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How much IS too much?

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How do you know if you are over-doing it with the tweets…?

The story of Australian Jade Ruthven, and the letter she received from her ‘friends’ regarding her supposed over-posting of her tiny daughter’s progress on Facebook saw many people pose the question, can you really post too much on social media? Where is the cut-off point, if there is one? Who decides when it is too much?

The context

Jade Ruthven’s case is a personal one, as opposed to business which is what we address in this article but the letter she received, a copy of which subsequently went viral across the globe, produced a riot of opinions. Interestingly, they all seemed in favour of Ms. Ruthven but the crux of the matter was this – is it possible to post too much and give your audience too much of a good thing? Certainly friends of Ms. Ruthven seem to think so.

How much is too much, in relation to your business and sharing information, news, articles and general updates on social media?

How long is a piece of string?

There are so many questions, so many variables and factors that it can seem almost impossible to answer such a question. No doubt someone, somewhere is working on a magic equation right now but, until that magic formula drops in your inbox, we have scoured the Internet and come up with 5 indicators that you are tweeting and posting just about the right amount of times, not too much and not too little.

Indicator 1: REACTION

OK, you post a tweet, update your status and hit the send button… then you do it again… and then again but it may be that this is not actually doing your business much good.

The question you need to be asking is how is the audience reacting to your tweets etc.? Are you tweets and updates echoing, or just shouting out the once?

What you are looking for are re-tweets, shares, likes, favourites, pins and such like, all indicators that your audience is with you, reading you and understanding you?

If this isn’t happening…

… your followers are either jaded, with an over-kill of tweets and posts or, you are talking to the wrong people.

Indicator 2: the number of followers is growing steadily…

… and naturally. All too often, you will see accounts pop up that tell you for “$5 you can have 30,000 new followers within 24 hours” or other ludicrous claims. Think quality, rather than quantity.

If your content is spammy and overdone, people stop following. If you don’t tweet or update, people will stop following but, if they like what you do, they will share and re-tweet; their followers will see it and from those followers you may get a handful of people following you.

It is the way that social media works; the clue is in the name – “social”. Be social and appropriate and people will follow you. Your audience needs to grow naturally, and not be forced with sill $5 offers.

Indicator 3: the RIGHT people are responding

This is where you are effectively asking for a favour or two from the high flyers in your industry. A great example is a fledgling furniture company with a unique product – creating furniture from old wine barrels. They tweet, including the high flyers such as @Kevin_McCloud and he re-tweets etc. and the ball starts rolling.

You don’t have to look for just the famous celebrities, but well-known ‘icons’ within your line of business. Getting this type of response can create a much-needed reaction for your business.

Indicator 4: advertising vs. conversation

There is no right or wrong when it comes to how you use social media in terms of advertising and/or conversation with employees, but the response you get – and how you subsequently respond – will vary… or it should.

Some businesses do use their Twitter feed, for example, as an advertising or marketing space; in this, overdo it with hundreds of tweets a day gets a bit boring, hence people stop following.

However, if you are indulging in conversation with clients, customers and fans, then you can get away with tweeting or posting more. However, unless you have the time, energy and person to tweet and post all of the time, you could possibly never get on with anything useful, ever again.

Indicator 5: what the dashboard says

For those with a serious nature behind their social media presence, it pays to tap into the power of platforms such as Hootsuite or BufferApp. The premium or business services of these platforms allows you to connect all your social media presence together in one place.

You can post the same thing across all your platforms, or lead a campaign on just one to up the followers and shares. Likewise, you can also see from various streams how well your accounts are doing and what real results you are reaping.

In fact, you can see forming before your very eyes your magic formula as to how many tweets and posts are too much, too little or just right.

What do you think is the optimum number of tweets for a business to send in a day? What about other social media platforms?

Facebook is changing

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Love it or hate it, Facebook is THE social media platform that the majority of us are hooked on. When we should be doing far more productive things – like working – we can be found sneaking our way on to the site, just to peek at who is doing what, with whom.

For businesses, it has been a fabulous platform for zoning in on customers and, on the flip side, for customers to zone in on us. There is engagement, comments, likes and shares abound with many being culturally and socially richer for it.

