on a video who said that they want to
know more about it when it comes out and 97% of those don’t currently drive a Ford vehicle
 38% awareness by Gen Y about the product, without spending a dollar on traditional advertising (
Fords model “Fusion” doesn’t have that awareness after 2 years of being out in production and
yet it has received hundreds of millions of dollars in traditional marketing spend).
3. General Motors Chevy Competition
The Program
 Eight teams of social media embark on a combination road trip/scavenger hunt competition from
their hometowns to Austin behind the wheel of some of Chevy’s newest products. Along the way
they’ll need to complete 50 “challenges” in order to determine the winner. The winning team will
be the one that not only has completed the most challenges, but has done the most interacting
with their community on Twitter and their own sites.

The Numbers
 61.1 Million social web impressions from March 8 to 21 (with overwhelmingly well above 98%
of those being positive, as far as the reports and measurements that I saw) with
 15,924 online mentions including
 13,440 Tweets (this is more than double the number of tweets about Chevy in Jan-Feb)
 1,216 blog posts
 1,268 other posts (including comments, photos and videos)
 33,500 page views through Facebook and ChevySXSW.com
 More than 300 pieces of positive user-generated content posted to ChevySXSW.com (including
250+ videos)
 Chevrolet added 8,764 fans to its Facebook page (up 12.7% in 3 weeks);
 @Chevrolet Twitter followers were up +68% in the month of our SXSW activation
4. Toyota’s iQ Economy Drive
The Program
Toyota in the UK put together a social media marketing program that saw two bloggers
attempting a 500-mile road trip in a Toyota iQ, all on a single tank of petrol. The trip would take
the two drivers to 18 UK cities and every step of the journey would be shared through social
media

The Numbers

 In terms of coverage, the hyper-miling activity resulted in 64 blogs, including Wired, the New
York Times and Treehugger reporting the attempt
 Toyota reaching a potential audience of over 105 million readers worldwide
 It reached a possible 3.7 million in the UK alone.
 Traffic to the iQ blog increased by more than 212%
5. Obama’s Presidential Election
The Program

To be elected as President using the web and social media channels

The Numbers

 Over 3 million individual donors were mobilised through social media

 Motivated over 2 million social networking participants
 Created and promoted more than 200,000 offline events across the country
 Total of 6.5 million donations online
 $500 million in donations online
 More than 13 million people provided their email addresses to the campaign website over the
course of the campaign, aides sent more than 7,000 types of messages
 In total, more than 2 billion e-mails landed in inboxes
 The campaign website helped create over 2 million user profiles
 There were over 400,000 blog entries
 People spent more than 14 million hours watching over 1,000 Obama campaign-related videos on
YouTube
 There were more than 50 million views of Obama Campaign YouTube Videos
 1.2 billion minutes of YouTube view time.
By the way if your not convinced here are four more numbers

 This blog cost $10 to setup (The cost of the domain name)
 March traffic 94,000 hits
 March unique views 59,000
 Time 12 months
PRINT
FROM
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-networks/cracking-code-virality-what-makes-
video-go-viral-and-can-you-use-advantage

https://www.clickz.com/12-times-brands-went-viral-for-the-wrong-reasons/95741/
Amazing Social Media Facts and Stats
2016
The business world has expanded its reach beyond conventional methods.
Marketers are now trying to go further and further to acquire a maximum
number of customers for their brand.

On this road to capture new prospects and achieving profit maximization,

there is a highly potential platform, which is known for its high rate of
customer engagement and client interaction.

This dais is termed as social media platforms. Be

it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or any similar sites, businesses
are leaving no such stages to showcase their product line and ultimately
generate more revenue.

Owing to the immense fill of prospects on social media sites, brands have
ensured to create an impression in an effective manner.

But, what is it exactly that makes a brand go for the social media sites more
than ever? Why does social media marketing become a term & a trend in
online business industry? And why do you need to opt for social media
marketing for your business?
All these questions will be answered in a much quantifiable way. I am going
to provide you with in-depth stats on the social media sites that will give
you more than enough reason to choose these platforms before anything
else.

Stats and Numbers

Below mentioned are the numbers that affect most to the business. It
depicts how many potential prospects are available for you that you can still
convert it your consumer.

As you can see, that there are approximately 2.3 billion users overall. That
means Social media platforms are having a potential user base of 2.3
billion that can be converted successfully in your customer.

Also, note that majority of retail brands across the globe are still using
the social media channel for marketing their products.

Did you know that Facebook and WHATSAPP together maintain around 60
billion messages each day?

This shows the true power of social media. Infusion of millions of members
on these platforms in almost such a short span of time itself exhibits why
your business require social media marketing now.
Here, we are depicting how many users exist on these social media
platforms. Facebook as expected, leads the way by capturing around 1.71
billion users across the globe.

That’s like capturing 23.4% of existing population on Earth!

Snapchat is just behind with 1.12 billion of users on its base.

These numbers simply show that why so many big brands are opting for
social media channels nowadays.

