Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Complete Guide to Social Media Advertising Stats


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It feels like every month a social network unveils a new social media advertising tool. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have long planted their flags in this territory, while Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat are quickly gaining ground. This explosion in advertising options has left a lot of brands trying hard to play catch-up.

If you’re still not sure why you should put money behind your social media campaigns, we’ve gathered a long list of social media advertising stats that should help motivate you.

Social media advertising usage statistics
Social media advertising budgets have doubled worldwide over the past 2 years—going from $16 billion U.S. in 2014 to $31 billion in 2016

But despite this growing investment in social advertising, 46 percent of B2B marketers say they’re unsure whether their channels have generated any revenue for their business.
Social media spending in the U.S. alone is expected increase to $17.34 billion in 2019

That’s no small number. Marketers have recognized that social media advertising is a tool that they’re going to need to understand and use if they’re going to succeed at reaching coveted social media users moving forward.

This statistic shows that they’re making a commitment to doing just that.

Social media advertising isn’t only a North American phenomenon either…
In 2017, analysts predicted a 26.3% global increase on spending for social media ads

Of course North Americans are heavy users of social media, but so are people in South America, Europe, Asia, Africa… you get my point. Social media is being used everywhere, and social media advertising is growing globally. Regardless of your market, you can find ways to make social advertising work for you. This far reach is probably the reason that…
Social media ad spending is likely to exceed $35 billion in 2017, representing 16 percent of all digital ad spending globally

The actual number is $35.98 billion if you want to get technical. That represents an increase of almost $13 billion in just two years. Not only that, it means that social media will have maintained consistent growth (of about $6 billion every year) for nearly half a decade. Often these trends rise rapidly for a year or two and plateau. If social media advertising spend continues on this curve, there’s no telling how the industry and tools will evolve.

But that kind of spending must reflect just how expensive the ads themselves are, right? Well, actually…Over 50 percent of B2B marketers rank social media as a ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ low cost ad option

A survey asked 200 B2B marketers to rate the cost of demand generation channels based on the cost per lead. Just over 50 percent of the respondents ranked social media as “very low cost” or “somewhat low cost.”

This compares to 42.5 percent for search ads, and 41.7 percent for display ads. The truth is, social media ads are generally quite affordable. Many networks offer you the opportunity to test your content organically before promoting it, so you know you’re giving yourself the best opportunity to connect with your target audience. Plus, there are countless other ways to keep the cost of your social advertising low.

Social media advertising stats by network
Twitter advertising revenue totaled $545 million in Q3 of 2016, an increase of 60% year-over-year

Twitter’s earnings report laid it out clearly on the table: more people are turning to Twitter ads than ever before.

Twitter was one of the first networks to recognize and capitalize on the potential of social media advertising. In the years since they launched their first ad options, adoption has grown rapidly and steadily. With 60 percent growth year-over-year, there’s little doubt that Twitter ads have proven their worth as an effective option for businesses.

That may have a little something to do with Twitter’s great focus on mobile…
Mobile advertising revenue accounted for 86% of total Twitter advertising revenue

The future of technology lives in your pocket. People use smartphones so much today that every business is scrambling to optimize for mobile. Twitter has always been ahead of the game in terms of their mobile app development, and the same is true of their mobile advertising opportunities. It’s quite clear from this stat that mobile is where advertisers want to be, and that Twitter has managed to get them there.

So how do these revenue numbers translate into usage? Well…By June of 2014, nearly 80% of U.S. marketers were using promoted Tweets

Yes the stat is old, but that’s the point. By June of 2014, nearly 80 percent of U.S. marketers were using promoted Tweets. That figure shows the rapid adoption of Twitter ads, but it’s also safe to assume that the number will have increased since then, especially as Twitter expanded its advertising platform.

When more than 80 percent of marketers are using a specific tool, you have to believe that they’re garnering some value from doing so. And if you were to look at the data, it would seem to back up this theory.
In 2016, total Promoted Tweet engagements were up 91% year-over-year—much higher than traditional banner ads

Simply put, Twitter ads drive engagement. They’re targeting options allow you to connect with a very specific audience and provide them with content you’ve tested and know that they are interested in. This all translates into more engagement and more benefits to your business.

While Twitter is one of the social media advertising pioneers, there’s a younger player in the game…

Instagram
Instagram will bring in $1.53 billion in mobile ad revenue worldwide this year

Instagram ads are not to be underestimated. The social network started partnering up with big brands to test their advertising early in 2015, and the results turned heads.

In their first year of existence, Instagram ads pulled in an impressive $595 million. And, in 2016 that number has doubled. Those are incredible figures. And income is only one measurement. The other is eyes on the screen…
Instagram has over 500 million active monthly users—almost all of whom are under 35

As a mobile-first social network, Instagram is placed perfectly to capitalize mobile’s growth into the main vehicle of social network usage. Instagram is also most widely used by the next generation of buyers—90 percent of users are under 35. With Instagram ads, brands will be able to connect with consumers where they are—on mobile—and make an impression right now on young users whose incomes and spending will only increase year after year.

Finally, Instagram ads fit seamlessly into the native browsing experience. In other words, Instagram is an advertisers dream. Still, Instagram ads are a new tool, and haven’t really proven themselves in the long term.

But people are remembering them…Ad recall from sponsored posts on Instagram was 2.9x higher than Nielsen’s norms for online advertising

Facebook 

By the third quarter of 2016, Facebook brought in $6.8 billion in advertising revenue, up from $4.3 billion the year before

Instagram’s estimated $1.53 billion in ad revenue this year is impressive, but let’s not forget who bought whom. Facebook reported a remarkable $6.8 billion in advertising revenue this year. The figure grew by more than a billion dollars year-over-year—think about what that means for Facebook’s annual ad revenue.

The fact is, Facebook is the biggest social network in the world and, because of its widespread usage, many brands are more comfortable experimenting with ads on Facebook than anywhere else. Plus, it has a proven track record when it comes to social media advertising.
On Facebook, desktop ads have 8.1x higher click-through rates and mobile ads have 9.1x higher click-through rates than normal web ads

Think about that. Facebook joined the advertising game long after display ads and search ads had established themselves as a tool for businesses. In a very short amount of time, the social network was able to create ads that are far less obtrusive and far more effective than their counterparts. Between eight and nine percent higher click through rates should be enough to get you on board with Facebook ads. But this stat doesn’t even bring up the fact that Facebook ads (and, as mentioned above, social media ads in general) are often cheaper than other online alternatives.