It has been a platform that has stood the test of time, with even is wobbles not really being a wobble, as such.

There is always a downside…

Apparently, 1 in 3 divorces in the UK mention some form of ‘Facebook factor’ as contributing to the demise of the relationship; maybe it is the photos, or the lists of ‘friends’, or maybe the interaction and the being caught somewhere where you shouldn’t be… proceed with caution, seems to be the tag line here.

However, putting aside all these aside, using Facebook in the way Mark Zuckerberg probably intended it to be used, can reap the rewards.

As a social platform, however, it is not standing still. It has improved and morphed time and time again, with some changes recently announced that could make it a far better place for businesses to be, providing that they harness of its power – and do it right.

F8 is…?

The recent Facebook developer conference held in the US that listed 7 important, upcoming changes to the product. There are 7 changes on the way…

  1. Spherical videos – who can deny the excitement of 360 degree camera technology? Google Maps of course, has been using this for some time now but Facebook announcing that it soon will be able to support this technology within the news feed is rather exciting, especially from a product point of view. Google owned YouTube has also recently announced this technology will be available soon meaning that photos will be a given a real boost.
  2. Track online purchases and communicate with businesses via messenger – we saw a headline recently that summed this up nicely “Now you are can argue with customer services via Facebook!” Messenger has, by tradition, always been for individual users, but Facebook announced at F8 that this app would now also be available for companies and businesses too. You can thank customers for orders, tell them it has been shipped etc. This will either be a very welcome addition to your Facebook business page or, it will be sending shudders down your spine.
  3. Reply to messages using other apps – if you wanted to send messages using other apps, you would have to navigate and use it ‘the long way round’, e.g. by shutting messenger, copying and pasting etc. but now, the Facebook messenger app will let you do this within it; in other words, the development of messenger will now make it far more sophisticated.
  4. Facebook videos can be embedded elsewhere – FB is all about creating and sharing, but in the past, you could only share a link to a video, not the video itself. In this sense, FB might be going head to head with YouTube with the addition that these videos can now be embedded from Facebook to other places on the web.
  5. Comment on a story elsewhere on the web? It will show up on Facebook too – media companies love people commenting, sharing and engaging with the latest scandal, gossip or election debate and thus, by Facebook being everywhere, and linking comments elsewhere with your page, this engagement is broadened considerably.
  6. The ‘Internet of Things’ – bit sketchy on the details but, developers build apps to do all kinds of things, from monitoring calorie intake to opening the garage door. Facebook, not surprisingly, have decided they want to be part of this but, didn’t quite give the detail.
  7. App developers and analytics – again, for those technically minded among you, Facebook will offer a free dashboard to app developers so that they can be boggled by analytics of app usage.

What does all this mean for local, online businesses?

The 360 degree camera technology and the increased sophistication of Facebook messenger could be the aspects that you find most relevant. The ability to sell online, as well as to connect and engage with people takes effort, time and money; it could be that Facebook has just made it easier for you to do this via Facebook.

If nothing else, as this technology is rolled out across the network, it will rejuvenate interest in the social media platform, once again becoming a leader of its field.

Is your business on Facebook? How will these changes affect your business?

Social media, statistics and decisions – Part 2

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In part 1 of what statistics about social media usage can mean to us, as a business, we focused mainly on data and figures that related to Twitter. Knowing the group you and your followers could fall in, as well as when the best times to tweet are, can make your presence on this real time platform work a little harder for you.

In part 2, we carry on looking at social media platforms, identifying statistics for Facebook and a little nod to Pinterest.

And so, what do statistics on Facebook usage teach us?

The favourite, most crowded day of the week when it comes to posts is…. (drum roll please!)

FRIDAY!

Don’t we all love Friday?! The day where we can look back at the week, revel in our accomplishments and maybe plan the weekend… and this more relaxed approach on a Friday may actually mean that we feel more compelled to post a variety of statuses.

With over 225 billion posts analysed as part of this piece of research, we were quite impressed initially but then we looked at the statistics again and came to the same conclusion, but with an additional observation.

