Every year, the fine folks at Social Media Examiner poll their 450,000 followers to determine what’s hot and what’s not in social media marketing.
The full report for 2018 has just been publicly released and if you hurry (freely available for download until May 30) you can grab it here.
The results are global, but with half the respondents based in the United States.
Social Media Marketing 2018: Key Findings
We’ve been through the report and these are some of the key findings that caught our eye:
Facebook remains king. A very significant 94% of marketers use Facebook (followed by Instagram at 66%). Two in three marketers claim Facebook is their most important social platform.
Fans and followers are no longer as sought after as before. For the first time in years, generating leads has become more of a focus for marketers than cultivating a loyal fan base. In our view, that’s just a side effect of the reality that (especially for Facebook) the importance of follower numbers has diminished as organic reach has declined. 52% of marketers surveyed said that they saw their Facebook reach decline in the last year.
Even so, 50% of marketers have increased their organic activities on Facebook over the last 12 months and 62% of marketers plan on increasing their Facebook organic activities over the next year.
Facebook is the most important paid social advertising medium (and will continue to be so as we move towards 2019). Facebook ads are used by 72% of marketers (followed by Instagram at 31%). Nearly half of all marketers increased their Facebook ad activities in the last year and 67% plan on increasing their use of Facebook ads over the next 12 months.
Paid social media advertising is on the increase. The platforms where marketers have most increased their use of paid media are Facebook ads (49%) and Instagram ads (28%); and in the near future, both platforms will see even more expenditure, with 67% of marketers planning to spend more on Facebook and 53% planning to spend more on Instagram.
Return on Investment remains a challenge. Just 44% of marketers felt that they could measure ROI or social media activities.
The jury is still out on effectiveness. Slightly less than half of those marketers surveyed agreed that their Facebook marketing is effective.
Nevertheless, social media marketing is still viewed as delivering strong benefits. A significant 87% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Increased traffic was the second major benefit, with 78% reporting positive results.
Snapchat isn’t really a thing: 82% of marketers don’t currently use the platform and 72% have the no plans to use Snapchat in the next 12 months.
Influencer marketing has yet to reach its full potential: 61% of marketers are not currently working with influencers.
B2C: nearly all business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers are focused on Facebook.
B2B: most business-to-business (B2B) marketers also use Facebook, whilst a significant percentage use LinkedIn.
Most popular communications methods: images remain the most popular content form, used by 80% of marketers, while videos are used by 63% (up from 57% in 2017). Going forward, marketers plan to increase their use of videos (77%), visuals (68%), live video (63%), blogging (57%), and podcasting (25%), in that order.
Learning More About Social Media Platforms
Social Media Examiner asked marketers to identify which social media platforms they want to learn more about. Facebook took first place at 79%.
If YOU would like to learn more about any of the above platforms, take a look at our online training courses:
- Check out our Facebook Accelerator course by clicking here
- or (for those new to Facebook) our Complete Facebook Marketing course here.
- Details of our Instagram Marketing course can be found here.
- This course will show you how to use LinkedIn effectively.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
- This thirteen-part Principles & Practice of Social Media Marketing course will take you through all the Social Media platforms relevant to New Zealand marketers (including all those shown above).
