The Growth of Social Media: Updated [Infographic]

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Just a few years ago it would have been impossible to imagine how much social media has grown and become a part of our lives. Even during the heyday of Myspace and the rise of Facebook, no one could have predicted the sheer number of social media apps and websites available and popular these days. We tweet out our random thoughts, we Instagram our pictures, and using the right social media platform for your market can even help you get a job.

The big news is that social media is not slowing down. With the app store flooded by social media apps, you would think their popularity would begin to wane, but social media continues to grow in just about every market. It isn’t a fad. Social media is a part of our lives.

Just over 2 years ago Search Engine Journal published an infographic called the Growth of Social Media. Looking at the infographic now is practically nostalgic as it lists tons of platforms that have fallen entirely off the map, and it reminds us how quickly Pinterest, Reddit, and all the current sites flourished. But, the graphic is woefully out of date.

That is why SEJ decided to update their graphic to reflect the state of social media today. No surprise, the numbers are even better now than they were before. You can see version 2.0 of The Growth of Social Media below, and the original version is still available at their site.

Growth of Social Media Infographic

 

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Twitter Users Expect Responses From Brands Within an Hour

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Think you can get away with not responding to tweets directed at your brand’s Twitter account? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that ignoring those tweets or even putting off responding, can be terribly damaging to your brand. Social media users have come to expect brand interaction, and Lithium Technologies has released findings that say more than 70 percent of Twitter users have come to expect a response from any brand they’re interacting with. On top of that, 53 percent expect that response within the hour.

Twitter users expect responses even more when they are complaining to a brand. When users are upset, 72 percent think it is reasonable to expect a response within the hour. On the other hand, responses are less expected when users are giving positive feedback or comments.

If you’re dealing with complaints, putting off responding can quickly turn damaging. Over half of the respondents said they would begin to create negative consequences such as telling their friends about their bad experience and expressing concerns through even more channels. One complaint on Twitter can turn into terrible word of mouth rather quickly.

Search Engine Watch has more details from the survey, but it is fairly clear that Twitter users expect interaction, and you’re hurting yourself by not engaging them back.

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6 Tips for Getting Your Brand on Instagram

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Everyone knows about Facebook and Twitter, and even the smallest business owners tend to feel like they have a pretty good idea what they are doing on the two biggest social media platforms. But, some social media isn’t as easy to understand as the two giants. Instagram poses an especially difficulty problem for many business owners, who haven’t been able to figure out how you can turn a pictures and hashtag only platform into brand building and customer outreach.

You can do just that, if you take the time to understand Instagram and who is using the site. Once you’ve gotten down the basic features, you’ll find yourself sharing pictures and videos to thousands of followers in no time. Alexandra Burnett has some tips to help you get started.

  1. Complete Your Profile – Just as in real life, first impressions matter. Your profile is your chance to leave a good first impression by showing viewers who you are and what you do. It also won’t ever hurt to include a link to your Facebook or Twitter page and website. This way, any prospective customers can easily find out more about what you offer.
  2. Find Your Customers – You should have a pretty good idea what your demographic is by this point. If you don’t, start basic by looking for those in your city (#Tulsa) or share interests relevant to your market (#soccer). These people are all prospective leads. It is up to you to look for them and interact with them.
  3. Be Engaging – Don’t be afraid to make the first move. Reach out to everyone you can. Tag others, talk to those who reach out to you, show support for your community, and use your location. Everything you can to flesh out your online identity will help reaffirm to your viewers that you are the real deal.
  4. Be Consistent, but Don’t Be Spammy – It is important to post regularly. If followers notice you haven’t been posting, they may be inclined to unfollow you. The catch is, you have to show some restraint. Any more than a few posts a day is overkill. Try to set a limit of 2-3 at most.
  5. Show Off Your Products – Everyone loves to window shop, and Instagram is a great platform for consumers to idly browse for things they like. Highlight new products, and show off your services. If users are following you, chances are they want to know more about your businesses and what you offer.
  6. Make It Personal – Humanize your business by showing off the people who make it all work. Introducing employees to the public puts a face to your brand and shows you care about everyone involved.
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Facebook Rolls Out Custom Audiences To All Advertisers

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Facebook advertisers using the social platform’s API and Power Editor tool have had access to their Custom Audiences ad targeting tool for a short time. But, many advertisers have yet to get access to the targeting tool until now.