The research we came across was presented in a lovely bar graph and Friday was the busiest day for statuses, posts and the like BUT, but a gnat’s whisker. What we learnt from this research was that every day on Facebook was, to be honest, fairly crowded and so dropping a status onto the platform every now and then was probably going to be lost without a trace.

Our take on this statistic?

We always knew Facebook was busy, with statuses and posts having a seconds of air time before it is swamped by something else. Every day is busy and so if Facebook is one of your preferred social media then you need to be constant and consistent with your use of it. Friday, however, seemed the day where shares and likes peaked; some social media experts suggest keeping your better stuff until the end of the week. We think a little frivolity on a Friday never hurt anyone…

Photos work every time on Facebook…

…or so the statistics say. We already know that sharing appropriate visual content, linked with your brand or business is a great way of snagging some much needed eye ball time however, what did take us by surprise was the magnitude of photo-led content.

If you really truly want your posts and statuses shared and liked on this social media platform, then you need to include a photo… take a look at the stats:

In 2014, the most shared posts on Facebook across the globe looked like this…

  • 87% shared had a photo attached to it
  • 4% had a link
  • 4% had an album
  • 3% a video
  • 2% was the just the status itself

Our take on this statistic?

We always knew that photos and graphics were powerful but were not aware of how powerful until we saw this chunk of data. What it doesn’t tell us, however, is how many of these shares are from personal or company accounts, and this may differ.

However, the fact that photos work cannot be avoided but always exercise caution, making sure the photo or image you are using is not only connected or related to your brand, but also appropriate for wider sharing. Coveting favour through controversy is probably best left to those with celebrity status and a team of lawyers on hand.

The social media platforms that drive the most ‘traffic’

We have all been coached over the years to think of social media sites as means of engaging customers and fans, thereby increasing the possibility of these people accessing and using a website.

With so many social media platforms out there, coupled with our desire to be the best, popular and successful, we can sometimes spread our brand a little too thin across everything, everywhere. However, from a bunch of statistics released by Shareaholic, it seems that social media driven traffic splits in to two categories: quantity and quality.

If quantity is what you are after, you need to get your brand on Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter. Simple.

If however, you want a decent conversation or are looking to seriously engage new buyers or customers, then look at the lower performing sites. In terms of time on a website, pages per visit examined by a customer and bounce rate, YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn won hands down every time.

Our take on this statistic?

Just like we have hinted at before, you need to be involved in the ‘right’ social media for you and your brand. Facebook and Twitter are the big hitters in terms of numbers, and think about joining Pinterest too. If, however, you are interested in more ‘quality’ targeted traffic then the other social media sites may suit you better.

Overall, a broad social media strategy is required… IF you have the time and means to pull it off (and there is lies the problem for so many small, online and local businesses).

Figure out what is good engagement

Time for some real number crunching!

Social media of all kind is about engagement; it is about people feeding back to you, you feeding back to them, having a conversation, posting reviews… you get the idea.

Many moons ago, when Facebook was at its highest peak, the standard for social engagement statistics (and what constituted success), was marked; but, as other social media sites have come along and our tastes have changed, experts on social media marketing and reach have spent some time scratching their heads, pondering what makes for successful engagement NOW.

If you chase statistics as part of your social media engagement and you really need to know the answer, then it depends on how many fans you have. Looking at Facebook, as an example…

  • If you have between 1 and 9,999 fans on Facebook, each post should have 28 interactions
  • 10,000 to 99,999 fans, you should expect 118 interactions per post
  • And, with over 100,000 to half a million fans, there should be a minimum of 385 interactions per post

In other words, the bigger you are on social media and the more you grow, the busier your accounts should be.

Our take on this statistic?

Pretty useless really, but those who are very serious about the whole social media thing, growing their reach and engagement statistics etc., these statistics could be a useful bench mark. We suggest that engaging your buyers in meaningful, helpful and informative posts is more important reaching benchmarks that do very little…

Get pinning!

If you enjoy the visual aspect of engagement, then Pinterest is one social media platform that is becoming increasingly popular; if you haven’t used it or come across it yet, take a look at how to use it and what it could offer your business.

