Social Media Trends 2019_Prepare1 Image

What does the word trend mean to you and your business?

Would you like to stay informed and ahead of the masses?

The word “trend” can evoke feelings of fear and uncertainty for businesses. You want to stay ahead of the curve, but you don’t want to waste time and money on something that isn’t going to stick around (or that isn’t relevant to your business).

To say 2018 was a tumultuous year for social media is an understatement. Simmering issues with privacy and data integrity came to a boil at Facebook, with effects felt at the highest levels of government. Networks in the crosshairs of congressional investigations have had to reckon with their own power and potential for abuse, while users have been left to question the larger impact of social media on politics, culture, and civic discourse.

What does this mean for 2019?

Where Social Networks Are Headed

Where Social Media Networks are headed

THE RETURN OF REAL

Waves of scandal have had a tangible impact on faith in social networks. According to Edelman’s 2018 Trust Barometer Report, 60% of people no longer trust social media companies. Against a backdrop of “fake news” and data manipulation, users have grown distrustful of influencers–both celebrities and media personalities.

In a major reversal, trust has reverted back to immediate friends, family, and close acquaintances on social media, individuals whose personal credibility speaks far more than the size of their followings.

Organizations face 3 key challenges in 2019

  1. Data breaches make trust more important than ever
  2. The growing importance of personal branding to business branding
  3. The ad spend is increasing but you’ll need to consider ad saturation

RISE IN SOCIAL COMMERCE

The media went abuzz when Amazon hit a $1 trillion market cap. Interestingly, however, very little of this growth can be attributed to social media. And that’s significant because social media is a big deal, particularly in developing nations.

As research by PWC and GlobalWebIndex show, a trend where users are beginning to shop heavily through social media in the Asia Pacific is laying the groundwork for social commerce to gain traction in the west. In 2019 and beyond, we can expect to see a significant rise in social commerce both in the west and in developing nations.

TRENDS

1. REBUILDING TRUST

Brands get human as the circle of trust on social media tightens

social media trends

2018 represented a crisis year for trust on social media.

In recent months, consumers, regulators, and media observers have questioned the privacy, accuracy, and ethics of nearly every social network.

The result: 60 percent of people no longer trust social media companies.

social media trends edelman report

Source: Edelman 2018 Trust Barometer Special Report: Brands and Social Media

2. THE GROWING IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL BRANDING TO BUSINESS BRANDING

Particularly for small businesses, putting a real, human face to a brand name helps to build loyalty. A brand that’s more relatable, and has the human element, naturally garners more trust, and trust is essential for building relationships.

One way to humanize a brand is to promote the personal brand of the business owner or a high-level leader. This tactic has become a staple for many organizations, as demonstrated through guest blogging, podcast and webinar appearances, and other publicity opportunities. By enabling your audiences to get to know the character and expertise of company leadership, a business can strengthen its brand reputation.

I expect that businesses which embrace this in 2019 will have a distinct advantage over companies that hide behind their logo.

3. THE RISE OF LINKEDIN

While scandal and controversy have rocked other networks, one channel has quietly trucked along in the background: LinkedIn. The buttoned-down business network passed the 500 million member threshold in 2018. A content powerhouse, LinkedIn now publishes more than 100,000 articles a week on its blogging platform.

Beefed-up groups functionality, native video, and a new API for integrations with third-party apps all show that these days the network is far from just a place to warehouse your resume. At a time when other feeds are increasingly filled with toxic rants and viral memes, LinkedIn’s no-nonsense professionalism has a stronger appeal than ever–as witnessed by the accelerating pace of user growth.

Companies who succeed in social media in 2019 will find creative ways to leverage LinkedIn’s unique place in the social universe–at the intersection of the “personal” and the “professional.” A natural choice for B2B marketing, LinkedIn is also, increasingly, a channel to reach affluent consumers. Of it’s half-billion members, 44% make more than $75,000, and more than half boast a college degree. Meanwhile, in a record-tight labor market where recruitment is an existential challenge for many businesses, the network also offers an ideal platform to showcase employer brand, i.e., a company’s culture and reputation as a place to work. Case in point: A LinkedIn blog post on how much we value our Hootsuite sales team and how hard it is to find great tech salespeople led to more than 1,000 visits to our career page and 100-plus applications.