Facebook’s impressive ad revenue growth can also be attributed to another factor, namely their increasing role as a leader in social video.

Learn more about Facebook ads in our beginner’s guide to advertising on Facebook.
Over 70% percent of marketers plan to increase their use of video ads next year

This stat, from a report by Mixpo, really shows that Facebook has become the platform of choice for video advertisers. Advertisers and agencies are clearly putting their trust in Facebook for all ad types, even those where Facebook is only now starting to gain a foothold.

If you look at the chart, Facebook clearly played second fiddle when it comes to video advertising in the last year. But it has quickly surpassed the video powerhouse that is 

YouTube
YouTube in terms of advertising interest.

That’s no small feat considering…
The number of YouTube channels earning 6 figures per year is up 50% year-over-year

This is an important sign for the video network. Despite all of Facebook’s gains, those who advertise on YouTube continue to increase their spend. One would imagine that this means the ads are working, and working well.

Well enough, at least, to support an increasingly diverse array of content creators.

And who are these advertisers?
100% of the top 100 global brands have run YouTube ads in the past year

YouTube has serious respect amongst big brands. While Facebook is becoming the video advertising tool for every business, YouTube is still maintaining—and as we saw above, actually increasing—powerful relationships with the biggest brands in the world.

Snapchat
While we’re on the topic of big brands…
Snapchat’s Sponsored Selfie Filters, which could cost up to $750,000 per day, are forecasted to reach 16 million viewers daily

Snapchat has a bit of a history of charging the big bucks for ads, and it seems to be working well for them. CEO Evan Spiegel and his team have forecasted that Sponsored Selfie Filters, which essentially allow users to turn their selfies into ads, will reach up to 16 million viewers a day. With the cost of these ads maxing out at $750,000 per day, you can bet Snapchat is turning to the biggest brands in the world, or at least those with huge social media advertising budgets.

Pinterest

And Snapchat is not the only newcomer to social media advertising. Pinterest has been around for a while, but it’s growing super fast. Although Instagram sees twice as many eyes as Pinterest daily, this social bookmarking platform is rife with inspired people who are looking to purchase. How many?
150 million people use Pinterest every month

That number is impressive, especially given that last year it was a third less. A jump of 50 percent in 12 months indicates something happening on the platform that all companies—small businesses and behemoth brands alike—can pay attention to. Even if you’re not a Pinterest aficionado, they’re making it easy for marketers to promote using the platform. Like Facebook, they’ve streamlined the process. It takes nine short seconds to go from viewing a Pin to promoting it.

That nine seconds sits between advertisers and 150 million fresh-faced creative users, 93 percent of whom have shopped online in the last month. Whether users are using social media as a wishlist or a shopping cart, studies have shown that they are actively browsing. This could be the reason that Pins with prices on them get 36 percent more likes than those without. And price doesn’t stop people from buying—the average order on Pinterest is $50—higher than any other social media platform.

Millennials ... What is meant by this and why is this Generation so difficult to define


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Adam Conover is a YouTube-personality-turned-TV-celebrity that is known for blowing minds and destroying everything we hold dear and true through humor and facts in his show Adam Ruins Everything.

As a marketer, I loved hearing his insights on old marketing tactics that have shaped many of our strongest cultural concepts. Listerine, for example, was originally a floor cleaner until the company invented the term ‘halitosis’ in the ‘20s and marketed the product as the only cure.

Conover’s insights into our modern culture have always been fascinating, but I was floored when he broke the concept of millennials during his speech at Deep Shift in early 2016. In it, he proclaimed that Millennials Don’t Exist. You mean the generation that I ‘specialize’ in discussing isn’t real? The group that I tout as my own, doesn’t exist?


But he was right: millennials don’t exist, and marketing to them through the special lens of ‘millennial’ could make our attempts at reaching them pointless.
Breaking the ‘generation’ mindset

Generational names are not scientific. As Conover describes in his video, even the Census Bureau doesn’t use generational names on the U.S. Census.

Why? Because the dates and associations are always arbitrary. They change constantly, and the names are always created by marketers. Baby boomers, gen X, the silent generation, and millennials were all coined by writers and marketers with the sole intent of making money off these groups.

The very people we are trying to reach are simply a concept in our head. We do this so we can clump them together and make them easier to understand, with the sole intent of selling them our product in whatever way this new generation might find appealing.

This makes sense, as many of the common associations with millennials are almost universal within the generation: raised in the technology boom, avid social media users, and generally burdened with a lot of debt coupled with slow wage growth (hence the millennial reluctance to move out of their parents’ houses and buy homes).

Yet this can also be really dangerous to use as a basis for a marketing campaign. These stereotypes, although true in some senses, often lead down a dangerous road that generalizes and alienates this young audience. As marketers, we have to break this generational mold other marketers have been trying to sell us for years.
The real identity of millennials

Although the term ‘millennials’ is often used for marketing tactics, there are some facts that can be attributed as truth about the younger generation.

For one, they are the most diverse generation in America to date. A 2015 report from the Census Bureau explains: “Reflecting these younger age groups, the population as a whole has become more racially and ethnically diverse in just the last decade, with the percentage minority climbing from 32.9 percent in 2004 to 37.9 percent in 2014.”

Additionally, they do enjoy the new media that is available at their fingertips—social media—just as any past generation enjoyed their popular media. Whether that be television, radio, newspapers, or even books.

Millennials, or the younger generation, are also not as self-centered as many (especially the news media) seem to assume. As Conover points out in his speech, referring to a study, all young people are narcissistic. When you’re a baby, you have a narrow view of the world around you. As you grow older that view changes and adjusts, often breaking your own personal narcissistic tendencies. This doesn’t make the millennial generation any different, and the generations before it were deemed just as self-serving and immoral by their parents.

Take for example this excerpt from an 1843 House of Commons speech on the immorality of the youth: “…a fearful multitude of untutored savages… [boys] with dogs at their heels and other evidence of dissolute habits… [girls who] drive coal-carts, ride astride upon horses, drink, swear, fight, smoke, whistle, and care for nobody… the morals of children are tenfold worse than formerly.”

The younger generation has also always been seen as the more progressive generation, often despite the antagonism of their predecessors. As the University of Southern California notes in their research on marketing to millennials, companies that focus on ‘green’ or corporate social responsability draw the majority of their support from millennials.

This ‘modern concept’ associated with climate change is being spearheaded by younger generations that have been immersed in this new concept from an early age, but those other generations are getting on the bandwagon, too. It’s just taking them a little longer to adjust to this new, progressive worldview. Just as support for ending the Vietnam war was spearheaded by baby boomers, but eventually supported by the majority.