Let’s take a look at some other stats too.

Many of you might not even know but around 96% of the users actually
hold a discussion regarding brands on the web.

It is due to these aspects only that around 40% companies in 2016 are
planning to increase their social media budget out of total advertising
amount.

One more interesting facts about social media is that different platforms
and varied purposes. Like Facebook is known for its social networking and
news feed. It is less of professional and more of personal ‘touch’ social
media site.

Twitter, on the other hand, is purely focused on the business promotion

part. Users come on twitter to get the trending news regarding any industry.

Hence, businesses also utilize these platforms quite wisely. Out of the big
cats in Fortune 500 list, only 20 companies exist on Facebook platform,
while 83% of total are highly active on Twitter.

I will now guide my users one by one through the stats of some major
social networking sites.
Facebook Stats
Facebook is ‘the thing’ of all existing social media networks. Its simplicity to
use, its ability to look cool and a number of efforts Facebook is putting to
create a hassle-free and uninterrupted place, where users can meet their
friends, place this astonishing platform at the top place.

Facebook is the ‘only’ social media site, which is recording one new profile
every 6 seconds. With around 60% of logins contributed by publishers and
brands, Facebook has made an amazingly strong place for itself in the
market.

If you still doubt the potential of these stupendous stages, let me tell you
that across the globe, there are around 2 million businesses that are paying
for Facebook advertising.
For businesses doubting on the prospect base Facebook possesses, each
day this dais records around 500k new users on its base. That means 500k
more users each day to target for you!

Twitter Stats
With a humongous customer base of 320 million users, Twitter is
businesses first choice, when it comes to creating a buzz.

Twitter, unlike Facebook, is not generally utilized for chatting with friends,
meet new people or any similar social activities.

It rather works as a search engine with relevant hashtags. People tweet

about anything that is currently in the news, fashion and trending.

Twitter’s search engine makes the tweet reach a wide base of the audience
with the help of hashtags. So, brands who wants to create a buzz but does
not have followers on its base, opt for Twitter instantly.
One of the interesting facts about Twitter is that there are around 1.3 billion
accounts created but only 320 million are active on it.

That shows that how many users who have created an account on Twitter
for other purpose left this platform when they came to know about its
usability.

For the business part, approximately 68% of companies in the United

States opt for Twitter for marketing their brand.

Twitter is still able to notch up around 500 million users each month, which
shows how attractive and interactive this particular social media platform is.
Instagram Stats
Instagram is yet another social media site with totally different purpose and
layout. This platform is specifically focused towards the visual marketing
concept.

Encouraging users to post images on this alluring stage, Instagram has

emerged as a booster for different brands on the web for specific
promotional purposes.

Adding to business’s amaze, Instagram accounts for over 80 million images

that are uploaded each day.

To see the reach of Instagram, approximately 40 billion images are shared

on Instagram every day.

Businesses that are targeting young audience should consider the fact that
90% of Instagram users comprises of people under the age of 35.

Instagram also increases its reach using relevant hashtags. The time when
Instagram decided to introduce the videos, 5 million videos were shared in
first 24 hours.

Brands such as National Geographic, Nike and Victoria’s Secret are

dominating the platform with a maximum number of followers respectively.
Pinterest Stats
Pinterest has emerged as one of the influential platforms when it comes to
users’ decision to buy online.

Users post images on this interest-based platform. These images are

termed as pins.

Pins can be incorporated with the backlinks of your website, in order to

direct users towards your brand accordingly.

With around 176 million Pinterest accounts and approximately 100 million
MAU (monthly active users), Pinterest is ‘the next big thing’ of visual
marketing.

If you consider knowing how to use Pinterest for your business, read my
other blogs.

According to a study, most of the users (80%) come on Pinterest with a

purchase in mind. Mainly because of the appealing interface and easy
user-ability makes Pinterest as the main source of reference site for
shoppers.

Businesses utilize this amazing platform by posting creative images, by

creating campaigns and by engaging more customers.
LinkedIn Stats
As told earlier, different social networking stats have variegated purposes.
So, LinkedIn comes in when your business wants a totally professional
audience of any industry and genre.

LinkedIn, a professional networking account, which is known for making a

network of like-minded and same job profile personnel has been able to
create an outstanding impact on business.

With MAU touching a 100 million mark, LinkedIn is been able to inspire 3
million companies across the globe to create a professional account on it.

Covering about all sorts of profiles, companies, and industries across the
globe, LinkedIn is one place where all the CEO’s have 930 connections on
an average.

YouTube Stats
You must have wondered why I have not mentioned one of the most
impressive social media sites; YouTube.
Many social media experts debate about the credibility of YouTube being
called as a social media site, but IMHO I will surely count it as one.

With more businesses using YouTube for the promotional purposes and
with approximately 1 billion views from mobile devices each day, you won’t
find any excuse to not take this stage seriously.

Even in the United States, 9% of small businesses rely on YouTube

marketing more. Not only this, if you think users are not spending enough
time to watch a video, consider this; 3.25 billion hours of videos are
watched each month on YouTube.