4. LONG FORM CONTENT FOR MAKING AN SEO IMPACT

While word count is not the only thing that can impact how prominently an article will appear on search engine results pages, SEO experts agree that long-form content can give you an edge.

Although Google doesn’t penalize blog posts if they fail to reach a certain word count threshold, it stands to reason that a high-quality article with 1,600 words will likely outrank a high-quality article with 500 words. It’s for that reason that I believe we’re seeing more publishers requiring guest authors to submit articles with a minimum of 1,000 or more words.

I believe we’ll see more company blogs embracing long-form content, and incorporating it into their content strategies. Therefore, businesses that have found they aren’t getting SEO traction with short posts may want to “go long” and add more comprehensive articles, rich with information and insight, in order to both attract readers and give Google a reason to rank them more favorably.

5. VIDEOS, PODCASTS, & LIVE STREAMING

Blog posts can still be effective in 2019. Long-form posts can still engage readers, provided that they are appealing and properly formatted to facilitate the reading experiences across all devices.

Content consumption though goes way further than written text, with videos and podcasts seeing great success.

From the rise of YouTube to the introduction of IGTV, social media platforms were always interested in highlighting video content.

Facebook has even adjusted their algorithm to ensure that video posts show up more frequently on feeds.

Video marketing is becoming more appealing both for brands but also for users who notice the content that stands out.

It’s only a matter of time until videos take over the whole social media world. 2019 will be the year that more brands will experiment with different types of video among different channels:

  • Short videos with captions are really appealing to mobile users and are also accessible to everyone. They can be found on any social media platform with Facebook favoring them in their algorithm. They can make really effective ads and they’ve already been used quite extensively from ads.
  • Vertical videos on Snapchat and Instagram Stories grow really fast in popularity and we already see many ads in a vertical format. It’s a format that will grow even more like a trend due to the improved viewing experience in mobile screens.
  • Long videos of powerful storytelling can still keep an audience engaged. Whether it’s YouTube, Facebook, or even IGTV, there is an increasing need for video stories that can be interesting enough to convince the viewers to watch more than a few seconds.
  • Live streaming is also another big trend that is now available across many different platforms. Users turn into broadcasters and brands become publishers to come closer to their audience. There are numerous opportunities to benefit from a live streaming strategy.

Except for videos, podcasts have also seen a growing success. Audio content is bringing the radio days back as a great way to catch up with your favorite stories and brands when you’re on the go.

More marketers are experimenting with podcasts, either to build their own personal brand or to promote their business. What makes podcasts special is the fact that they still focus on the content rather than the promotion.

People subscribe to a podcast because they are interested in the content, whether it comes from a brand or another person.

6. MESSAGING TAKES OVER THE WORLD

Customers demand better 1:1 social experiences

social media trends

 

The top messaging apps—WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, QQ, and Skype—combine for nearly 5 billion monthly active users. That’s more users than the traditional social networks have worldwide.

social media trends

      Source: 2018 Q3 Global Digital Statshot

Across the board, users are spending more time on messaging and less time sharing news on social. This shift from public to private spaces is changing consumer expectations.

Nine out of 10 consumers would like to use messaging to communicate with businesses, according to a survey of 6,000 people globally. In the U.S., messaging is the most preferred customer service channel. In a 2018 survey of 8,000 people conducted by Facebook, 69 percent of respondents said that directly messaging with a company helps them feel more confident about the brand.

What’s clear, however, is that consumers don’t want more advertising channels. Smart brands are using messaging apps for more high-value conversations.

So, how do you up your messaging game?

  • Enable Facebook Messenger for your Facebook Business Page.

This guide shows you how to enable Facebook Messenger on your business Page.

Once you’ve done that, set up an instant reply for when users send you a message. This can be as simple as a short greeting, or you can provide more information such as typical response times and support hours. You can also share links in your instant replies to direct people to support pages or frequently asked questions.

  • Add plugins to your website that drive customers to messaging apps.

