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5 SOCIAL MEDIA challenges for 2017

“We change marketing” we put that phrase on the wall for a reason. People are convinced that social media is changing how they communicate. It might sound convincing but I would like to take another angle. The mission of Facebook outlines the change very well. Facebook is giving people the “power to share”. Social media platforms are challenging us, as marketers, to invent the new ways how to communicate with our stakeholders.

1. User Generated Content

People are proned to more genuine, user generated content. Polished, artificial ads don’t excite them anymore. Authenticity wins over quality. The rise of YouTubers and online celebrities with thousands of views with minimum production costs, show us what are the people really interested in.

It seems, marketers have forgotten, the most powerful tool in marketing - word-of-mouth. We actively follow popular celebrity charts and yet we miss out on the opportunity that is in front of us, our employees, which we have hundreds and thousands. Each with at least 200 friends on their social profiles. A buzzword that already captivated marketers in the west is - Employee Advocacy. Companies that will be pioneers in adopting this potential, will be the first ones to benefit its perks by gaining attention of their customers, job seekers and investors.

2. Personalized content distribution

Social networks are the powerful tool for personalized marketing at scale. Nowadays, the attention focuses on instant messaging, bots and automatization. It shows us the direction. It might be still too soon for the Czech Republic. Successful implementation will require rethinking of the content distribution (ex. one TV ad vs. many shorter ads on various social media channels). For instance, Netflix is already doing it in global scale. The next thing is, we will need to start using the “big data” not only as a cool word in our presentations. And we will need to teach our marketers to code.

3. Data-driven Content

Most of the companies editorial plans look like calendars. This is how we do it:

Our approach to content creation consists of three sources. Briefing (client), Sourcing (data), Storming (ideas). Data driven content is a step forward to personalized marketing. If you challenge yourself and start rethinking your content, you will bring your social media presence to yet another level. Marketing is a combination of mathematics and creativity. Make no mistake, we do cr*p content too. Although, data helps us to know that cr*p worked. There is no need to argue with the client over logo size or its location as you can measure what works best. Data is basically your older brother, who protects you from being bullied and thrown off your track.

Check my earlier Linkedin post Legacy from WebSummit.
4. Social Video

At the end of 2016, I started vlogging. (Why I started vlogging? blogpost in CZ) I wanted to experience the power of video and actually do it myself. My goal was to change how we produce videos internally and bring another angle to it. At WebSummit m thought were confirmed, video is no longer a trend, it’s a must! Now, it’s time for 360° and VR.

#websummit 2016: Jaký letos byl?

I stress the “social” videos, because there is a big difference in the video consumption on TV, desktop and mobile. Data showed us that the challenge is to shoot videos social first. We can measure it, the production is much cheaper and it is the top format. Let's be more human, do videos!

5. Social Media First

We are currently fighting for the TV budgets and this fight will probably continue for the next 2 or 3 years. We have been explaining it all over and over again, that putting the TV ad on FB or YT and boost post doesn't work anymore. On the contrary, data help us to create content for social media first, test it and distribute it on different channels or back to ATL (I presented a part of this idea on the Agency day in Facebook in Dublin and it was voted one of the most interesting insights)

DEN VE FACEBOOKU 1. část (+ tour po Facebook HQ)

Just see what happened to the web. First, we were coding the websites only for desktops, then data showed us that we should make them responsive. Webdesign professionals started creating websites as mobile first. The same thing will soon happen with content, we will create social media first content.

So fingers crossed to all of us!

What are your goals for your social media activities in 2017?