That is a big-big number and you as a marketer should certainly consider

opting for a medium which is inspiring more users to spend more time on
video than usual.

Content Stats
If we are talking about any form of online marketing and not mentioning the
importance of content, then we are not doing justice with you.

Considered as the King in the online business industry, Content is one of

the easiest yet the trickiest ways that can help you increase you brand’s
visibility across the different platforms accordingly.
Top three content marketing stats that are accounted are blogging, social
media and then case studies respectively.

Ending Statement
When it comes to business, numbers are the only performance assessment
parameter eventually.

That is why I have presented the stats of most talked about social media
sites here. Hopefully, you as a brand owner will surely understand the
purpose and potential of this platform and create an amazing business
world for yourself.

Good Luck and Have an amazing Tuesday!

Adios!
Leveraging video marketing is a powerful strategy to promote, brand, and
grow your business online. More consumers are interacting with videos today
than ever before and, in 2017, it’s vital to boost and ramp up your video
marketing to connect with your audience.

Videos have a compelling way of fostering engagement, yielding results like

click-throughs, shares, lead generation, and sales. It is indeed one of the best
tactics to bring more exposure to your brand while helping you achieve your
bottom-line.

But don’t take my word for it! I've compiled 17 intriguing statistics that
illustrates the power behind video marketing. When you’re done, you’ll be
motivated to bolster your video strategy to create success in your overall
digital marketing.
Shutterstock

#1 By 2019, global consumer Internet video traffic will account for 80% of all
consumer Internet traffic (Source: SmallBizTrends)

#2 Facebook generates 8 billion video views on average per day

(Source: Social Media Today)

#3 YouTube reports mobile video consumption rises 100% every year

(Source: Hubspot)

#4 55% of people watch videos online every day (Source: Digital Information
World)

#5 92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others

(Source: RendrFx)

#6 90% of users say that product videos are helpful in the decision process
(Source: Hubspot)

#7 Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined
(Source: SmallBizTrends)

#8 Video posts on Facebook have 135% greater organic reach than photo
posts (Source: Social Media Today)

#9 Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by

80% (Source: Unbounce)

#10 After watching a video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product
online (Source: Hubspot)

#11 Companies using video enjoy 41% more web traffic from search than non-
users (Source: SmallBizTrends)

#12 59% of senior executives agree that if both text and video are available on
the same topic on the same page, they prefer to watch video (Source: Digital
Information World)

#13 People spend 3 times longer watching a live social video compared to one
that has been prerecorded (Source: Social Media Today)

#14 Video in an email leads to 200-300% increase in click-through rates

(Source: Hubspot)

#15 Top three most effective types of video content: Customer testimonials
(51%); Tutorial videos (50%); Demonstration videos (49%) (Source: Curata)
#16 A whopping 80% of users recall a video ad they viewed in the past 30
days (Source: Hubspot)

#17 67% of marketers found video marketing somewhat successful

(Source: Digital Information World)

Strategies To Use Video In Your Marketing

And now that you know how effective it can be, here's how you can use video
in your marketing strategy. These tactics are sure to provide you with the
results you're looking for.

 Use videos to share your brand’s story. Allow viewers to

experience your passion and zeal for the market you serve

 Live-streaming videos are all the rave now! Take advantage of

Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Stories to engage with
your social media followers through sharing your blog content,
reporting breaking news, or inviting them backstage to your next
event

 Upload videos directly to Facebook versus sharing videos from

YouTube to boost organic reach

 Create videos for each of your products, especially your flagship

one. Illustrate how to use it, the benefits, features and specs. The
more you educate your audience on its use, the better success
they’ll have

 Repurpose popular blog posts into a video series to extend its

reach

 Include videos in your email content. Be sure to put the word

“Video” in the subject line

 Use an editorial calendar to help you organize, plan and schedule

your videos so it aligns with your business goals and keeps you
consistent
We love to make decisions and form strategies based on statistics. It’s why we A/B test and

how we change directions on our social sharing.

Who doesn’t love a good statistic, especially one that has an actionable next step?

You’re likely to find a sea of statistics for social media—I know I’m amazed at how many

are out there. My favorite finds are those that are just a bit surprising or unique or even

counterintuitive.

I’ve saved some of the best social media stats I’ve found over the past few months and I’m

happy to share them here with you. Keep reading to see some fun, surprising, and (you

guessed it) actionable stats for how you can better share on social media. Got any stats that

you’ve found helpful? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

1. Your biggest advocates have

the fewest followers
When looking at your social media monitoring strategy, note that your brand/company

mentions on social will likely not come from social’s biggest players. Very few, in fact, will.

Social monitoring website Mention analyzed over 1 billion social mentions from the past two

years, and in their analysis they found that 91 percent of mentions come from people with

fewer than 500 followers.

And these are potential brand advocates—only 6 percent of the mentions in this study were

deemed overtly negative.