Show that your brand is available on messaging apps by adding plugins to your website. That way, customers can easily click on the plugin and reach you if they’re already on your website looking for information.

  • Use DMs and/or messaging apps to streamline customer service queries on social.

When customers reach out to your brand on social, it’s important to move the conversation from a public to private space. That way, you can ask for personal information like phone numbers and address details to resolve the problem faster. This can also preempt the need for time-consuming follow-up phone calls and emails.

If your team isn’t available at all times of day, post your support hours and time zone in your bio so customers know when they’ll get a response.

ADVANCED

  • Set up bots and/or in-app assistants for frequently asked questions.

Bots are an important way to scale your customer service efforts and create better experiences on social. While they can’t replace an in-person experience, they’re extremely effective for answering simple questions and helping with more transactional exchanges. This frees up time for you to focus on more complex customer needs.

To get started building your own bot, check out tools like ManyChatChatfuel, or Conversable. (Just be sure to keep in mind the dos and don’ts of messaging bots.)

  • Run campaigns that incorporate messaging apps.

Get creative with your social media campaigns and think beyond the news feed. Contests are a good way to start connecting with your customers because they often include a private messaging element to share contest results. Messaging campaigns often work best on mobile formats, so keep that in mind when creating your campaign.

For example, Coca Cola ran a summer contest using Messenger and chatbots. Aimed at a younger demographic, the entirely mobile campaign encouraged customers to take pictures of their Coke bottles through Messenger to automatically enter to win prizes.

Protip: Always check the latest promotion guidelines for each network before planning your strategy.

  • Experiment with Facebook Messenger ads.

If your target audience uses Facebook Messenger, it’s worth putting some budget into Messenger ads. With features like automatic placement, Facebook will deliver ads automatically to your followers. (However, if you choose to edit placements, you can only run Messenger ads in coordination with News Feed ads—they’re not available as standalone placements yet.)

Be mindful of when and how you use these ads, as contacting a potential customer by private message is a lot more personal and intimate than publishing a banner or News Feed ad. Make sure your ads are useful, immediate, and actionable. For example, you can share a discount or coupon after someone has made a purchase.

7.  ClOSING THE ADS GAP

More competition on paid social forces marketers to up their game

SOCIAL ADS OVERLOAD

The ad spend is increasing but you’ll need to consider ad saturation

Social media advertising has been on the rise the last few years. We are now able to create social ads in multiple channels and it’s up to us to decide on the objectives and the type of ads that we want to use.

There has been an increasing success for many brands that used paid social in the marketing mix. It’s no surprise that there is a growing ad spend across marketers.

For example, Instagram’s level of engagement has intrigued more marketers to increase their ad spend to the channel, both on the feed and the Stories.

By now, everyone knows we’re in the pay-to-play era on social.

Accordingly, marketers are increasing social ad budgets (up 32 percent in 2018 alone) and producing more ads than ever beforeOne of every four Facebook Pages now use paid media. And Facebook already accounts for 23 percent of total U.S. digital ad spending.

But rising costs and fleeting attention are limiting ROI for advertisers.

To counter this, paid social teams are pairing ad money with equal time investment, creativity, and targeting savvy. And they’re paying to boost their best performing organic content.

Spotify and Netflix are leading the way with creative social ads that are at once personalized and entertaining, rather than just bland banner ads squeezed into a news feed. The end goal is to generate user discussion and engagement, rather than simply “broadcast” an ad at an audience.

We’re seeing brands build out their social teams (both in-house and agency) with skilled cross-platform content creators versed in video, motion graphics, design, and more. Enhanced third-party ad targeting tools, which enable easy A/B testing (in some cases with hundreds of variants), are also becoming the norm.

social media trends

  • Understand and target the right audience.

Knowing your audience is key to high engagement. Each ad campaign should target a focused group based on interests, jobs, relevant competitors, and previous interaction with your brand.

Social networks have different targeting options depending on the type of ad you want to create. If you don’t know who you’re supposed to target and why, research your customers to understand what their challenges are. Also find out how they interact with your business, brand, products, and services.