No matter what name has been given to young generation of the day, those that came before them will always find a way to nitpick their actions and stereotype their behavior. Breaking those mindsets for ourselves will help us become better marketers for everyone.
The secret to marketing to millennials

So where does all this information leave marketers? Obviously your business—whether big or small—will want to reach out to this large demographic of young and eager shoppers.

The truth is, the best way to reach them is the same way you would want to be reached. The golden rule applies to marketing just as much as it does to real life. Treat your target audience as intelligent, eager, and trustworthy shoppers, and they will treat your business in kind.

I’ve written before about marketing to millennials by having your content reflect your values. Millennials don’t want to be marketed to through emoji or clickbait titles. Ads that fall flat are those that think the millennial generation can be reached through some secret code of emoji, when in reality they just want you to talk about what the product can do for them.

Create content that is shareable and valuable to the shopper, and you will succeed with any generation that is in the market.

In marketing, we have to be certain that we don’t fall for the stereotypes, and that we don’t become cynical to other generations. As the trends change, so will the generations, and we can’t let molds box us in.

Break your understanding of generational concepts, and market to people as people. You’ll garner respect and loyalty if you can show it in return.

Social Media Engagement Toolkit

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Social media is meant to be social. I know that statement may sound shockingly obvious but it bears repeating, especially if your business still spends more time talking at people rather than with them.
This often happens because the business is investing more time and energy into publishing than engagement. Publishing refers to all the outgoing messages on social media sent directly from your company’s account, while engagement refers to the direct one-on-one conversations that take place between your company and other people.
Engagement is what will help you develop the most meaningful relationships on social with potential and current customers alike.
“Your followers don’t want to talk to a faceless organization. They want to talk to real people on social media,” says Nick Martin, social engagement coordinator at Hootsuite. “Engaging one-on-one lets them know there’s a real person behind the account, and that can really make a difference in the trust they have for your brand.”
This post contains tips for creating an engagement strategy, managing your time, and measuring your efforts. We’ve also included some tips and tricks from our own engagement team to help you make it all happen.
What your social engagement strategy should include
You might be thinking “do I really need a strategy for something as simple as chatting with people on the internet?” The answer is yes. A strategy helps ensure every engagement you have on social media is not only useful for the people you’re speaking to—it’s beneficial for your business as well.

Goals and objectives

Defining how your business provides value to its followers is a key component of your strategy. Are you aiming to entertain, support, or educate? The answer will depend on what your business has to offer and what best suits your brand, however you should be able to clearly articulate what your followers gain from interacting with your brand on social. If educating people is where your brand can really shine, for example, then your engagement strategy would focus on providing resources, answering questions, or offering advice.
You should also clearly outline how you use engagement on social media to positively impact your business. Getting feedback about products or campaigns, finding and nurturing leads, providing information that helps move customers from one point in the buying journey to the next, and changing brand perception are all examples of how your business can benefit from engagement on social.
Here are some more key components of a solid engagement strategy:

Style guidelines

The one-on-one messages you exchange on social media need to be just as on-brand as the ones you publish to all your followers, from emoji use to punctuation and hashtags. Make sure your business has a social media style guide in place already, and that it also extends to your engagement efforts.

Reactive engagement guidelines

Reactive engagement is the act of answering direct messages, comments, or incoming @mentions your business receives on social. These guidelines should cover when and how your business interacts with the messages it receives directly on social.
Your reactive engagement guidelines should cover:
  • Whether or not you reply to every single @message or comment directed at your business on social (and if not, what the conditions are)
  • If, when, and how you pass along messages for another department to handle (for example, customer support or sales)
  • An overview of the tools and workflow used to handle incoming messages

Proactive engagement guidelines

People talking about your brand on social may not be directing their messages to your official accounts. These are potential engagement opportunities you can find by searching for indirect mentions of your brand name (or misspellings) and relevant conversations based on keywords or phrases. Proactive outreach is especially helpful for increasing the buzz around specific campaigns or product launches.
Your guidelines for proactive engagement should cover:
  • The tools and techniques you use to find engagement opportunities
  • Guidelines for how to engage once an opportunity is found
  • Best practices and examples to highlight what a successful proactive engagement looks like

Time management tips

We’ve all gotten lost in the vortex of social media at least once. You decide to have a quick peek at Twitter before bed and the next thing you know it’s 2 a.m. and you haven’t blinked in 45 minutes. Getting sucked into social media is hard for anyone to avoid but when it’s quite literally your job, losing focus can have a serious impact on your productivity.
Set aside a block of time in your day to handle reactive engagement, and another for proactive. You may also want to plan your day around specific social networks, depending on the size of your communities.
Here are a few ways the Hootsuite dashboard can also help boost your productivity:
  • Streams: Use streams in your dashboard to see all incoming messages from each social network in one place, instead of checking each social network separately.
  • Lists: Create Twitter lists based on specific industries, events, or hashtags and set each one up in a stream for easy monitoring and proactive engagement.
  • Tags: Use this feature to tag and track positive engagements so you can easily include them in your weekly or monthly reports.

Social engagement tools

Social media accounts? Check. A dashboard to manage them all in one place? Check. Here are some more tools that our social engagement coordinator, Nick Martin, recommends:
Photo editing:
  • Hootsuite Enhance: “This app makes it super easy to crop pictures specifically for social networks and add filters, images or text to them while on the go. Canva is another great option for editing photos to use when engaging with people on social.”
GIFs:
  • Giphy: “Type in a keyword like ’excitement’ or ‘dog’ and you’ll quickly find a batch of (amazing) animated GIFs that can add some entertainment to any engagement.”
Analytics:
  • Hootsuite Insights: “This is the best tool for getting a general overview of your engagement efforts and reporting on specific keywords or topics.”
  • Brandwatch: “Create in-depth reports that capture the entire social conversation around your brand and industry.”
Collaboration:
  • Google Hangouts: “Hangouts helps keep me in contact with the rest of the company, so I can get a heads up about real-time events that could potentially be great engagement opportunities like conferences that our executives are attending, for example.”