What you can do with this stat: Putting this stat another way, fewer than 1 out of every 10

mention will come from a power user. You can prioritize these power users if you want, but

it’s also important to give a quick and delightful response to those with few followers—the

vast majority of those talking about you.

2. Twitter has 6 distinct

communication networks
The Pew Research Center and the Social Media Research Foundation combined on a

report that analyzed thousands of Twitter conversations to come up with six distinct

communication networks. Which of these six do you most closely identify

with?
What you can do with this stat: Tight crowds and community clusters seem like apt
groupings for brands interested in a lot of engagement. Support networks, too, can be a type

of communication network for brands, especially if you are doing customer support on

Twitter. Analyze your own place in these Twitter networks to see where you fit and if you

need to change your strategy to mix with a different group.

3. Marketers say written content

trumps visuals
Social Media Examiner’s annual survey of nearly 3,000 marketers leads to a ton of insights

into how marketers think about social media and sharing.

Interestingly enough, in a social landscape dominated by visuals, it is written content that

most resonates with marketers. Over half of marketers (58 percent) claim written content

is their most important form of social content. Visual content came in second (19

percent.)
What you can do with this stat: Original written content can be a great opportunity for

thought leadership, authority, and brand awareness. When you’re creating new content to

share, keep in mind the power of storytelling. If you’d rather zig while the others zag, this stat

shows you some fertile ground for developing lesser practiced strategies, like focusing

on visual content.

4. You have less than an hour to

respond on Twitter
Consumers expect a lot from you on Twitter, as recent research by Lithium

Technologies confirms. The real-time nature of Twitter has led to incredible expectations.

According to Lithium, 53 percent of users who tweet at a brand expect a response within

the hour. The percentage increases to 72 percent for those with a

complaint.
What you can do with this stat: Tools like Must Be Present can help you track your

response time on Twitter, or you can invest in software like Spark Central to stay on top of

your customer support tweets. At the very least, consider the timeliness of your response to

your Twitter followers: Either grab a monitoring service to manage your timeline or get really

good at checking your Twitter email alerts.

5. Late night is the best time for

retweets
TrackMaven analyzed over 1.7 million tweets to come up with data behind the best practices

for earning a retweet. The best time of day to tweet for a retweet? After-hours, between

10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.

ET.
This advice follows the Late-Night Infomercial Effect (share when share volume is lower,

and your content has a greater chance to stand out), so it makes sense to see that engagement

after hours would be highest. Track Maven also found that Sundays are the best day of the

week to get retweets and that tweeting with the word “Retweet” or with all caps or

exclamation points leads to more retweets.

What you can do with this data: Test out the after-hours theory with some of your own

tweets and see how engagement changes based on the time of day and day of week that you

tweet. If you’re feeling particularly bold, you can try all caps and exclamation points, too.

6. Fridays are Facebook’s best day

for engagement
The Social Intelligence Report from Adobe analyzed over 225 billion Facebook posts from

the past two years to come up with some data-backed recommendations for Facebook

marketers. Their research on the best day to post pointed to a clear winner: Fridays, which

receive more comments, likes, and shares than any other day of the

week.

What you can do with this stat: Be sure that your posting schedule includes a Friday post,

and you might even consider saving your best stuff for the end of the week.

7. Photos drive engagement on

Facebook pages
It’s likely that a stat about the power of visual content is not surprising to you, but how about

a stat of this magnitude? According to Social Bakers, 87 percent of a Facebook page’s

interactions happen on photo posts. No other content type receives more than 4 percent of

interactions.

What you can do with this stat: The obvious takeaway here is to post more photos—and not

just any photos. Choose photos that support your post or tell a story on their own. Certainly,

Facebook pages are already embracing photos as posts: 75 percent of page updates are

photos.

8. Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter

drive the most traffic

Social sharing site Shareaholic revealed an interesting split in the way that social media sites

refer traffic back to a website. Turns out, the data points to social being a source of either

quantity or quality.

In terms of quantity, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter are the top three referrers of

traffic. The Shareaholic study looked at a four-month period of data (December through

March), covering more than 300,000 websites. In their study of engaged traffic, the lowest-

performing sites for referral volume came out on top for engagement.

YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn ranked as the top three sources for referrals in terms of

time on site, pages per visit, and bounce

rate.

What you can do with this data: Get involved in social media accordingly. If you’re after a

big reach and spreading brand awareness, go with Facebook and Twitter, and think long and

hard about joining Pinterest, too. If you’re interested in more qualified traffic, then be sure to

invest time in Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube. These stats recommend a broad social

strategy, if you have the time and resources to pull it off.

9. Aim for 28, 118 or 385
interactions per post (it depends
on your total fans)
As Facebook page reach has declined, we marketers are left wondering what constitutes good

engagement these days. Earlier this year, Social Bakers analyzed more than 40,000 pages to

see exactly where the average engagement lies for pages of all sizes. Pages with 1 to 9,999

fans: 28 interactions per post 10,000 to 99,999 fans: 118 interactions per post 100,000 to

499,999 fans: 385 interactions per

post

Interactions represent the total of comments, shares, and likes. In addition to the benchmark

data above, Social Bakers also found that interactions on a particular post are directly

correlated to a post’s reach. The more engagement a post gets, the more people will see it.