Like other platforms, there are certain days that seem to hold the key when it comes to ‘categories of engagement’; on Monday, Fitness seems to be popular (after the sludge of the weekend…?). Tuesday represents the day technology pins are popular, Wednesday pins are attached to inspirational quotes, Thursday is fashion day and Friday is humorous stuff (there’s what weekend link again!). The weekend pins are travel and food and crafts, all hobby and social based.

Our take on this statistic… and all the others?

This proves what we have been thinking for some time and that is that social media is a beast worth taming, but in a way that works for you and your business, and not because you think you should be on that platform. The ‘everyone else is doing it’ seems to no longer work.

Our take would be this;

Take a look at some of these statistics and discard what you think is irrelevant or not appropriate for your business. If you are heading for cult status, then get posting with images on Facebook and Twitter but, if you are growing your engagement, preparing for a marathon rather than a spring, then take a look at the less ‘mass media’ approach.

But, in all cases, you need to be confident in your use of the platform so our ‘advice’ is simple – start small, with one or two social media platforms at most, become an expert on these and stick to them, if they work…

Social media, statistics and decisions – Part 1

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Understanding all three components is somewhat essential we feel but unless you have a finely tuned analytical mind, it can be difficult to decipher the good, the bad and the ugly. As the 19th Century British Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli said,

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”

And so when we came across a shovel load of research, data and statistics about social media, we set our minds to decoding it all, so that you, our prized blog readers could delight and revel in knowing you are doing something right, an important wheel in the social media revolution and tweak those areas that may need some additional work.

We have come across 10 pieces of what we think are fascinating facts, data and statistics about how we and our customers use social media platforms; some are surprising and some results predictable and yet, we stick to what we think are tried, tested and successful methods.

In part 1, we look at 5 statistics and data from surveys, and in part 2 to be published soon, we take a look at another 5. If you use Twitter for your business, you really do need to read on!

What did we learn…?

Who favourites, mentions and re-Tweets your Tweets are NOT who you think

Twitter is all about gaining followers; with a sprinkling of re-Tweets and a few ‘favourites’, your Tweets could be seen by more eyeballs across the globe than in a high street optician’s chain. Cock-a-hoop when we get these weekly stats from statistic and data crunching apps like SumAll, we pay no more attention than this…

… but something more formidable lurks within these re-tweets. Many of us, in the same way that brand snobbery exists when we go shopping for new trainers, will hanker after the re-tweet or the ‘favourite’ from a ‘power user’; in other words, some Tweeters may hanker after the BIG names out there but recent stats show that 91% of mentions come from people with less followers.

Crestfallen, we limp away from Twitter, deflated and defeated… and yet, if you have 3 mentions from people with 500 followers each, that’s another 1,500 pairs of eyeballs… and if they re-tweet it, then are thousands of more eyeballs…

Our take on this statistic?

Cherish every re-Tweet and make sure you enjoy the company of the little guy on twitter for they are just as powerful and valuable as the big boys.

Twitter and communication networks

This is slightly more technical and psychological in application but, once you have the idea, it could be valuable information to have.

Twitter is about conversations and there is some rather interesting research from the Pew Research Centre and the Social Media Research Foundation (we didn’t know they existed either!) that suggests within these conversations there are ‘6 distinct communication networks’…

  1. Divided – much like life, we disagree and in most cases, we rarely seek out the company of people who do not agree with us. This research suggests that Twitter is no different and that there are two, polarised groups on Twitter with different or opposing groups, and never the twain shall meet. Politics is listed as one of the most divisive topics of conversation…
  2. Unified – the research suggests there are up to 6 large groups of people who with a topic as the means of unifying them. These tight crowds of people can be professionals, hobby groups etc.
  3. Fragmented – these clusters tend to be formed around celebrities and brands, with discussions being polarised, a mass amount of information and opinions are generated and shared, but with groups rarely agreeing. Think of this as many small groups across Twitter discussing the latest popular subject or topics…
  4. Clustered – these groups tend to cluster in small the medium sized groups, with the research finding that the majority of conversations being around the latest news stories. Hence global news events can generate content and discussion
  5. In-hub and spoke – think of this as one person standing in the middle of a large group; this person speaks, the surrounding group, hanging on each and every word, then go on to re-tweet every bit of detail. In many cases, the members of this outward ‘spokes’ tend to converse and share with each other too. The fans of the brand look IN on the brand…
  6. Out-hub and spoke – this is where the above groups is reversed, with the brand or business responding to the comments and questions of their customers on Twitter. This creates outward ‘spokes’, unlike number five which is where the information is fed inward. in other words, one brand has many spokes reaching OUT to consumers.

