This week, our awesome Sydney social-media mentor Gareth Kidd has stepped in to provide you with some info on statistics.
Wait, stop, come back. Stats are important! Really important! We’ll let Gareth tell you why:
Stats are awesome. They can provide great insight around trends and behaviour, and can also be thrown around to make yourself look smart.
To honour the statistically-laden world that is social media, I’ve pulled out five of my favourite stats, and what they can tell us.
Internet users average more than two hours per day on social
Context: Of course, social media is a broad terminology, but this has been trending up for many years. With more publishers on platforms, social networks are a beacon for users consuming content.
Importance: Firstly, it really shows the value of social media. If you’re not using the platforms to reach your audiences, you better have a damn good reason. Fear of conversation is by no means an excuse from straying away from social. Of course, don’t run into the world of social media windmill-punching.
With such a huge quantity of referrals coming from Facebook alone, it’s important that social media isn’t a tack on after-thought. Having a documented social/digital strategy, as well internal resources to execute it, are vital for success.
48% of Facebook views come from shares
Context: This one I heard in a keynote by someone from a big blue company. Whilst it’s an astounding stat, let’s not forget that a view is merely someone hitting the 3 second mark.
Importance: With nearly half of eyeballs which fall on your video content most likely coming from outside from your current audience, there is ever increasing focus on making sure you content creates relevance… and quickly.
The first few moments of your video are key to retaining your audience further into your piece, and to your call to action. Think to yourself “if I knew nothing of this brand/message, would that first few seconds draw me in?”
Facebook live garners 10x comments than other video
Context: Facebook Live has been driven hard by the platform, with an evolving interface and array of bells and whistles. As a result, Live video tends to appear closer to the top of the news feed of your audience.
Importance: Live creates a great new opportunity to get your audience involved and engaged. Along with the timeline boost, a Facebook live with compelling value for your audience will get comments which, in turn, more views, and so on.
As such you want to use it with a purpose that will provide value and elicit conversation. Using live simply for the sake of reach is a fast-track to creating a terrible Facebook Live experience for your viewers, and they will subsequently “change channels”.
Instagram engagement levels don’t seem to be impacted by post length
Context: More data than a stat, and admittedly this is data from 2014, which makes it pre-algorithm on Insta. The data suggests that there is minimal difference in engagement despite varying post lengths. Although, you can argue the sweet spot is between 20 to 100 characters.
Importance: Your content needs to kick arse. We love to throw up an image, and often try to add value from the text, but there is no arguing that Instagram is an incredibly visual platform.
Focus more on the image quality and story, and experiment with key text on images. When it comes to your post content, make sure that the imperative goodness is in the first three lines (ie before the “see more” kicks in).
12% of Aussies check social media on the toilet
Context: Easily my favourite stat from the 2017 Sensis report. Granted, these stats are drawn from a survey of only 800 Australians, so let’s face it, the real number is probably much higher.
Importance: Ok, so it’s not the most important stat, but more a novel one. That being said, it reinforces the notion that social allows us to reach out audience EVERYWHERE.
From a wider context, don’t forget to think strategically about when you’re posting your content. Take into account when your audience is online, but also what call to action you have. Ie, don’t go sharing actionable content aimed at parents in the morning. They’re most likely getting the rug-rats off to school and will struggle to find time to click through and purchase/register/etc.
So there are my five favs. If you’ve got a favourite of your own, please share it below along with your insight, so we can keep the stats-love flowing.
Follow Gareth Kidd over on LinkedIn. He’s super smart!
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