What you can do with this stat: Measure your Facebook page’s success against the

benchmarks in this Social Bakers study. As time goes on, reach and interactions may
continue falling, so these targets could be great to aim for but not the end of the world if you

miss.

10. There’s a best day for

everything on Pinterest
The Pinterest blog recently revealed which categories get the most engagement on each day

of the week. Here’s how the calendar lays out:

Monday: Fitness

Tuesday: Technology

Wednesday: Inspirational quotes

Thursday: Fashion

Friday: Humor

Saturday: Travel

Sunday: Food and crafts

What you can do with this data: If possible, create a Pinterest board that touches on each of

these seven topics, then build this sort of specific sharing into your Pinterest schedule.

Recap

Data and statistics like these can give you a good starting point for testing out your own

action steps and strategies. Start with these stats, test them for yourself, and find the best

system that works for you. Then come back and share! I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Which of these social media stats stood out to you? Which ones might you act on? Do

you have any favorite stats that have driven your social media decisions lately?
37 Staggering Video Marketing Statistics for
2018

Mary Lister

Last updated: May 1, 2018

Marketing Ideas

As digital marketing evolves, we continue to see trends favoring video! Here are
some quick and easy video marketing statistics to use to convince your boss to
invest in that video project, YouTube ads, or simply qualify your Snapchat habit.
Video Marketing Volume Statistics
 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter

 YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.

 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a

week.

 More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.

 More video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television
networks have created in 30 years.
 87% of online marketers use video content.

 72 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds.

 One-third of online activity is spent watching video.

 Saudi Arabia is the country with the highest daily online video access, with 98
percent of online video penetration among the population (via statista).
 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online.

 Every second, a million minutes (17,000 hours) of video content will cross global IP
networks by 2021, according to Cisco (via Forbes).
 The 25-34 (millennial) age group watches the most online videos and men
spend 40% more time watching videos on the internet than women.
  Over 500 million (half a BILLION) people are watching video on Facebook every day
(via Forbes).

Mobile Video Marketing Statistics

 Over half of video content is viewed on mobile.

 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others.

 90% of Twitter video views happen on a mobile device.

 Periscope users have created more than 200 million broadcasts.

 10 million videos are watched on Snapchat per day.

Video Marketing Engagement Statistics

 51% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content
with the best ROI.

 Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.

 Sixty-four percent of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social

videos (via tubularinsights).
 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same
topic, they are more likely to choose video.

 Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.

 Views on branded video content have increased 258% on Facebook and 99% on
YouTube as of June 2017 (via tubularinsights).
 [NEW] You can now use GIFs in Facebook ads! We tried it out ourselves, and
on the first day the ad below outperformed any other live Facebook ad we
were running.
 Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs.

 Videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement.

 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound.

 Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.

 Native videos on Facebook have 10 times higher reach compared to YouTube

links.
 (Sprout Social’s Video Engagement)

 The average CVR for websites using video is 4.8%, compared to 2.9% for
those that don’t use video.

 Having a video on a landing page makes it 53% more likely to show up

on page 1 of the SERP.

 46% of users act after viewing an ad.

 An initial email with a video receives an increase click-through rate by 96%.

 Cisco states that Live internet video will account for 13 percent of the total
video traffic in 2018 (via Forbes).

 Video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors.

 Blog posts incorporating video attract 3x as many inbound links as blog posts
without video.
  Combining video with full-page ads boosts engagement by 22 percent.

Fun Video Marketing Facts

 Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to
10% when reading it in text.

 Internet video traffic made up 69% of all global consumer Internet traffic in
2017.

 By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet
traffic.

 The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video.

40 Essential Social Media Marketing Statistics

for 2018

Mary Lister

Last updated: April 18, 2018

Social Media
As we look ahead to 2018, let's take a dive into the world of social media stats. Keep
these 2018 social media statistics in mind as you create your social media plan this
year!

Social Media Demographic Statistics

1. 75% of male internet users are on Facebook as well as 83% of female internet
users.

2. According to recode, 44% of teenagers asked to choose one social network if

“trapped on a deserted island” chose Snapchat, ahead of Instagram (24 percent) and
Facebook (14 percent).

3. Female internet users are more likely to use Instagram than men, at 38% vs. 26%.
4. 29% of internet users with college degrees use Twitter, compared to 20% with
high school degrees or less.

5. 81% of millennials check Twitter at least once per day.

6. 91% of Social Media Users Are Accessing Social Channels Via Mobile Devices
from CoSchedule.

7. 22% of the world’s total population uses Facebook.

8. LinkedIn boasts more than 530 millions user profiles.

9. On any given day, Snapchat reaches 41% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the US.

10. YouTube overall, and even YouTube on mobile alone, reaches more 18-34 and
18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the U.S.
Social Media Usage Statistics

1. Facebook continues to be the most widely used social media platform, with 79%
of American internet users. Based on total population, (not just internet users) 68%
of U.S. adults (you know, your customers) use it. What are you waiting for? Start
advertising on Facebook already!