Starting yesterday, Facebook will has begun rolling out the ad targeting tool to a limited number of US advertisers, with a global roll-out beginning next week. Amy Gesenhues says all advertisers around the world can expect to see the feature by late November.

This is especially of interest to small businesses who will be able to use their own customers lists to directly reach out to people on Facebook. You will also be able to use MailChimp lists with Custom Audiences for the first time.

Facebook already claims thousands of advertisers are using Custom Audiences, but this will open the door for countless other advertisers to access the feature via Facebook’s ad interface. You will even be able to access the feature from Facebook’s mobile app, assuming you have already uploaded your contacts.

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Facebook Announces New Retargeting Abilities

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Advertisers on Facebook won’t have to go through demand-side platforms (DSPs) to manage their retargeting campaigns for much longer. According to Search Engine Watch, Facebook is creating new retargeting options that won’t force you to go through FBX (Facebook Ad Exchange) or any other platform other than Facebook’s own interface.

Up until now, Advertisers using FBX have only been able to serve their ads on desktops within the news feed or right sidebar and they must buy their ad space through separate DSPs. Considering how many Facebook users are accessing the social media platform via smartphones or tablets, it is surprising it has taken this long for Facebook to allow advertisers to target individuals on mobile devices.

What’s New?

The big new feature will be Custom Audiences, which will allow advertisers to set up their retargeting campaigns directly through Facebook’s interface. That will include the ability to overlay standard Facebook targeting options as well.

The ability to target mobile devices is of course another huge aspect of this update, as it is undeniable a remarkable percentage of Facebook users are primarily using mobile devices for social media.

What is FBX Still Better At?

FBX still has benefits over the options that will be available through the Facebook interface. Most important of those benefits is predictive buying. If an individual continuously browses for a certain product of type of service, FBX’s predictive buying capabilities allow advertisers to show an ad reflecting that interest.

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Google Expands Social Info in Ads and Updates Their Terms of Service

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Google made waves last week when they announced the expansion of how “Shared Endorsements” are used in ads, as well as the change to their terms of service to reflect this. The funny thing is, most people don’t understand what is actually changing.

The majority were simply confused when they heard that Google was implementing the use of social information into ads, because that has been going on for about two years now. But, as Danny Sullivan explains, the devil is in the details.

Throughout 2011, Google made changes which allowed advertisers to begin integrating images of people who liked their pages on Google+ into text and display ads. All that really showed was a small profile picture, and the phrase “+1’d this page.”

Starting on November 11, that won’t quite be the case. More than simply the people who +1 a page is going to be shown in ads. For example, if you comment, leave a review, or even follow a particular brand, those types of actions can be shown in ads on Google. A mockup of how it will appear is below.

These changes won’t take place until November, but don’t expect a prompt roll-out. It is possible you may start seeing the changes starting the 11th, but more likely it will gradually appear over the span of a few days or even a couple of weeks.

Not much else is known about how advertisers will be able to create these types of ads yet. Most likely, Google would not have announced the update this early, except they had to get the terms of service updated before they could even begin to implement this feature.

If you don’t want to appear in any of these types of ads, you can go to this page and click the tickbox at the bottom to opt out for all ads in the future.

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Bing Partners With Klout To Verify Social Personas

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Bing gave people more control over what shows up about them online last week when they partnered with Klout to create Bing Personal Snapshots. Personal Snapshots are an extension of the previously implemented People Snapshots, but it functions to give you some say in how you appear within the Snapshot column on Bing.

Bing and other search engines are one of the most common ways to find information about people, but those search engines usually gather that information from social media, which isn’t always full of information we want displayed to everyone who searches our names.

These new Personal Snapshots allows you to ensure the information you want displayed is shown while your more personal or embarrassing details can be withheld.

This works by allowing users to sign up for Klout and claim a profile, which Bing will then connect to your social networking profiles. From there, you’ll have some ability to manage your digital appearance and persona. The update will also allow Bing to show your most influential moments from social media within the same bar, along with a verified badge.

This isn’t total control over your online identity, but the change gives more power over your online presence than previously available.