Our take on this statistic…?

Knowing where your brand fits in with these groups can help to understand why you sometimes have a huge amount of engagement with customers but, then it falls away. We find that many of our clients use Twitter as a way of offering customer support but, their customer support strategy makes no mention of this…

Written word verses Visuals

Every year, the Social Media Examiner conducts a survey of over 3,000 marketers and their most recent survey produced rather interesting result…

Although there has been a lot of talk about visuals – graphics, vines, video etc. – it sees that 58% of these 3,000+ marketers are saying that the written word trumps the visual aspect each and every time. Coming in second – way behind on 19% – are graphics such as infographics, followed by videos. Sharing other people’s content also figured in the survey with audio content being in last place.

Our take on this statistic…?

We have said many, many times before that original written content that oozes quality, authority, brand awareness and leadership on a range issues places you far more firmly at the centre of things on social media. Keep in mind the power of storytelling too…

Twitter and response times

Twitter is a great social media for many different kinds of businesses and brands BUT, there is something that you should be acutely aware of…

Twitter is essentially seen by consumers are a real-time platform; in other words, they comment and you respond… but not at your leisure. It turns out from a survey carried by a technology firm that customers have firm opinions about the time a company takes in responding to them.

But, if you think that responding in an hour is a close-shave for your business, you need to know that customers who contact you via Twitter with a complaints actually expect an almost instant response.

Our take on this statistic…

You MUST take your responsibility on social media seriously; if not, you could do more damage than good. If you are using Twitter as part of your customer service strategy, then you need to be hot-to-trot when it comes to responding.

However, if you are a small, micro or start up business, manning the barricades can 24 hours a day can turn into a monster task. It can be managed however, but always be conscious and aware that your customers have high expectations and your response needs to fit within this high standard.

Twitter and night owls

And finally, in this first part of social media, statistics and decisions, we look at data that suggests the best of time of posting and re-tweeting. If you have the time and inclination (as well as the right software!), you too can monitor a bunch of tweets – about 1.7 million, like TrackMavern did to create a wonderful looking bar graph that tells us one thing… the best times to re-tweet is between 9pm and midnight.

Do you know what Late-Night Infomercial Effect is? This is sharing content at a time when the share volume is lower, so your content stands out more. In terms of the best day, the same bit of number-crunching found that Sunday was also the best to tweet.

Our take on this statistic…

Why not try out this after-hours theory on Twitter by setting your tweet schedule for between 9pm and midnight? The same survey also suggested that more re-tweets came from Tweets that has exclamation marks and capital letters in them…

COME BACK AND READ PART 2 SOON! #makingtherigthsocialmediadecisions

Colour + Psychology = Creative Message with Impact

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Why is Facebook blue? (*find out at the bottom of the post…)

Colour is a fabulous thing. It can inspire, encourage and grab attention.

Or, it can tire the eye, swallow a message and create entirely the wrong impression.

With something so powerful, it is important that when it comes to your brand, content, blog, website design and all manner of marketing materials, the colour or colours you use are spot on.

Colour is the visual cue that makes your audience see what you want them to see; it evokes a feeling (have you been to panto this year? Have you ever noticed when the baddie comes on, the lights change the red…? “Or no it doesn’t!”, “Oh, yes it does!”)

Colour also makes something more readable (that says readable)  and it can change your message. Get it wrong and your call to action can disappear without a trace and in the blink of an eye.