  • Define your goals and metrics.

It’s important to show that social media has a positive bottom-line impact on your business. That’s why every ad campaign should have goals and metrics that tie back to business objectives and that you know how to measure.

Your metrics will depend on the type of campaign you’re running and the audience you’re targeting. Awareness campaigns, for example, might focus on impressions, while conversion campaigns should put more value on click-throughs.

  • Invest in high-quality content.

With more brands competing for people’s attention on social media, ordinary posts aren’t good enough anymore. You need to create high-quality content that will resonate with your audience.

Create compelling visuals, which are essential for clicks and high conversion rates on social media. Not every brand will have the budget for expensive equipment or a professional crew. But, learning some video basics or even hiring a freelancer can make a big difference.

ADVANCED

  • Repurpose concepts from top-performing organic content.

Creating high quality social ads takes time and money. Test your ad concepts as organic posts first to see how they perform. Once you see what’s working, you can adapt and repurpose your top performing organic content for ads.

This strategy will improve ROI because you’re investing resources into something that has already been tested.

  • Use what you’ve learned from previous campaigns to improve performance.

By running ads and measuring their performance, you can compare results and set benchmarks for future campaigns.

The right analytics tools can help you track results and revenue generated by your social media efforts. Incorporate these insights into your future efforts.

  • Embrace new ad formats.

The social ad space is one of constant innovation. Newer formats have the advantage of tapping into consumer curiosity, while also avoiding ad fatigue.

Instagram Stories ads, for example, have been around since 2017. But this year Instagram gave brands the ability to use three consecutive photos or videos. Pinterest recently rolled out wide-format promoted videos. And Facebook Messenger ads now allow brands to connect with customers directly via instant messaging.

  • Split-test for success.

No matter how savvy your ad team is, it’s impossible to predict what users will actually click on. That’s where split-testing (also known as A/B testing) comes into play.

This scientific approach involves running multiple ads with slight variations (different images, different headlines, and so on) and then doubling down on the top performers.

Facebook offers basic split-testing functionality through its dynamic creative ads, but for streamlined testing with lots of options, consider a third-party ad tool.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Change: An Ever-Constant Trend

The one trend you can always count on resurfacing year after year is that businesses must, to some degree, adjust their social media approach to gain broader awareness, and increase engagement with customers.

Mark Zuckerberg once said, “Figuring out what the next big trend is tells us what we should focus on.” And while that might be true for Facebook, you should also realize that it isn’t always so for every business.

The thing about trends is that following them doesn’t guarantee success – I advocate for paying attention to social media trends, but before you jump on the bandwagon, carefully evaluate before incorporating them into your marketing strategy, and ensure that you always remain consistent with your brand and business efforts.

Social media marketing is going towards a stage that focuses more on ROI, new technologies and a trusting relationship between the brand and the customers.

The only way to survive in-between data breaches, emerging technologies and new platforms is to ensure that you:

  • Understand your audience
  • Review your social media marketing strategy
  • Allocate time and budget to new tools and technologies
  • Keep your focus on what works
  • Do your best to build trust with your users in every campaign

Source: Hootsuite

About Blair

 5 Golden Rules for Sharing on Social Media

Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.

Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.

Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.

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Social Media has changed forever_Prepare1 Image

Did you know social media usage is down overall?

Were you aware that Facebook is leading the way?

SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE IS DOWN OVERALL

For the first time ever, fewer Americans are using social media than the year prior. Edison Research contacted 2000 people aged 12 and older, using random digit dialing techniques, the same methodology used each year.

In 2018, however, they found that 77 percent of Americans use social media, compared to 80 percent in 2017.

This is a nearly four percent drop in social media usage nationwide. While not massive as a solo data point, remember that social media usage has increased a minimum of three percent, and an average of 7.77 percent, for the past nine years.

In terms of what we consider to be the primary “social networks” (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, et al.), we may have reached “peak social media.” It’s likely that we’ll see a subsequent decline in usage in 2019.

This is because young Americans are embracing messaging platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and others, while using the core social networks less. I certainly don’t foresee a massive “extinction event” that would cause a collapse in social media usage, but the migration away from public social toward private social is very, very real.

