Friday Facts: 10 of the latest surprising and revealing studies on social media

For today's Friday Fact's I'm sharing an article produced by The Next Web news regarding 10 of the latest surprising and revealing studies on social media. This article includes a lot of interesting stats with accompanying charts and graphs to back up the data as well as links to the original articles where the studies were pulled from.

For example, did you know, according to Chartbeat, late afternoon and evening is the best time to share things to get interaction from users?

Or, another example, Instagram users are more engaging than Facebook and Twitter users.

And ramp up your video team - surveys show social media marketing is ramping up in YouTube, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Read all the details on these facts and seven more in the article here: http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2015/07/09/10-of-the-latest-surprising-and-revealing-studies-on-social-media/?utm_content=bufferc2af2&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Happy Friday!

Saturday Sharing: More Instagram Advice

Lately there's been a lot of articles on Instagram coming across my Pinterest Feed. I'm not big into Instagram myself, but I know many others who are and that makes these shares useful to them. Like last week's Instagram shared article, this one was also found on Pinterest.

Do you want more Instagram visibility? This article shows you how to build visibility on Instagram and strengthen your community relationships. Check it out here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/Abjkz13LACbO4PFGKMDufwYjKe2W3hChcBCsJVTOugpqLTKM_3hkgTU/

Are there any articles you think we should share in an upcoming Friday or Saturday post? If so, let me know by leaving a comment on any of the articles below or in response to my tweets.

Saturday Sharing: Tips to Increase Business via Instagram

Another useful article I found on Pinterest regarding Instagram. This one provides six tips to increase your business by using Instagram.

If you are using Instagram as part of your social media strategy, you should check this article out, found here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/250020216790441864/

Saturday Sharing: Brands Using Instagram Ads

Another link I came across from seeing a traffic referral from their site, I found this article had some great examples of brands who are using Instagram ads to generate more leads and business.

Yes, you can purchase ads with Instagram in addition to just posting images and text with your photos.  Some names of companies that are using Instagram ads in the UK are: Mercedez-Benz and Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream.

Check out Econsultancy's post on How brands are using Instagram ads for more information.

Saturday Sharing: 8 Ways to Use Instagram for Business

Instagram provides many different ways to help you with your business. Whether your marketing your products, sharing behind the scenes images or any number of possibilities that can be shared via photo or video, Instagram can help you with it.

This article provides 8 different ways to use Instagram to market or brand your business. Check out the tips via the links below.

Article link: http://www.designinfographics.com/social-media-infographics/8-ways-to-use-instagram-for-business

Pinterest Link: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/37014028164692554/

Enjoy!

Friday Facts: How to build a brand on Instagram

Check out this blog and video by Alex Beadon regarding how to build a brand on Instagram. She has some interesting points that might be useful to anyone working on building their brand on Instagram.

Check out the post and video here: http://www.alexbeadon.com/2014/08/12/how-to-build-a-brand-on-instagram/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-to-build-a-brand-on-instagram

Friday Sharing: Leveraging Instagram Videos for Social Media Success

I have to admit, until I read this article earlier this week, I hadn't really given much thought into using Instagram for marketing that much. This article made me rethink that a bit. Now if I could just get away from my dislike of video for everything it would make me rethink it even more.

The article, posted by MavSocial, talks about the growth of online users watching and using videos and the speculation that the number of online video users will double to 1.5 billion by 2016. They also predict that online video traffic will account for 55% of all consumer internet traffic.

Instagram is playing a part of this as companies that can't afford expensive TV commercials are turning to Instagram with short video productions.

The article then goes on to outline what types of videos companies with a small video marketing budget can make and remind people that the videos can be shared to Facebook. I'd like to note they can be shared on Twitter and other social media platforms as well.