Measuring impact

But colour is a sticky wicket when it comes to design and getting your message seen. Like many other aspects of life, how we view or interpret the emotional value of a colour varies from person to person. In other words, it makes the reaction of the larger audience to your chosen colour schemes difficult to predict.

So why bother? Colour gives not only a visual appeal, making things look pretty, it also attracts your target audience. How males and females view certain colour combination varies and so, if you know your audience and who you appeal to, then you can make your brand more visually appealing.

There are some generalised understandings of what certain colours mean to some people and which colour provoke a positive or negative response.

There are various surveys that look at what people associated with certain colours and so if you are looking to update your website, modernise your logo and revolutionise your brand you may want to bear the following in mind…

  • Trust – if this the main emotion you want inspire in potential customers, then opt for blue (a third of the people surveyed said this was the main colour of trust), followed by white and then green
  • Security – as in is this company or brand trustworthy rather than a security firm, a quarter of those surveyed once again, opted for blue as the colour most linked to this emotion.
  • Speed – a whopping 76% of people said red was the colour that highlighted speed (know a famous parcel carrier, with red on yellow…)
  • Value for money – a quarter of those surveyed opted for orange as being the colour that represented value for money, follow by yellow (a close run thing between these two colours) and then brown
  • High quality – black was the overwhelming winner, with nearly half those asked opting for this colour
  • High tech – black was the top choice again, but then there was a tie between blue and grey, but there was a small % difference only between these colours
  • Reliability – blue came out on top again
  • Courage – a third of people opted for purple, with slightly less opting for red and then blue
  • Fear – red stormed into first place, followed by black interestingly enough…
  • Fun – orange came out top with just under a third surveyed opting for this as the main colour representing fun, followed very closely by yellow and then purple

And so it seems that blue is the preferred colour in many cases, representing all kinds of emotions. The lesson from this? The colour surrounding your content can make a real difference!

Gender differences

And now we head into the thorny issue of men and women seeing or being influenced differently by colour – but, before you think we mean everything should be pink and blue, this is not what the psychology of colour is all about. There are some interesting lessons for those of us working within the field of web design and the like…

  • Blue is a coloured favoured by both men and women, although men seem to like it better
  • Men don’t like brown too much, apparently and women not liking orange too much
  • Interestingly, colours that we don’t like, we tend to think of as ‘cheap’
  • Men are more tolerant of achromatic colours – this means, literally, without colour which basically means grey or black…
  • Overall, both men and women preferred cool colours
  • And, as people get older, they dislike yellow and orange…

According to a variety of scientific study, women ‘see’ more colours than men in that they note subtle colour changes, tones and shades than men to. To men, it is either pink or red, with women, they will see a variance in shade so it could be baby pink or fuchsia.

But, what lessons does this information hold for you?

Hopefully, at this stage in the game, you have a fair idea of who your customers are. If you are selling to the older generation, you need to perhaps limit the use of golden yellows and orange but, if your main customer group is female, be aware that they are more aware of shades and tones of colours. And, if you heading for the top end of the luxury market, choosing understated, classic and elegant colours rather than raucous, ‘cheap’ ones will tell your story better.

But there is a bigger lesson to learn that just choosing the colour combination that attracts your customer group – people make a judgement on the content of a website within 90 seconds.

Time that now…

(90 seconds later)

…and see how quick people will decide if they will buy from you… or not. Within that 90 seconds is a small proportion that customers will take notice of colour. Is the ‘buy now’ box standing out (take a trawl round the website and note how many buy now buttons emulate PayPal colours – blue on yellow)? Research also shows that 85% of customers will take more notice for a colour advert that a black, white and grey one.

Colour is the visual aid that help customers identify your brand too so choose carefully and wisely – and stick with the colour scheme.

The answer: Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colour blind and he finds blue the richest colour he can see. Facebook has stayed with the blue colour since its early conception…

Social media trends in 2015

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What should you be doing when it comes to effective social media marketing?

As you now, here at Locally we like to not just keep pace with developments, but outpace them too and so, once again, we have delved into the cupboard, consulted with our crystal ball and taken a look at what 2015 could offer in terms of social media marketing trends…

Why social media?