Measuring social engagement

Ultimately, your engagement efforts should be designed to build new and better relationships with your customers—but how do you measure those? Like all aspects of social media, you need to find a quantifiable way of demonstrating the importance of engagement to set achievable goals and justify the amount of time and energy you spend on doing it.
At Hootsuite, there is a metric called “Meaningful Relationship Moments” or MRMs to quantifiably measure the positive impact that our engagement efforts are having on the business. We define a MRM as a social media interaction with a customer, prospect, or community member that results in an observable positive change in sentiment or behavior.
“I measure MRMs by logging them in a detailed spreadsheet, linking to the conversation and noting the date, social network, and the user’s social handle or name,” says Martin. “I also identify whether they are an existing customer or not and what the observable positive change was.”

Monday, January 30, 2017

Social Networks That Are a Big Deal in Non-English Speaking Regions

Want to reach a truly global audience? We all know the big name social networks for English-speaking audiences—Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc.—but what about ones that are popular in other regions around the world?

There are lots of social networks used around the globe that can teach us a thing or two about e-commerce, virtual reality, and the future of messaging. We’ve listed some popular networks to give you the insight you need to take your social media strategy global.

1. WeChat

Used by half a billion people, WeChat is a messaging and calling app that’s most popular in China. It’s an all-in-one messaging app for test, voice, and video calls across countries. It recently introduced City Services—which allow users to do a bunch of things in their local area like book doctor’s appointments, pay electricity bills or traffic fines, and book flights—in select cities in China. Users can make payments through WeChat Wallet.
The WeChat app for Hootsuite allows users to send or schedule messages to WeChat followers.
13 Social Networks That are a Big Deal in Non-English Speaking Regions | Hootsuite Blog
Image via Hootsuite App Directory.

2. Sina Weibo

Sina Weibo, also known as Weibo, is a microblogging platform used in China. It’s often equated with Twitter, with a 140-character limit and the ability to like, share, and receive @comments and messages. With Weibo Radar, users can also find friends and daily deals in their neighborhood.
The Sina Weibo app for Hootsuite allows users to search, share, schedule, post content, and monitor feeds.

3. Line

Line is one of Japan’s most popular social networks. It offers free voice calls and messaging to anywhere in the world and allows users to share photos, videos, voice messages, and location info with their friends and family. Line is also known for its thousands of stickers of recognizable celebrities and Line characters (which are from the app’s popular avatar social network called Line Play).
While Line has strict advertising rules, users can follow the accounts of their favorite celebrities and brands to get news and product discounts. There’s also a Line Store for online shoppers.

4. KakaoTalk

KakaoTalk is an instant messaging platform from South Korea. It has video and voice chats with unique filters, events and announcement boards, and chatrooms. Users can send photos, voice notes, and location in messages. They also have a Gift Shop where users can buy directly from the app.

5. Renren

Renren translates to “everyone” in Chinese, an apt name when you consider that it is one the biggest social networks in China. It’s most popular among younger users and students. In addition to their social networking service, Renren also has a financial services platform licai.renren.com, which they say will “revolutionize the way that internet users connect, communicate, entertain, and shop in China.”

6. VKontakte (VK)

VKontakte (VK) is one of Europe’s largest social networking sites and is particularly popular among Russian-speaking users. VK lets users message, create pages and groups, share and tag images, upload photos and videos, and play games. It has a Facebook-like interface with the ability to chat and connect with friends easily.

7. QZone

QZone was created in 2005 by Tencent and has become one of China’s most popular social networking platforms. It’s used for writing blogs, watching videos, sharing photos, and listening to music. You can customize your profile by buying accessories from the platform. As it continues to grow in popularity, QZone is honing in on messaging, gaming, and online shopping for its users.

8. QQ

Also created by Tencent, QQ is an international chat and call app. Popular in China and available in many other countries all over the world, QQ has over 1 billion registered users. It has a unique, built-in translation feature that allows users to speak with friends in different languages. It offers video calling, voice chats, and texting all within the app.

9. Taringa!

Taringa! is a social network aimed at a Latin American audience. It allows people to share thousands of posts on a variety of subjects such as recipes, news, technology, and art. Once users join, they create content and get feedback from their community. Top-rated content gets featured on a prominent spot on the network. Users can also join different communities based on their hobbies and interests.

10. Badoo

Badoo is a dating social networking platform popular in Latin America, Spain, Italy, and France. The app shows other users that are nearby so users can find people that they’ve run into in real life. Once users have made a connection, they can chat on the app. Anyone can join Badoo for free, but they need to pay for premium features.

11. Skyrock

Skyrock is a blogging and messaging site based in France offering users free web space to create their own profiles and blogs. It’s geared towards musicians and other artists that want to share their work. In 2015 it was ranked the seventh largest social media network in the world.

12. Xing

Xing is a business networking and recruitment site used in Asia. Users can follow industries, brands, events, and news that they’re interested in. Like LinkedIn, users can also use Xing to search and apply for jobs and connect with communities to develop relationships with potential employers and thought leaders.

13. Tuenti

Tuenti is a popular social networking site in Spain. Beginning as a Spanish alternative to Facebook, Tuenti now focuses on calling and messaging through its app. It offers free calling between users that have the Tuenti app, international calls without roaming, and allows unlimited chat with photos, sound, and voice filters.
As brands grow their audiences across continents and into new markets, it’s important to understand other popular social networks and how they are being used. It can tell you a lot about cultural differences in online communities and future trends on social.

Social Media Acronyms That All Marketers Should Know

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When you’re staring at slide 58 of an 80-slide presentation with yet another acronym that you don’t understand, it feels like you could give up on social media altogether.

Don’t worry, that’s pretty much how every marketer feels. Social media acronyms are no different than any other kind of jargon: they are vaguely understood by the group to which they belong (and rarely anybody else).

Like overly academic or pontificating language, acronyms can be annoying and should be used with caution. However, they hold the keys to better understanding your customers and fellow marketers—so it’s important that you stay on top of them.

We’ve divided our list of social media acronyms and abbreviations into three categories:
Network-specific acronyms
Popular acronyms on social
Acronyms used by social media marketers

Our comprehensive list of the latest social media acronyms will help you survive your next meeting. Terms are organized alphabetically under each category.
Network-specific acronyms
FB: Facebook
IG: Instagram
LI: LinkedIn
TW: Twitter
YT: YouTube
Popular acronyms used on social media

AMA: Ask me anything

Most notably used on Reddit, “ask me anything,” refers to crowdsourced Q&A sessions. Anyone can start an AMA session (and big names have, like President Obama). Redditors then ask whatever they want and questions are voted up or down. The most popular ones get answered.

BAE: Before anyone else

A term of endearment for your loved one. Careful though, this acronym has found its way into our list of words and phrases to ban from your social media vocabulary.