Any drop in social media usage is unprecedented, and indicates that Americans are not wholly satisfied with social in ways they may have been in the past.

FACEBOOK USAGE IS DOWN OVERALL

Facebook is the biggest contributor to the overall decrease in social media usage. Last year, more than two-thirds of all Americans said they use Facebook. This year, usage dropped from 67 percent to 62 percent, the first decline in Facebook’s history.

Facebook organic reach is down.

Perhaps the constant arguing (about politics, mostly) on Facebook is making it a less joyful experience and chasing people off of the platform. I don’t think that’s the only reason for the decline, but it’s certainly part of it.

Facebook Usage Is WAY Down Among Young People

Facebook’s demise as a hangout for young Americans has been long rumored, but the math finally supports the premise.

Facebook Usage

Among 12 to 34 year-olds, Facebook usage declined a staggering 15 percent in one year. Usage is still high, at 67 percent of young Americans, but such a precipitous decline does not bode well for the future of the platform.

And in a related trend, for the first time ever, Facebook is more popular among middle-aged Americans than it is among young Americans.

TWITTER USAGE IS ALSO DOWN

While the decline in Facebook usage represents the biggest share of America’s reduction in social media time spent, Twitter experienced a similar falloff.

Twitter’s overall usage is—as it has been for a long time—about one-third that of Facebook.

But this year, Twitter’s usage also declined for the first time ever. This pattern mimics Facebook’s almost exactly, with a bump between 2016 and 2017, and then a retreat in 2018.

twitter-usage-decline-2018

 

SNAPCHAT & INSTAGRAM ARE PULLING AWAY AMONG YOUNG PEOPLE

In 2017, 19 percent of Americans 12 to 34 used Snapchat more than any other social network. Instagram was best-loved by another 18 percent.

This year, Snapchat is the favorite social network of 29 percent of 12 to 34 year-olds. This is a huge climb in just 12 months. Instagram also saw growth, with 22 percent now saying it’s their favorite.

What are these young Americans using less, so that they can use Snapchat and Instagram more? Facebook, which declined as a favorite from 48 percent to 35 percent in one year.

2018-social-media-used-most-often

 

PODCAST & SMART SPEAKERS

The two most talked-about sectors in audio today – podcasting and Smart Speakers – post significant gains in this year’s Infinite Dial study from Edison Research and Triton Digital.

Monthly Podcast Listening

Podcasting continues to steadily grow, as 44% of Americans 12+ now say they have ever listened to a podcast, up from 40% from last year. Podcasting’s in-car gains continue as well: a year ago, 18% of podcast listeners described the car as the place they most often listened to podcasts; this year, that number is 22%.

Smart Speakers

 

Radio vs Smart Speakers

AUDIO BRAND AWARENESS

Audio Brand Awareness

PHOTO-DRIVEN SOCIAL MEDIA 

Every social platform features a lot of photos. But only three are almost entirely photo or video dependent: Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

Among the top six social media destinations, only those three saw an increase in usage in the past year, with Instagram moving from 34 percent to 36 percent, Pinterest moving from 30 percent to 31 percent, and Snapchat moving from 29 percent to 31 percent.

The more text and opinion-oriented platforms (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter) were either flat or experienced a decline in usage.

In a complex and conflicted world, the relative escapism offered by thumbing through photos on Instagram, or creating the ultimate wish list on Pinterest, may be a welcome respite from the snark of Twitter or the sales pitches on LinkedIn.

SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE

Social Media Usage

Source: Edison Research

FINAL THOUGHTS

Smart Speaker adoption is growing at a faster rate than the early days of smartphones. Brands and advertisers need to quickly develop an audio strategy that accounts for this drastic change.

Podcasting continues its steady growth, with even more significant gains in autos.

Social Media usage continues to decline and will likely continue the trend into 2019, especially with Facebook. Look for the rise of other networks.

Meanwhile, I highly recommend you download The Infinite Dial, as it contains many more insights into smart speakers, podcasting, social media, and online audio trends.

About Blair

 5 Golden Rules for Sharing on Social Media

Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.

Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.

Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.

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AI Social Media_Prepare1 Image

Wondering what artificial intelligence features are coming to social media and advertising platforms?

Want to know how machine learning can improve your marketing?

With an estimated 2.77 billion social network users around the globe, social networking platforms possess an unimaginable amount of data. The reach of social media networks is expanding at an alarming rate around the globe in 2019. These figures will continue to grow. Social media provides a phenomenal amount of user-generated data. Due to the nature of data which is mainly unstructured, it is a herculean task to gauge actionable insights from this sea of information.

This is where the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) comes into play. AI is an area of computer science that aims to decipher data from the natural world often using cognitive technologies designed to understand and complete tasks that humans have taken on in the past.

While many naysayers of AI suggest that this technology will eliminate jobs, it is actually meant to enhance intelligence and effectively analyze data in order to streamline processes and work in a highly effective and efficient manner.

Every digital marketer that’s paying attention is either wary, concerned, or deathly afraid of machine learning and artificial intelligence.

These systems feature absurd processing power and instant analytical capabilities. They eat big data and spit out hyper-targeted marketing. They take no breaks or vacation days, and spend no time screwing around on Facebook (except to ingest behavioral insights to make themselves smarter).

Various tech behemoths have branded their marketing AI in their own image. IBM (#client) has Watson, of course. Salesforce (#client) has Einstein.

WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

Artificial intelligence is defined as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.” More practically, it’s the science of quantifying and replicating the processes of human intelligence. It is not a single technology, but rather a collection of technologies such as:

AI solutions are comprised of some or all of these technologies working together to find patterns and connections within massive data sets (also called Big Data,) and apply these patterns to perform tasks and processes at a speed, scale, and level of efficiency not possible before.

THE SOCIAL MEDIA ROBOTS ARE HERE

To date, social media (other than social listening, of course) has been largely immune to the effects of machine learning.

AI-powered digital marketing world has been focused in these areas:

  • Mobile testing and optimization
  • Web content testing and optimization
  • Email testing and optimization
  • Behavioral data pattern recognition and ID of “best” and disenfranchised customers, as well as likely advocates and influencers

Persado is a fascinating company. They use a whole host of data inputs and relationship data to create highly targeted, massively specific content pieces inside email, on a home page or landing page, etc.

Their core assignment has been helping e-commerce companies boost their conversion rate by dramatically boosting relevance and resonance of digital copy and imagery.

But last week, they launched Persado One which allows digital marketers to customize messaging and look and feel at the individual level, rather than just the customer segment level. Even more importantly, Persado can now deploy those one-to-one campaigns as social media ads and—get this—craft them based on historical emotional engagement.

Imagine the Orpheum Memphis (#client) wants to use Facebook ads to sell more tickets for upcoming performances. Based on users’ historical engagement with messages of different tones and tenors, Persado can combine copy and images and put together the perfect ad for EACH USER.

If, based on your website, email, and social media behaviors, the database believes you like to go to the Orpheum Memphis with your family, you’ll see a Facebook ad emphasizing that benefit. However, if your history indicates you are more into seeing classic Blue’s artists live, you’ll see an ad with those attributes highlighted.

FACEBOOK

With more than two billion monthly users, Facebook is using artificial intelligence to flag posts automatically that show expressions of suicidal thoughts for human moderators to review. Facebook has enhanced its program to allow human moderators to review 20 times more suicidal posts, and Facebook is sending its suicide prevention materials to twice as many people.

Although in nascent stage, the company is deploying updated systems in different languages to improve suicide prevention on Instagram.

LINKEDIN

LinkedIn uses Machine learning and Artificial Intelligence for almost all its products. With almost seven million open candidates, LinkedIn offers biggest pool of candidates for a recruiter to contact and connect with highest response rate. LinkedIn uses algorithms with the capability to predict users who are possibly the best fit for the role. Using AI algorithms, LinkedIn can highlight candidates who are most likely to respond or seeking new opportunities.

LinkedIn drastically changed its job-matching algorithms to improve performance. To be precise, it leads users to two million more (job) applications than before.