OK, let’s address the elephant in the room. You will see blogs and posts on our site that talk about social signals – the nods of approval your audience give you that may or may not be recognised by search engines.

Some people say that social signals are VERY important, some say they have NO BEARING WHAT-SO-EVER and some people say that, they COULD, MAYBE, POSSIBLY have some bearing but, maybe not a lot.

Here at Locally, we like the idea of people ‘voting’ or giving a nod of approval to content and so we like the idea of sharing our stuff across G+, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Whether you like it or not, ignoring social media could place you in a weaker position than your nearest online, local competitors.

BUT, before you all rush forth on our advice, and start creating competitions and statuses that bamboozle people into liking/sharing content, make sure you do not stray beyond the realms of acceptability (see previous posts, “Facebook is changing: an UPDATE”).

Social media – a trading platform?

At the end of summer 2014, we talked about Twitter acquiring CardSpring. This is an important development as quite soon, in the UK, consumers will be able to buy online, but support local businesses too. We love it when people support local business – it is, after all the cornerstone of our business – and so anything that merges the powerful world on online shopping and the local high street gets our vote.

Hence, we think that to ignore social media is ignoring a whopping proportion of potential customers.

But, your business needs to be in the right place in terms of social media platforms hence, gathering all the latest ideas and thoughts, this is what you need to be considering for 2015 when it comes to social media marketing…

  1. If your website is not mobile-ready, then… oops!

It is not just us, here at Locally, saying this but all across Internet Land, experts and non-experts alike are telling you, imploring you, ordering you, that if your website cannot be easily read or used on a mobile device (phone, table etc.) then you are and will be missing a trick.

You only have to look at the figures of the upsurge in ownership and purchase of mobile devices to be utterly convinced.

So, for 2015…

Go from mobile ‘aware’ to mobile ‘first’. Make sure campaigns and content can be ‘scaled down’ for the mobile user but still delightfully ‘scaled up’ on the laptop or PC.

Priority level: RED – this is not something you can put off any longer!

  1. Buying via the social world

Facebook – love it or hate it – leads the way in so many different facets of the online social world. And it seems that when it comes to people buying online, it is beginning to muscle in here too. America has the biggest and most encouraging figures; studies suggest that 6% of American adults spend their time on Facebook, with a spending rate of 10%.

These figures will send a shiver down your spine in that you will finally need to join the Facebook circus or you can up your game and start tapping in to this lucrative online market.

Priority level: AMBER (worth considering)

  1. Content is STILL king

This should not be a surprise to anyone. We have been saying it for years, as have others. Customers like to read fun and informative stuff, and search engines like it too BUT, 2015 will ring some changes.

No longer will you just be blogging… think infographics, video, presentations etc. but, you can use the same kind of content. So blogging on changes in social media marketing in 2015 could also be produced as a Slide Share presentation…

Priority level : AMBER (although we think this will grow in stature throughout 2015)

  1. Video – not just YouTube

The ‘traditional’ home of video and online clips has always been YouTube; other platforms have come close but not close enough… except for maybe Facebook. However, if you want to be really picky, the fact that videos auto-play in Facebook is probably why this platform can now say that they outshine YouTube in the playability stakes.

But, ignoring this trend will see you miles behind your competitors. So, don’t just make videos and plonk them on YouTube. Consider the vines that are becoming popular too.

Priority: GREEN (if you are looking for new creative ways, then this is the outlet; it may not be suitable for all businesses so do your market research before you spend your budget)

  1. The right social place, for the right audience

If nothing else, keeping a hold on where your audience is at will be the essential driving change in 2015. What this means is that the traditional social platforms may not completely rule the roost by the end of 2015 although, where your audience will be at is not clear. And, as hard as we polish our crystal ball, we cannot see either.

Younger audiences are tipped to navigate away from Facebook to ‘younger’ platforms, whereas older audiences may navigate away too but who knows where? What this means, of course, is that you need to be on top of your game as your audience could splinter, making connecting with them could be more complex.

Priority: RED – be informed where your audience is at, and stay informed

What are your plans for social media marketing in 2015?