DM: Direct message

A DM is a messaging function on Twitter that allows you to send a private message to another user. You can only send a direct message to a Twitter user who is already following you, and you can only receive messages from people you follow. (You can change your account settings so that you can receive a DM from anyone).

ELI5: Explain like I’m five

Popular on Reddit, this acronym is used when someone is asking for a simple explanation of a complex topic, e.g. “Gravitational waves detected? ELI5.”

FOMO: Fear of missing out

The fear that if you miss a party or event, that you’ll miss out on some amazing or memorable experience. (Everybody wants to be part of that memory on Instagram, right?)

FTW: For the win

Used to add excitement or emphasis at the end of a social post, but more often used sarcastically, e.g. “He missed his deadline again, FTW!”

ICYMI: In case you missed it

Catching you up on the latest information and news.

IMO/IMHO: In my opinion, In my humble opinion

Make it known or emphasize that something you say is an opinion, not fact.

IRL: In real life

To let people know you are talking about something in the real world and not in the internet world.

IKR: I know, right?

Affirmation or agreement with someone’s statement.

JIC: Just in case

In the event that you might need something, e.g. “Bring your sunscreen JIC.”

LMK: Let me know

If someone writes this in a message to you, they’re expecting a response.

MCM: Man Crush Monday

A trend on social where you reveal who your ‘man crush’ is on social. And it must be done on a Monday (#ManCrushMonday, #MCM).

MT: Modified Tweet

If a manual Retweet is edited for length, use MT to signify that you’ve changed the original author’s words.

NSFW: Not safe for work

This means that your discussion or content isn’t suitable for work, i.e. your boss would find it inappropriate.

OOTD: Outfit of the day

A popular Instagram hashtag, #OOTD means you’re showcasing an outfit you’ve worn that day or an outfit that is suited for that day.

RT: Retweet

A Retweet is a Tweet that is re-shared to the followers of another user’s Twitter account. You can click the official Retweet button or type “RT” before the @username and content of the tweet you’re re-sharing.

SMH: Shaking my head

If you find something really stupid and you don’t have the words to respond.

TL;DR: Too long; didn’t read

When someone hasn’t read what you’ve written but wants to reply anyways. Also used to give a brief synopsis of a post or article.

TBH: To be honest

When someone wants to emphasize that they are giving their honest opinion, often used for negative feedback, e.g. “Tbh I don’t like those sunglasses.”

TBT: Throwback Thursday

A trend on social media where people post old photos of themselves or others on Thursdays (#ThrowbackThursday, #TBT).

Check out: The Power of Nostalgia: How to Use #TBT for Marketing

YOLO: You only live once

Often said before (or after) you take a risk in life. Also, if you did something stupid and jokingly want to justify it, e.g. “I shouldn’t have eaten that poison ivy as a dare, but YOLO.”

YSK: You should know
When you should already know what someone is talking about.

WCW: Woman Crush Wednesday

A trend on social where people reveal who their female crushes are on Wednesday (#WomanCrushWednesday, #WCW).
Acronyms used by social media marketers

AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action

AIDA is a marketing model that has been around for years. MarketingProfs outlines the ways it should be applied to social media marketing:
Attention through building awareness.
Interest by encouraging users to join your community.
Desire through regular communication and engagement.
Action by creating relevant content and calls-to-action.

API: Application Programming Interface

An API is the mechanism that allows one backend system to be connected to another. For example, if you’re using Google Maps to search for a transit or walking directions in San Francisco, Uber will appear as an option if you have the Uber app installed on your device. Google Maps and Uber are able to talk to each other in this way because Uber has an open API and Google chose to integrate it with their map service.

Check out: Social Media APIs Transform Businesses—Here’s Why.

CMGR: Community manager

A community manager builds relationships on social media. They engage with, and nurture, customers and key members of your community. If you’re wondering how this differs from a social media manager, we’ve got a blog post to help you out.

CMS: Content Management System

A content management system allows you to create and modify your content. If you’re running a blog, website, or social channels, a CMS is the backbone that holds it all together. Popular content management systems include WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal.

CPC, PPC: Cost per click, Pay per click

Cost per click (or pay per click) is an internet advertising model that is used to direct traffic to websites. It basically means you pay for each click on your ads.

CR: Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the number of people who take action through things like views, engagement, or purchase. Tracking conversions from social is an important part of attributing revenue to social media.

CRO: Conversion rate optimization

Conversion rate optimization is the strategy employed to increase conversions.

CTA: Call to action

A call-to-action is verbal, written, or visual instruction intended to prompt a response from your customer. On social media, a call-to-action can be anything from getting your audience to read content, engage with campaigns and contests, or try out a new product offering.

CTR: Click-through rate

Click-through rate measures the number of people that click on a link. When you’re running a social media campaign, you’ll probably set benchmarks and goals for the number of click-throughs.

CX: Customer experience

Customer experience is the relationship that a customer (or potential customer) has with your company. It covers every aspect of your business from sales, to customer service, to social media and marketing efforts, to product.

ESP: Email service provider

An email service provider hosts email marketing services on their servers. Popular email service providers include MailChimp, Mad Mimi, and Vertical Response.

KPI: Key performance indicator

Key performance indicator is a broad business metric used to determine success. KPIs will vary according to each organization and department.

Check out: 26 Social Media KPIs That You Can’t Ignore

PV: Page views

A pageview is the number of views that your website or other online content has accumulated.

GA: Google Analytics

Google Analytics is Google’s web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. It can show you important social metrics like referral traffic from social media.

Check out: A 6-Step Guide to Tracking Social Media in Google Analytics

ROI: Return on investment

Return on investment is a way to measure the efficiency or effectiveness of your investment. It’s the benefit of the investment divided by the cost of the investment.

To get buy-in on your social media strategy, it’s important to demonstrate how social media contributes to overall business goals. You can learn how to measure and demonstrate social media ROI in our comprehensive guide.

RSS: Rich site summary (Also known as: really simple syndication)

RSS is a format for syndicating web content. Blogs, news publishers, and other publications use RSS feeds to broadcast content to their audiences.

Check out: Hootsuite Syndicator

RTD: Real-time data

Real-time data is presented as it is received (i.e. in “real time”). It gives you the convenience of accessing the latest information whenever you need it.

SaaS: Software as a service

Software as a service (sometimes referred to as web-based or hosted software) allows you to run an application on your web browser. For example, Hootsuite is software as a service—we build the software and you can log in and use it from your own device.

SEM: Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing is a form of internet marketing that typically refers to buying traffic through paid search listings which will appear on search engines like Google.