TWITTER

Twitter recently launched an update to its service using Artificial Intelligence that crops an image using face detection or creating a thumbnail from an entire image. With neural networks, Twitter can decipher which part of the image user would be interested in.

The neural crop system is applicable for faces where the crop could cut out faces in portrait shots, whereas the AI-based image recognizes important part of faces and puts that in the preview.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Artificial intelligence in social media is gaining prominence.

It’s practically impossible to have a brand without a social media presence, yet just being on these platforms isn’t enough. They need to be utilized correctly to achieve maximum output, generate more customers and ultimately increase ROI.

However, many businesses don’t have the resources to hire human staff that can monitor trends, social patterns and insights. AI is a way of solving such problems and affords marketers the freedom to be creative with their outreach.

AI acts as a way for brands to scope the vast pool that is social media. They can cover bases that were once hard to monitor. Think of AI as the airplane moment, when people finally had the chance to go from one country to another.

2.5-billion people will be within easy reach, and it’s down to AI.

About Blair

 5 Golden Rules for Sharing on Social Media

Blair Evan Ball is a Social Media Coach and founder of Prepare1, a company that works with businesses, individuals and non-profits. He is a former executive with a Fortune 50 company, and his national division did $1Billion+ in sales annually.

Blair has written three e-books: Facebook for Business Made Easy, Facebook Pages for Business Made Easy, and WordPress Blog Setup Made Easy.

Blair also educates, trains entrepreneurs and business professionals how to amplify their brand, increase revenues, and raise more funds.

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Sorry Millennials, Your Time in The Limelight is Over

by Blair Evan Ball October 3, 2018

Who is Gen Z? What do they have to do with millenials? We’ve all been there. You’re chatting with a younger colleague about popular music, movies or sports, and you mention Michael Jordan scoring 55 in his comeback game against the New York Knicks, or the twist ending to The Usual Suspects, or seeing Pearl […]

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How To Identify New Social Media Content Sources

by Blair Evan Ball September 19, 2018

Need more ideas to fill the gaps in your social media posting calendar? Looking for sources and tools to help? Social media is quickly becoming one of the most important aspects of digital marketing, which provides incredible benefits that help reach millions of customers worldwide. And if you are not applying this profitable source, you […]

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Facebook Has Been Pretty Dang Shady Lately

by Blair Evan Ball September 5, 2018

Has Facebook peaked? Has mass social media production peaked? Mass production helped make social media the darling of digital marketing departments. Some even predicted that social media’s scalability, relatively low cost, vast reach and micro-targeting abilities would cause it to overtake or even replace other channels, such as search engine optimization (SEO). What do I […]

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Facebook Now Ranks How Trustworthy You Are

by Blair Evan Ball August 22, 2018

Are you trustworthy? Your business? How trustworthy is Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg? Back in 2010, shortly before the release of The Social Network, a film that famously documented the sketchy history of Facebook, The New Yorker published its own profile of Facebook co-founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, this is the same Zuckerberg who’s been testifying before Congress […]

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How Do You Decide What to Post on Each Social Media Platform? [Current Research]

by Blair Evan Ball August 8, 2018

How do you decide what to post on each social media platform? Do you know what content resonates with people? Today it’s hard to ignore the power of social media. When 22% of the world’s population uses Facebook, more than 450 million LinkedIn profiles exist and 93% of Pinterest users access their account to make purchases, you can’t afford to miss […]

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How will marketers change their future paid social media activities? [Research]

by Blair Evan Ball July 26, 2018

Does your organic content have the same reach it once did? You’ve felt it. In fact, BuzzSumo found Facebook posts from brand pages saw a 20% decline in engagement just since January. Ouch. You’ve certainly felt it. Social has never been healthier as an advertising channel while more troubled as a media platform. How did this come to be? And what does it […]

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The Best Times to Post on Social Media [Current Research]

by Blair Evan Ball July 11, 2018

So, what are the best hours to post on each social media channel? Social media is one of the best ways to amplify your brand and the great content you’re creating. But it isn’t enough to just post content to social whenever you feel like it. Some times are better than others. You worked really […]

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