Check out the article here: http://mavsocial.com/leveraging-instagram-videos-for-social-media-success/

Friday Facts: Instagram and Pinterest Marketing - A List Of Holiday Social Media To-Dos

The holidays are almost upon us - well, close enough as holiday season starts next week with Thanksgiving and runs through the next month with Christmas and New Year.  Holidays are often busy with vacations and extra work coming down the line when you're trying to make holiday sales as well as market your brand.  If you have branched your brand into Instagram and Pinterest, now is the time to take advantage of those platforms with the tips this infographic provides.

Today's post links to an infographic I found on Pinterest here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/381539399656082323/

The original article can be found on Digital Information World here: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/11/leverage-pinterest-and-instagram-to-drive-traffic-and-revenue-this-holiday-infographic.html

A couple of their Pinterest tips:

• Share the joy. Add Pin It buttons to all on-site holiday creative. (Allrecipes drove a 900 percent lift in Pinterest clicks by adding the Pin It button to their site).
• Build a holiday board to highlight you ho-ho-hottest pins.

A couple of their Instagram tips: 

• Create and promote a holiday hashtag. All I want for Christmas is... UGC (user-generated content)? Ask fan to share selfies and tag your brand.
• Celebrate UGC in a holiday gallery on your website. Brands that have brought UGC on site are driving a 15-30 percent lift in click-throughs to shop.

They have 10 tips for each social media site. Read more: http://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2014/11/leverage-pinterest-and-instagram-to-drive-traffic-and-revenue-this-holiday-infographic.html#ixzz3IdnzB9ly

Good luck marketing this holiday season.

Saturday Sharing: More on Instagram

In this past week's Wednesday Words, we discussed Instagram and the fact that even some brands are using Instagram to reach customers.

Since I didn't have a real useful post yesterday due to my birthday, I figured I'd still share a few things today about Instagram.  More and more brands and companies are turning to Instagram to reach their customers and I have a couple articles explaining why - and why you should consider it as well.

The first two articles are from Fast Company:

• This Report Shows Why Brands Should Embrace Instagram (If They Haven't already)
• How the Most Successful Brands Dominate Instagram, and You Can Too

Advertising Age and Business Insider weight in as well, discussing brands who have mastered the use of Instagram and how Instagram is hard to master.

• These 20 Brands Have Mastered The Use Of Instagram
• Why It's Hard to Be a Brand On Instagram - Lack of Publishing Tools or APIs Means Publishing Is a Very Manual Process

Check out these articles.  They may help you if you decide you want to venture into Instagram as part of your social networking endeavors.

Good luck and have a great weekend!

Wednesday Words: Instagram

Instagram is a popular application that allows users to share photos.  Users are able to apply filters to images before they share them.  Instagram will post to its own network as well as Facebook, Flicker, Twitter and Foursquare.

Instagram is definitely targeted towards mobile users and for social sharing and has more than 15 million users.  It is available for both iOS and Android devices.

Some brands are even using Instagram, including:

• Benefit Cosmetics
• Lancôme’s
• Chobani
• Ben and Jerry's

And more.

If your brand would be considered photo heavy - perhaps a restaurant where you want to share photos of your food, etc., or a boutique, you may look into adding Instagram to your social networking.

Wednesday Words are a series of definitions released on Wednesday each week regarding a word found specific to Facebook's social media platform, or may be a generic word dealing with social media.  These definitions are to help provide you with a better understanding of common and uncommon terms associated with Facebook and social media.   You can find all the Wednesday Words by clicking on the Wednesday Words tag below.

Friday Facts: Instagram Beats Facebook and Twitter for Brand Engagement

Constant Contact often puts out interesting blogs, including those on social media engagement. This article posted a little more than a month ago talks about how Instagram is beating out Facebook and Twitter where brand engagement is concerned.

One of the interesting points in the blog was this:

The report, which looked at more than 3 million user interactions across seven social networks, found that brands on Instagram are seeing a 4.21 percent engagement rate per post.

The article covers a handful of other topics with interesting facts in them as well, all about social media and how we are using it today.  Check it out.  http://blogs.constantcontact.com/product-blogs/social-media-marketing/instagram-user-engagement/