SEO: Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization focuses on growing organic search engine results. As Moz’s comprehensive guide to SEO points out, “SEO encompasses both the technical and creative elements required to improve rankings, drive traffic, and increase awareness in search engines.”

SERP: Search engine results page

A search engine results page shows the pages displayed in response to the search query. Results listings are useful to identify customer and search intent of a particular keyword phrase.

SM: Social media

Something you’re probably already familiar with, social media includes websites or applications that allow you to create and share content and engage in social networking.

SMB: Small and midsize businesses

Small businesses are usually defined as less than 100 employees and midsize businesses between 100 and 999 employees.

SMP: Social media platform

Refers to the platform of a particular social network. For example, when you log into Facebook’s application, you’re using their platform.

SMM: Social media marketing

The use of social media by marketers to increase brand awareness, identify target audiences, find and nurture sales leads, and build relationships.

Check out: The Essential Guide to Social Media Marketing

SMO: Social media optimization

Similar to social media marketing, social media optimization refers to improving existing marketing strategies on social media.

SOV: Share of voice

On social media, SOV measures what percentage of mentions within your industry are about your brand, and what percentage are about your competitors.

Check out: 4 Ways to Increase Your Share of Voice on Social Media

SoLoMo: Social, local, mobile

SoLoMo refers to the converging trends of social media, location-based searches (and online services), and mobile devices. Its emergence has a lot to with geo-location technology.

SRP: Social relationship platform

Social relationship platforms are secure and scalable technologies that allow businesses to manage social media communications across departments and devices. Social relationship platforms are used for monitoring, posting and tracking social media, and help manage everything from customer service to lead generation. Hootsuite is a social relationship platform.

TOS: Terms of service

Terms of services are the rules that you have to abide by in order to use a specific service.

UGC: User generated content

User generated content refers to any content or media created by the users of an online system. For example, UGC would include all the videos on YouTube created by its users.

Check out: 4 Excellent User Generated Content Contests Using Social Media

UI: User interface

A user interface maps the user’s intention to the application program. An effective UI allows the user to easily perform the actions provided by the site or program.

URL: Uniform resource locator

A URL is the web address of a specific page or site.

UV: Unique views

Unique views refers to the number of distinct, individual views your website or content receives, regardless of how many times that person views your content. (Unlike views, which looks at the total number of views, including multiple views by the same user.)

UX: User experience

User experience refers to a person’s entire experience using a product or service. A great UX is often dependent on an effective UI.

WOM: Word of mouth

Word of mouth is basically the passing of information from one person to another, including on social media.

Sunday, January 29, 2017

#OyVeyDonaldTrump ‘Muslim ban’: Why weren’t these countries included?


Priebus on immigration ban: 'perhaps we need to take it further'




#OyVeyDonaldTrump’s executive order banning the citizens of seven countries from entering the United States is supposed to protect the nation from “radical Islamic terrorists”.

But conspicuously, the order does not apply to several other Muslim-majority countries that suffer from well documented problems with terrorism.

On Friday, Mr Trump signed the order temporarily suspending the entry of people from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya and Yemen into the US for at least 90 days.

Mr Trump’s executive order also suspended the US refugee program for 120 days and ordered his administration to develop “extreme vetting” measures for migrants from the seven countries.

However, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Indonesia and Afghanistan were not included on the list, sparking speculation as to why. Was Mr Trump taking potential diplomatic fallout into account, or did he fail to include those nations because of his own business ties?

THE DOUBLE STANDARD

According to the American public policy institute Cato, Americans’ fear of foreign terrorists is over-inflated, as the chances of being killed in an attack committed by a foreigner are about one in 3.6 million per year.

In the past four decades, 3024 people have been killed by foreign terrorists on US soil. The September 11 attacks, perpetrated by citizens of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Lebanon, account for 98.6 per cent of those deaths. None of those countries are on Mr Trump’s list.

In fact, in that period, no American has been killed on US soil by anyone from the nations named in his executive order.




Not welcome in the USA.Source:Supplied


The countries conspicuously excluded from Mr Trump’s ban.Source:news.com.au

By contrast, several of the countries the president excluded are considered hotbeds of terrorism.

Just days ago, the US State Department updated a travel warning for Americans visiting Turkey, warning of an increased risk to its citizens. The country has suffered a wave of terror attacks in recent months, including the New Year’s Eve shooting at an Istanbul nightclub which left 39 revellers dead. Istanbul has been the target of many recent attacks by Islamic State and Kurdish extremist groups.

In December last year, 13 off-duty Turkish soldiers on a weekend shopping trip were killed and dozens more wounded in a car bombing. Dozens more people have been killed in other incidents in the past 12 months, including an attack which left 47 dead after a triple suicide bombing and gun attack at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport in June.

Mr Trump’s executive order also makes no mention of Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers once called it home.



29 Jan
Frank Luntz
✔ @FrankLuntz


Reminder: The 19 hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia (15), the UAE (2), Egypt (1), and Lebanon (1)

None of those countries are listed. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/825476891733794816 …


Follow
Frank Luntz
✔@FrankLuntz


The Boston bombers were from Russia, and 1 of the San Bern shooters was from Pakistan.

Neither country is listed. https://twitter.com/foxnews/status/825476891733794816 …
1:43 AM - 29 Jan 2017

322322 Retweets
331331 likes





Pakistan is not on the banned list despite a wave of terror attacks there, and long-running accusations that it’s been a state sponsor of terrorism.

The San Bernardino massacre, in which 14 people were killed, was perpetrated by Syed Rizwan Farook, who is of Pakistani descent, and his wife Tashfeen Malik, who grew up in Saudi Arabia.

The Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando, where 49 died, was carried out by Omar Mateen, a US citizen of Afghan descent.

The Boston Marathon bombing was orchestrated by the Tsarnaev brothers, both of whom were Russian.


US shooter Syed Rizwan, who is of Pakistani descent and wife Tashfeen Malik, who grew up in Saudi Arabia, were responsible for the San Bernardino massacre.Source:Supplied

BUSINESS LINKS

Mr Trump has been accused of excluding certain countries from the travel ban because he has business interests in those territories.

Liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is among those accusing Mr Trump of a conflict of interest.

It has filed a lawsuit that alleges Mr Trump is in violation of a constitutional provision that bans federal officials from accepting payments from foreign officials, The Washington Post reports.

The group’s chairman, who is a former ethics adviser to Barack Obama, tweeted that the move was unconstitutional and pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of Mr Trump’s order.