If you don’t have a profile with Klout already, you should be aware that it is a social ranking website which relies on analytics to evaluate individuals’ online influence over social networks.

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Facebook Unveils New Advertising Platform for Ads Based on Goals

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Facebook announced yesterday via Facebook for Business News that they have created a new platform which will allow advertiser to create ads and influence their impact more easily, as Kelsey Jones reported.

The news release said that Facebook has received feedback from advertisers wanting to create ads based on their overall goal or objective, not just the type of ads that would be displayed. The company identified eight objectives as being crucial for business advertisers, specifically:

  1. Clicks to Website
  2. Website Conversions
  3. Page Post Engagement
  4. Page Likes
  5. App Installs
  6. App Engagement
  7. In-Store Offer Claims
  8. Event Responses

To help advertisers meet their goals and create advertisements more based on what they want to accomplish, they released the new platform, which will help advertisers decide how they want to best serve their advertisements. Foe example, an ad viewed on a smartphone can be set so that the users are directed to the company’s mobile site, rather than a non-optimized full desktop site.

Advertisers can also see how their ads are performing based on the objective they chose when creating a campaign. If your focus is website conversion, the highlighted metrics will reflect that. This way there is less confusion and advertisers have easy access to what they consider to be the most important metric for their efforts.

The options will be available via the Ad Create tool, the Power Editor, and the API. It will be a gradual rollout, which may take weeks, but will eventually be available to all advertisers.

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Instagram Begins Including Ads In Your Photo Stream

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Instagram LOgoMany considered it only a matter of time before advertising would find its way onto Instagram, since Facebook purchased the app. However it took much longer than most expected. Instagram has remained ad-less until now, but over the next few months you will finally see that change. Instagram announced late last week that advertising would begin rolling out within the Instagram photo stream over the next few months.

This doesn’t mark the first possible attempt to monetize Instagram. Jennifer Slegg reminds us of late last year when Instagram altered its terms to suggest that Instagram would all the rights to all photos posted on it, implicating that Instagram would begin selling those photos to advertisers. The response was massive and overwhelmingly negative, as users began to flee from the service until the terms were reverted.

Since then, the waters have been quiet, but it was heavily expected that Facebook would attempt to turn Instagram into a revenue generating service, seeing as it cost Facebook $1 billion.

This attempt is a little more direct than their change to their terms, but it appears they will be slowly integrating advertisers. They are clearly more cautious this time around – Instagram even emphasized that there would be no changes to how image or video ownership would be viewed.

The company is starting with just a limited number of U.S. advertising firms only showing small and occasional ads. All ads are required to use high-quality images and videos, so they should blend in on the feed.

Seeing photos and videos from brands you don’t follow will be new, so we’ll start slow. We’ll focus on delivering a small number of beautiful, high-quality photos and videos from a handful of brands that are already great members of the Instagram community.

Our aim is to make any advertisements you see feel as natural to Instagram as the photos and videos many of you already enjoy from your favorite brands. After all, our team doesn’t just build Instagram, we use it each and every day. We want these ads to be enjoyable and creative in much the same way you see engaging, high-quality ads when you flip through your favorite magazine.

Expect the ads to be similar to the sponsored posts you see in Facebook, but designed for Instagram. The company will also be heavily soliciting feedback from users about the types of advertising being tested and shown, including the ability to hide them.

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Facebook Updates News Feed and Search Abilities

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Facebook is revamping its News Feeds ads as part of their continuous efforts to make advertisements on their site more relevant to users.

They released an announcement late last week stating, “When deciding which ad to show to which groups of people, we are placing more emphasis on feedback we receive from people about ads, including how often people report or hide an ad.”

Facebook did say they believe advertisers will ultimately benefit from the updates.

“If someone always hides ads for electronics, we will reduce the number of those types of ads that we show them. […] This is ultimately better for marketers, because it means their messages are reaching the people most interested in what they have to offer.”

That isn’t the only change Facebook is rolling out though. They also announced the ability to search your posts and status updates within graph search, stating, “Today Graph Search will include posts and status updates,” which which you “will be able to search for status updates, photo captions, check-ins and comments to find things shared with you.”

You might not have access to either feature yet, but you can expect to see them within the next few weeks as they are rolled out.

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