We spent two days in New York City learning from social experts and well-known brands that are using social to tell their stories in unique ways. Check out our top 10 takeaways and stay tuned for in-depth reviews on a couple of the biggest themes from the conference.
1. Artificial Intelligence—No, we aren’t talking about the terminator (yet), but tools like voice search are changing marketing in meaningful ways. Businesses need to stay on top of those changes or risk losing business.
2. Live (Facebook Live, Instagram and Snapchat Stories)—Be interesting. Create and capture interesting content to keep viewers engaged.
3. Influencers—Stop going after quantity and awareness and start going after quality and attention.
4. Data-Driven Social—While your gut shouldn’t be discounted, data should be used to make strategic decisions. If you’re new to social advertising, use industry benchmarks for measurement. If you’ve been doing this for a while, look at historical data to create your own benchmarks for measurement and optimization.
5. Video—It’s here to stay! Try taking an integrated approach to your video strategy. Mix your highly produced videos with quick animated spots, grittier videos with less branding and live social video.
6. Storytelling—Develop your story in advance and use cross promotional strategy across platforms. Always continue the life of the story (e.g., “swipe up to learn more”).
7. Customer Experience—Social should be about your customers. Think about how you can use social to make your customers’ experiences better. Maybe it’s offering exceptional customer service through Facebook Messenger or maybe you actively listen and offer helpful advice on Twitter like @HiltonSuggests (follow them for great travel advice!).
8. Experiment—It’s OK to pull the plug on your current efforts. If it’s not working, try something new.
9. Internal Buy-In—Because social is all about people, internal buy-in is extremely important. Almost every speaker talked about how the top executives believed in what they were doing on social. The most successful companies also had highly engaged teams (and no, we don’t just mean the social team!). Figure out how to get your teams involved and interested in your social story.
10. Millennials—Stop complaining about them! Instead, embrace them. Not only are they your future workforce, they are also quickly becoming the generation with the biggest buying power.
For any questions or comments about the Social Media Strategies Summit or anything we learned, contact us!