Follow
Norm Eisen @NormEisen


1/ WARNING: Mr. Pres. your Muslim ban excludes countries where you have business interests.That is a CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATION.See u in court
2:49 PM - 26 Jan 2017

9,0169,016 Retweets
14,70414,704 likes





According to Bloomberg, the list of banned countries doesn’t include Muslim-majority nations where the Trump Organization has done business or pursued potential deals. This includes golf courses in the UAE as well as two luxury towers in Turkey.

In a full list Mr Trump’s perceived conflicts of interest, Bloomberg also revealed Mr Trump had business interests or ties with Egypt, Indonesia, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. In 2015, he registered eight hotel-related companies in Saudi Arabia and also has two companies in Egypt.

Pakistan and Afghanistan, both of which have suffered a spate of terror atrocities in recent years, also did not make the list.


President Donald Trump’s executive orders have sparked backlash across the world. Picture: Alex Brandon/APSource:AP

REAL REASON BEHIND THE ORDER

Dr David Smith, of the University of Sydney United States Studies Centre, said the executive order was hypocritical in the extreme, and Mr Trump’s strategy revolved around keeping America’s strategic allies onside.

Dr Smith, a senior lecturer in American politics and foreign policy, said it wasn’t in the US’s interest for oil-rich Saudi Arabia, for example, to be included in the ban, despite it being the “land of beheadings” and having been described as “ISIS with borders”.

Nations such as Pakistan were also a strategic military ally, he noted.

Dr Smith said Mr Trump’s business interests were not the sole reason for the order.

“The fact that a lot of Americans have business interests in places like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Turkey is another reason (along with military and political alliances) that these countries don’t get included in travel restrictions,” he said.

The seven countries listed in the executive order had long been regarded as terror hot spots under White House policy, but they were also, with the exception of Iran, “poorer” and not in control of their populations.

“The fact remains the UAE, Egypt and Turkey are relatively wealthy allies of the US,” Dr Smith said.

“They tend to get exempt from things like this because the US doesn’t want to cause offence.

“The cost to the US (from the seven) is small, so is something they can afford.”


People attend an afternoon rally in Battery Park, New York, to protest Mr Trump’s new immigration policies. Picture: Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFPSource:AFP

‘OBAMA DID THE SAME THING’

In a statement today, President Trump said America was “a proud nation of immigrants” and would “continue to show compassion to those fleeing oppression”.

Mr Trump said his executive order did not amount to a “Muslim ban” and the countries affected had previously been identified as “sources of terror” by the Obama administration. He also pointed out that Mr Obama levelled a “similar” ban against refugees from Iraq in 2011.



View image on Twitter



Follow
Zeke Miller
✔@ZekeJMiller


NEW: President Donald J. Trump Statement Regarding Recent Executive Order Concerning Extreme Vetting
11:37 PM - 29 Jan 2017

142142 Retweets
122122 likes





“This is not about religion — this is about terror and keeping our country safe,” Mr Trump said today.

“We will again be issuing visas to all countries once we are sure we have reviewed and implemented the most secure policies over the next 90 days.”

Mr Trump highlighted that there were at least 40 Muslim-majority countries that were not affected by this order.

Dr Smith said it was true that Mr Obama banned visas to Iraqis, but it was only for six months.

While the Obama White House, as did previous administrations, maintained a longstanding policy to identify all seven countries as terrorist hot spots, citizens from the other six nations were never banned from entering the country.

Dr Smith said Mr Trump’s comments on Mr Obama were “misleading” because this ban is much wider in scope but also because it had also included permanent residents of the United States, which is totally unprecedented.

The Department of Homeland Security has now retracted that part.


Donald Trump’s order restricting immigration to the US and puts an indefinite hold on a program resettling Syrian refugees has sparked reaction within the country. Picture: Genna Martin/seattlepi.com via APSource:AP

WHAT IT MEANS FOR AUSTRALIA

Dr Jiyoung Song, a director and research fellow at the Lowy Insitute’s Migration and Border Control Policy Project, said Mr Trump’s ban was hypocritical because it didn’t apply to other hot beds of terrorism.

“Trump is delivering on his campaign promises to ban Muslim immigrants,” Dr Song said.

“Some of those (orders) are temporary and some indefinite, but it’s a completely discriminatory and racist policy.”

Dr Song said while Australia had been given assurances that its refugee deal with the US would go ahead despite the executive order, it was now a question of how many would be accepted.

Under the deal reached with President Barack Obama last year, Australia agreed to take refugees from Central America if the US accepted a number of refugees in offshore detention centres. Dr Song said she expected the US wouldn’t take any of the single men on Manus but would look more towards taking refugees of a Christian background or families.

“Malcolm Turnbull will save face as the deal will still go ahead, but the critical issue will be the number of refugees taken,” she said.

‘THE WORLD IS ANGRY AS IT GETS’

Last week, in his first interview since taking office, Mr Trump told US broadcaster ABC News he didn’t believe his executive order would spark a backlash from the Muslim world.

ABC journalist David Muir questioned whether it was a Muslim ban, something Mr Trump denied. Instead, he insisted the executive order was about “countries that have tremendous terror”.

“You’re looking at people that come in, in many cases, in some cases with evil intentions. I don’t want that,” he said. “They’re ISIS (Islamic State). They’re coming under false pretence. I don’t want that.”

When asked why only certain countries would be included, Mr Trump said it would be “extreme vetting in all cases”.

“We are excluding certain countries. But for other countries we’re gonna have extreme vetting,” Mr Trump said. “It’s going to be very hard to come in. Right now it’s very easy to come in. It’s gonna be very, very hard. I don’t want terror in this country.”

Mr Muir also asked Mr Trump if he was concerned this move would spark anger in Muslim countries.

“There’s plenty of anger right now,” the President said. “How can you have more?

“The world is a mess. The world is as angry as it gets. What? You think this is gonna cause a little more anger? The world is an angry place.”

Social Media Campaigns for Gen Z

Image result for gen z cartoons

Generation Z (also known as Post-Millennials, the iGeneration, Founders, Plurals, or the Homeland Generation) is the demographic cohort after the Millennials. There are no precise dates for when the Gen Z cohort starts or ends; demographers and researchers typically use starting birth years that range from the mid-1990s to early 2000s, and as of yet there is little consensus about ending birth years.