2. Instagram receives the silver medal with 32% of users, Pinterest coming in a close
third with 31%, and LinkedIn and Twitter at 29% and 24% respectively.

3. Per Statista, in the last quarter of 2017, 1.37 billion active users visited Facebook
on a daily basis. Overall, daily active users accounted for 66 percent of monthly
active users. (Check out 75 fascinating stats about Facebook here.)

4. The average LinkedIn user spends 17 minutes on the site per month.

5. 51% of Instagram users access the platform daily, and 35% say they look at the
platform several times per day.

6. Almost 80% of time spent on social media platforms happens on mobile.

7. Katy Perry has the most worldwide twitter followers, at 94.65 million.

8. Over 400 million snaps are shared on Snapchat per day, and almost 9,000 photos
are shared every second.

9. Just 10 thousand YouTube videos have generated more than 1 billion views.

10. More than half of all YouTube views are on mobile devices.

Social Media Business Statistics

1. Instagram earns $595 million in mobile ad revenue per year, a rapidly increasing
number.

2. Despite news of layoffs and executives leaving the company, Twitter’s revenue is
up 8% YOY

3. 59% of Americans with social media accounts think that customer service through
social media has made it easier to get questions answered and issues resolved.

4. Over 50 million businesses use Facebook Business Pages.

5. 2 million business use to Facebook for advertising.

6. Per Forbes, Facebook reported 47% growth in revenue to about $17.4 billion in
the first half of 2017 over the same period last year.

7. 93% of Pinterest users use the platform to plan or make purchases.

8. 39% of LinkedIn users pay for monthly premium accounts.

9. Pinterest drives 25% of all retail website referral traffic.

10. More than 56% of online adults use more than one social media platform.

11. Per Forbes, Facebook mobile ads account for 87% of advertising revenues and
stood at $8 billion in Q2 of 2017.

Social Media Content Statistics

1. Tweets with images receive 18% more clicks than tweets without images.

2. 100 million food and 146 fashion boards exist on Pinterest.

3. On LinkedIn, 98% of posts with images receive more comments and posts with
links have a 200% higher engagement rate.

4. There are about 81 million fake Facebook accounts and about 5% of twitter
accounts are bogus.
5. 100 million hours of video content are watched on Facebook daily.

6. More than 1 million LinkedIn users have published long-form content, with
160,000 long-form posts being published weekly. and over 19.7 million SlideShare
presentations have been uploaded to the platform.

7. 88% of businesses with more than 100 employees use twitter for marketing
purposes.

8. The user-submitted YouTube video with the most views is “Charlie bit my finger”
with over 845 million views.

9. Pizza is the most widely instagrammed food, directly ahead of steak and sushi.

10. Blogging continues to grow, with over 409 million people viewing more
than 23.6 billion pages each month on WordPress alone.

Check out this very cool infographic from Red Website Design! Excited to see these
statistics in an infographic.
Our prediction for 2018? Messaging apps!

29% of smartphone users utilize general messaging apps, like Whatsapp, Viber, or
Kik. As Facebook continues to test new methods for advertising through messenger,
and customers demand a higher level of customer service, we predict that more
brands will look to utilize messaging ads and applications in the year to come. Stay
tuned…

35 Marketing Statistics that Should Change

Your Strategy in 2018
Allen Finn

Last updated: March 22, 2018

Marketing Ideas

A wise man once said, “When your boss’s boss’s boss slacks the marketing team a
30-page report, its contents are probably blog-worthy.”

And that, friends, is why we’re here today.

Merkle just released its quarterly benchmarks, a dense tome detailing the movers
and the shakers, the stagnant and the shocking in the world of digital marketing.
Think of it like a SOTU but with verifiable facts and less self-aggrandizing clapping
(badumbumchhhhhh). Some of the findings presented are easy to digest, others take
some ‘splainin, but they all shed light on recent trends that should impact the
strategies of every advertiser, regardless of size.
While Merkle’s Q4 DMR covers everything from AdWords and Bing (and their
organic equivalents) to Facebook, Pinterest, and even online marketplaces (think
Amazon), I’ve trimmed this highlight reel back to include only stats related to paid
search and paid social marketing.

Let’s get to it.

Paid Search Marketing Statistics for 2018

1. Across all search platforms, ad spend grew 24% year-over-year in Q4 of 2017, up
from 22% growth in Q3.
2. On AdWords, year-over-year search ad spend grew 23%.
3. Cross-device conversions provided a 12% lift to total online Google search ad
conversions attributed to mobile devices in Q4, roughly double the rate for desktops.
4. Average cost per click (CPC) on the Google Search Network spiked 14% in Q4: to
the benefit of advertisers, though, this trend shift was met by an improvement in the
quality of traffic that Google search ads delivered.
5. Overall click volume on the Google Search Network in Q4 grew 9% year-over-
year.
6. Google search ad spending grew 23% overall year-over-year. This figure was
significantly impacted by a 32% growth for Shopping ads, while text ad spending
rose a more modest 15%.
7. In Q4, Google Search Ad spend allocated explicitly to mobile devices grew 38%
year over year; desktop spend grew 21%.
8. Google’s Customer Match, RLSA, and similar audiences products accounted for
30% of Google search ad clicks in Q4 2017, up 10 points from Q4 2016.

9. CPCs for branded keywords on Google fell 13% year-over-year in Q3, but spiked
up 23% in Q4.
10. Minimum first page bids for non-brand keywords rose as much as 23% year-
over-year in Q4.
11. Ads in position three and four at the top of Google search results pages
produced 12% of mobile non-brand text ad clicks in Q4, down from a high of 15% in
2016.
12. The average revenue per click produced by a non-brand Google search ad on
desktop improved nearly 20% year-over-year in Q4 2017. To put that into
perspective, Q4 2016 posted just 3% year-over-year growth in average revenue per
non-branded click.
13. Paralleling US trends, Google search ad click growth in the United Kingdom
slowed from 13% year-over-year in Q3 2017 to 5% in Q4.

14. Google Shopping accounted for 55% of retailers’ Google search ad clicks in the
US and 58% in the UK.
15. Total Google search ad spend in the UK grew 11% year-over-year in Q4 2017.
16. Search Partner share of Google search ad clicks fell to 5% in Q4.
17. In the B2B sector, advertisers saw average year-over-year growth in Q4 in ad
spend (21%), clicks (4%), and CPC (16%).
18. Mobile devices produced 55% of Google search ad clicks in Q4 2017, but just
14% of Bing ads clicks.
19. 49% of ad spend on the Google Display Network in Q4 2017 was allocated to
mobile devices and tablets, up from 46% a year prior.
20. Search ad spending across the Bing and Yahoo search ad platforms grew 32%
over Q4 2016, a drastic increase from just 6% year-over-year growth in Q3.
21. Bing mobile search traffic was over seven times higher in Q4 2017 than in Q4
2016.
22. Bing Product Ad spend grew 43% year-over-year in Q4.

Key Takeaways
People sure did spend a ton of money on search at the end of 2017!

While this is surely due, in part, to the effectiveness of AdWords in driving leads and
sales for businesses across virtually all verticals, it was absolutely influenced by
increases in both competition and cost. Fortunately for advertisers, Merkle cites
improved traffic quality (the clicks you’re paying for are from actual people, some of
whom may very well be interested in your business) and a 20% increase in revenue
per click in Q4, which more than offsets the premium paid to ensure your ads are at
the top of the SERP.

Mobile was (and will continue to be) a major area of focus for advertisers on both
Search and Display; if you haven’t already ensured that your landing pages
are optimized for load time and experience on mobile, do so now before those clicks
get any pricier. Speaking of major areas of focus…how ‘bout that Bing?! The
unfortunately oft-forgotten search engine clearly became a bigger factor for many
advertisers in Q4; as you look to diversify your marketing channels in 2018, be sure
to give Bing some serious consideration, particularly if you’ve had success
advertising on mobile devices in the past.
Finally, I found it interesting that the shift toward audience-centricity in search
continued into the end of last year (and will no doubt do so through 2018, too). Intent
represents search’s greatest advantage, and the vigor with which advertisers are
beginning to lean on audiences (targeting similar groups vs individual search
queries) could significantly impact strategy. Using audience profiles to inform
targeting on search affords advertisers an additional measure of control andfurthers
the need for a true cross-platform online advertising strategy. Figuring out how to
leverage the audiences you’ve cultivated on Facebook as means of augmenting bids
on search or finding net-new prospects on the Display Network will be huge in 2018.

Paid Social Marketing Statistics

23. 82% of all paid social advertising investment was spent on Facebook in Q4.
24. Facebook ads in the News Feed boasted an average CTR of 1.2%, more than 4x
that of right rail ads.
25. Ad spend on Facebook increased 20% year-over-year in Q4.
26. 83% of all Facebook ad spend in Q4 went to ads served on mobile devices and
tablets.
27. Facebook Spend growth decelerated in Q4, posting just 20% year-over-year
growth. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the year, in which ad spend posted
growth of more than 40%.
28. Facebook ad impressions declined 27% year-over-year-in Q4.
29. That being said, ad spend on Facebook in Q4 increased 20% year-over-year.
30. The average cost per click for Facebook ads in Q4, regardless of placement,
increased 36% year-over-year.
31. Instagram accounted for 8% of paid social ad spend in Q4; Pinterest took 7% of
the budget share.
32. Instagram saw significant growth in both inventory (number of available ad types
and frequency of placements) and cost, leading to a 122% increase in ad spend
year-over-year.
33. Instagram boasted a 99% year-over-year increase in impressions in Q4; CPCs
rose 77%.
34. Twitter showed signs of life (reanimation?), inciting a 44% year-over-year
increase in ad spend.
35. Twitter also posted year-over-year growth in both impressions (12%) and CPCs
(15%) in Q4.