A significant aspect of this generation is the widespread usage of the Internet from a young age. Members of Generation Z are typically thought of as being comfortable with technology, and interacting on social media websites for a significant portion of their socializing. Some commentators have suggested that growing up through the Great Recession has given the cohort a feeling of unsettlement and insecurity.Statistics Canada defines Generation Z as starting with the birth year 1993. Statistics Canada does not recognize a traditional Millennials cohort and instead has Generation Z directly follow what it designates as Children of Baby boomers (born 1972–1992)..Generation Z is the first to have Internet technology so readily available at a very young age. With the web revolution that occurred throughout the 1990s, they have been exposed to an unprecedented amount of technology in their upbringing. As technology became more compact and affordable, the popularity of smartphones in the United States grew exponentially. With 77% of 12–17 year olds owning a cellphone in 2015, technology has strongly influenced Generation Z in terms of communication and education. Forbes magazine suggested that by the time Generation Z entered the workplace, digital technology would be an aspect of almost all career paths.Anthony Turner characterizes Generation Z as having a 'digital bond to the Internet', and argues that it may help youth to escape from emotional and mental struggles they face offline. According to US consultants Sparks and Honey in 2014, 41% of Generation Z spend more than three hours per day using computers for purposes other than schoolwork, compared to 22% in 2004.

Have you finally wrapped your head around savvy marketing practices for targeting millennials? Too bad! The next generation is just now achieving financial independence, and that means writing a whole new rulebook for how to engage with customers.
It seems a lot of businesses aren’t quite sure how to market to Generation Z, made up of young adults between the ages of 13 and 19. Many marketers in the world today assume millennials and Generation Z can be catered to in similar ways, but the two segments are actually very different.
Knowing how to speak to each demographic can help marketers better understand their future customers, and create a platform that can endure even as the general population continues to change with the times.
Despite growing up in a world marked by uncertainty and economic chaos, Generation Z has a combined spending power of around $44 billion. So how are they going to use it—and what can marketers do to steer the conversation?

3 tips for marketing to Gen Z on social media

1. Shift marketing toward Instagram and Twitter

The younger members of the population are driving big growth for platforms that focus on mobile-first experiences—like Instagram and Twitter—causing yet another seismic shift away from traditional media and toward snackable media.
This content, whether news or entertainment, can be experienced in just a few seconds or minutes, including “One Minute News,” a quick scroll through Instagram, or the exchange of 140-character missives on Twitter.
This has completely changed the game when it comes to building marketing campaigns for these channels. Your content needs to get to the point faster, not talk down to the audience, and recognize the fast pace of life better than previous marketing generations managed to do.
It also has to target the physical devices that are most likely to be in the hands of younger consumers. In short, marketing needs to be a five-screen endeavor, including smartphones, televisions, tablets, computers, and now, even wearables.
Moreover, it needs to place a renewed emphasis on brevity. That means more images, more short videos, and more multimedia experiences that leverage multiple technologies all at once.

2. Adapt social campaigns for incognito media

It was bound to happen. Generation X built it, Generation Y figured out how to circumvent it and now Generation Z wants out.
The entire digital world now revolves around collecting massive amounts of information about individual browsing and shopping histories, patterns of correspondence, and various other key identifying factors, and using it to sell products. Gen Z wants to find another way.
Perhaps more than any previous generation, Gen Z is deeply concerned about technologies that threaten privacy, such as geolocation settings, trackers, analytics and a host of other tools that marketers got comfortable with. With each generation, internet users are more likely to use ad blockers, virtual private networks, proxies, incognito modes, and apps that focus on security and secrecy, like Secret, Signal, Snapchat, and Whisper.
The generally touted purpose of an app like Whisper is to inspire people to speak freely and candidly about topics they’d never talk about in person, with people they may never have interacted with otherwise. Admittedly, the result is not necessarily a more truthful experience, but it’s certainly a more exciting one. From juicy personal confessions to airing dirty laundry these anonymity-focused apps are literally changing how the world talks to itself—for better and for worse.
The takeaway for marketers is that consumers want to feel like people, rather than commodities. This is why private, encrypted messaging apps are pulling in more mobile users. Whisper currently has more than 30 million monthly users, and brands like Coca-Cola, MTV, Disney, Pandora, and Hulu have already run advertising campaigns on the app. However, advertising on incognito apps is going to be quite the learning experience for most marketers.
To market to incognito audiences, brands need to find a way to connect with users beyond a service or product. Gen Z doesn’t want to see ads catering to who they should be, but to who they actually are, which is why incognito apps appeal to users so much in the first place. This will mean re-learning how we approach advertising as marketers, and is likely to result in some truly innovative ad concepts.

3. Design social campaigns that can be understood instantly

Language is changing right before our eyes. More than any previous generation—even millennials—Generation Z is more likely to communicate primarily with still images, videos, and emoji.
In other words, Generation Z is more likely to expect and take advantage of instantaneous conversation than any previous generation. Texting—whatever form it might take—is now much more popular than snail mail, email, or just about any other medium.
Alongside this seismic shift, and likely because of it, our collective attention span has dropped. According to a Microsoft survey of media consumption, the average attention span has fallen to just eight seconds. That’s not a lot of time to get your message across. It means marketers needs to use images, words and symbols more efficiently than ever before—no easy task.
Consider the appeal of something like Snapchat, which causes messages to self-destruct after a short time. This kind of ephemeral marketing is vastly different from everything that came before—the sorts of social posts or blog-based rants that are, despite their authenticity, deliberately and exhaustively designed and tested for longevity on the Web.
This content is built to manipulate algorithms, funnel traffic, and generally stick around for a while. There’s something inherently more authentic and human about a dispatch that self-destructs, something bleeding-edge that previous channels could only pretend to do.
On a practical level, this also goes beyond mere branding and messaging, as more and more companies embrace social media and other tools to offer faster and more responsive customer service.
Short version? Keep finding all the tools technology has given us for creating a more immediate, authentic and impactful brand message. Not everything has to be focus-grouped, and sometimes a well-placed emoji can have a far greater impact than an artfully written email.

The final generation

Millennials have officially overtaken baby boomers as the largest generation ever. As a result, they’re also the most thoroughly researched generation we’ve ever seen. As society and technology march on, Generation Z will almost certainly take both of these top honors in time.
Maybe the ultimate takeaway here is to stay aware of how one generation’s values differ from the next. Generation Z—the so-called final generation—is coming of age in a vastly different world than their parents or grandparents, and are radically different people because of it. Talking to them candidly, rather than talking down to them, is the order of the day.
Manage all of your social media marketing campaigns—Gen Z-focused or otherwise—the smart way.