Key Takeaways
Stop me if you’ve heard this one already: Facebook is still king.

Yes, despite, a dip in impressions and a 43% increase in cost per click (per the
company’s earnings report) and a kick in the teeth for News Feed ad placements,
the social network still saw a massive jump in ad spend. Its dominance in paid social
parallels that of Google in search. My point is this: yes, Facebook is going to cost
you, but based on its swollen user base and creepily detailed targeting options, you
can’t afford not to use it.
Gone are the days of dropping seventy-five cents on a boosted post and seeing
some semblance of return. It’s never been more important to ensure you’re
optimizing your audiences and ads, targeting the right people with the right creative
to avoid paying out the nose for qualified leads. If only there was some wayto make
that happen without putting life on pause to learn the intricacies of Facebook
advertising…

Regarding other popular social advertising channels, Instagram is surging (shocker

pause not), Twitter showed signs of life, and LinkedIn….

Yeahhhhhh.

Well, there you have it. If you dug into the rest of Merkle’s report, what compelling
conclusions did you draw? If you only skimmed the PPC-centric recap above, how
do you see this wealth of data impacting your online advertising decisions in 2018?
Let us know in the comments!
We live in a world that is intricately inter-connected online; a society in which social
media allows consumers to voice their concerns and opinions on a global platform
and in real time. With a few words and a hashtag, a movement can sky rocket from
obscurity to international news in a day.

The question is: how can businesses use this new platform to their advantage?

1. Communicate with your customers.

Unfortunately, even the best service teams sometimes fail to please a customer, and
with the rise of social media, it is easier than ever for a dissatisfied customer to share
their experiences with others.

Before social media became such a huge platform, a customer with a bad experience
would tell a few close friends, perhaps write a letter if they were really annoyed.
Now, your displeased customer has a captive audience of a few hundred online
friends to share their bad experience with. That’s a lot of bad press from one bad
experience!

A recent study by Zendesk found that nearly half of their respondents would share
their bad experience online. Not only this, but 88% of people are influenced by
reviews they read online. As the population ages and consumers become more social
media savvy (i.e. as Milennials start to dominate the consumer base), these stats are
only set to rise.

So: how can you make this work for your company?

Give your customers a voice.

In a world of automated phone systems and bulk texts, give your customers a real
service experience. Encourage them to express their opinions – not to the wider
internet, where you won’t be privy to them, but to your customer service team.
Using social media as a platform with which to engage with your customers, to hear
and respond to their opinions and actively connect with them gives your company an
edge in service recovery.
The best part? These online service recovery warriors can operate remotely from
anywhere, with the help of the Cloud.

2. Use social media to gather information for free.

Social media is a digital goldmine of customer information just waiting to be

unearthed. A buzzing, global community of active consumers who are bursting to
share their opinions on your marketing, services, logo…anything and everything.

All you have to do is ask.

Gone are the days of cold-calling and unfilled opinion survey forms- social media’s
thriving prod-user community will happily tell you what they’re thinking. Creating a
survey on Facebook, for example, is simple and free. It’s an option labeled ‘create a
poll question’. So, all you have to do is release a poll to your online community of
consumers, and let the free online focus-group army do the rest.

3. Let the social media community do your advertising for you.

By now, you should be familiar with the social phenomenon that is the hashtag. From
its humble origins as an abbreviation for the word ‘number’ and a musical sharp, to
its current position as the driving force between the spread of digital movements and
discourse, this little symbol has come a long way. And it holds a lot of power.

Social media provides companies with a unique opportunity to have their customers
– and even those with no interest in the company at all – to do their marketing for
them. Create a sharable campaign, and the online community will spread it for you,
with no charge.

Of course, finding out what it is exactly that makes a video or advertising message
‘viral’ is easier said than done, but if you can get the mix right, the results are
undeniable.

One well-known example of this is Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty. One of the viral
videos part of this campaign, known as ‘Real Beauty Sketches’, received over 114
million views in the month it was released. That was three years ago now, and the
same clip is still shown everywhere, from Facebook news feeds to classrooms across
Australia as part of discussions about self-esteem.

While Dove did pay to have this advertisement aired on TV, most of the traffic came
from people on the internet sharing the video with each other.

Jason Ankeny’s article in The Entrepreneur explores the theory of viral marketing, as
explained by Jonah Berger in his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On:

“Berger has spent years investigating the mechanics behind virality, identifying six
key drivers under the acronym STEPPS. They are Social Currency (e.g., sharing things
that make people look good), Triggers (acknowledging that we talk about things that
are top-of-mind), Emotion, Public (imitating what we see others do), Practical
Value(news people can use) and Stories (information passed along under the guise of
idle chitchat).”

With the knowledge of why people share online content, and how they do so,
businesses can use the online community and social media to spread their
advertising messages globally, and achieve exposure at a level not seen before the
digital age.