Digital Marketing Trends- 2017
Wander Creative Productions is a company specializing in content creation and digital marketing. We create videos, photos and designs for businesses, artists and non-profit organizations. We also work alongside clients to help promote them online.
A NOTE FROM WANDER CREATIVE The digital landscape is continually transforming. I suppose you could say that if there is one constant in the digital world, it is the constant of change. Since opening Wander Creative 5 years ago, I have seen platforms come and go, content consumption trends evolve and social media algorithms revised time and time again. Goodness do those algorithms get modified often; and it always seems to have the greatest impact on businesses and artists. But that is what makes creating digital strategies and producing content for digital platforms so exciting. Everyday is an evolving challenge that demands a multitude of tactics to achieve any given objective. At Wander Creative, we are extremely excited about what we have seen in 2017 already and we are looking forward to all of the opportunities businesses and artists will have to connect with audiences on a personal level thanks to digital platforms. We truly view the digital market as an ecosystem of social interactions that create a larger community of brand ambassadors. In the next few pages, it is the hope of myself and the Wander Creative team to give you some thoughts on where we see this year taking content creation, digital marketing and social media platforms as well as show you some practical tactics we are using to help artists and businesses grow their online footprint in an effort to create additional revenue streams for our clients! So, from all of us at Wander Creative, we hope that you find the content in this guide to be helpful as you plan for the rest of this coming year. And remember- we are always more than happy to help you achieve your goals in creating engaging content or facilitating digital campaigns. So, never hesitate to reach out and we will be glad to lend a helping hand. -Matt Hadley
Owner/Creative Director, Wander Creative Productions, LLC matthadley@wandercreative.com www.wandercreative.com
DIGITAL TRENDS OUTLOOK In today’s digital landscape, users are on an averand high-quality photography that compliment enage of 7 social media platforms and usually use 2.3 gaging elements such as live video streaming and virdifferent devices in any given day. These trends are tual-reality experiences. At Wander Creative, we are forcing brands and organizations to refocus the encouraging clients to embrace many various emergway they are engaging with audiences. The most ing tools as well as doubling down on well established telling trends have been in the way of immersive, tactics. Email marketing and SMS text marketing rehigh-quality, personal content with designated stratmains some of the most impactful forms of promoting egies that are designed to a project with incredible reach consumers directly. returns on investment. Im“USERS ARE ON AN AVERAGE OF 7 With over half of Amerplementing content gates, ica’s internet time being contests, and coordinated SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS & consumed on mobile degrass-roots promotions USUALLY USE 2.3 DIFFERENT vices, it is becoming incan be strategic tactics to DEVICES IN ANY GIVEN DAY.” creasingly important for grow networks and inbrands to create content crease content visibility that can be easily digested within a heavily saturated on any given machine. As more and more users are digital marketplace. Incentivizing user engagement gravitating to the mobile experience, it is going to and mobilizing audiences are additional ways to enbecome even more crucial for organizations to cresure the success of a digital campaign while simulate compelling, relevant and immersive experiences taneously increasing brand awareness. You can also online. expect brand partnerships/cross-collaboration content beginning to become some of the most impactful To create content that impacts audiences, it is vital to content pieces as micro-moments become a key way populate digital streams with a mix of video pieces to create lasting ripples rather than just a single big splash with a product announcement or project reveal.
KEYS TO CONTENT CREATION Video Is Trending Up
Lifestyle Photos Boost Engagement
“BY 2019, 80% OF ALL CONSUMER INTERNET TRAFFIC WILL BE COMPRISED OF VIDEO.”
“87% OF A BRAND’S FACEBOOK PROFILE INTERACTIONS TYPICALLY HAPPEN ON PHOTO POSTS
For most of the past decade, online video consumption has been growing at an astoundingly rapid rate. So much so that it is estimated that by 2019, 80% of all consumer Internet traffic will be compromised of video. YouTube alone already reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the US and has paid out over $2 Billion to rightsholders in the last 10 years. With that much saturation, it is important to consider the impact video trends will play in digital marketing and social media strategies over the coming years. At Wander Creative, we encourage our clients to think video first because it is already a must have element for any digital campaign with 87% of professional marketers citing video as a crucial component of their strategy. And that isn’t the only reason Wander Creative encourages our clients to look to video in their marketing efforts, video is also extremely effective. Including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%.
While aesthetics of a campaign might not seem as crucial as the content itself, research has shown that a social media platform’s visual element is at the core of a campaign’s success. This is primarily because humans are very visual beings. When people hear information, they’re likely to remember only 10% of that information three days later. However, if a relevant image is paired with that same information, people retained 65% of the information three days later. So, it is no surprise when 87% of a brand’s Facebook profile interactions typically happen on photo posts; as compared to less than 4% interactions for plain text posts or links. It is also essential to create a consistent look across social media platforms. 60% of the top brands on Instagram use a consistent look on the photos that they share to create a cohesive look. Our Wander Creative team suggests to clients to create a steady stream of high-quality images by conducting life-style content capture sessions at least once a quarter. We even facilitate many of these content capture sessions as part of our month/ month service and clients have seen on average an uptick in user engagement by 305%.
Recording Artist TobyMac during a video content capture session with Wander Creative creating video assets for the Hits Deep Tour.
Recording Artist Carmen Justice during a life-style photo content capture session with Wander Creative.
What’s The Follow-up? Social media posts have a very short shelf life before they get buried by other posts. Bit.ly estimates that a Tweets half-life is 2.8 hours while Wiselytics puts the time at only 24 minutes. With that little time to make an impression, it becomes essential to explore ways to reinforce content. Though you do not want your content to feel like spam, you do want to reuse elements so that you maximize the number of viewers who see your content. At Wander Creative, we typically will follow-up core pieces of content at least 5 times while sending out 1-3 follow-up messages for secondary content. One strategy we implement at Wander Creative is to create posts with the following variations: • Post the title of the piece and a link to it • Ask a question that relates back to the initial piece • Share a fact or figure included in your post • Use a pull-quote from your piece • Write a teaser message
Consider Cross-Collaborations There are many obvious reasons to create content with peers and cross-promote other accounts content. Not only does collaborating with other accounts combine both entities audiences, but it also gives each account access to additional content and can grow creative partnerships for future ventures. The finance and digital entrepreneurial blog, The Balance. points out that joining forces with other {accounts} can greatly increase your advertising power and your marketing reach. South Street Marketing recommends cross-promotion with peer accounts because it not only brings additional visibility, but also broadens audience awareness about your account. You can collaborate in many different capacities. One our team at Wander Creative recommends is through video creation. If you are an artist, consider inviting another artist to collaborate on a video or work with a speak/spoken-word artist to create a unique video experience.
Focus is Key One of the key elements to a successful social media campaign is to ensure that all content elements have an objective. A very common request Wander Creative receives that deviates from focused content is about creating lifestyle video elements for clients who are not lifestyle brands. As the request became more common, the Wander Creative team grew curious about the effectiveness of these types of elements. The results were troubling. Since many of these requests were coming from musicians, we decided to look at viewership across varying genres, platform sizes, and target demographics. What was interesting was the results were nearly identical across all accounts. We found that on average, lifestyle videos for musicians impacted roughly 7% of their digital fan base. Meanwhile, assets including audio visualizers, performance videos and music videos typically had a viewership hundreds and even thousands of times larger than their initial base. We do encourage Wander Creative’s clients to create story behind the song videos and even exclusive behind the scenes videos, but these are typically considered low impact assets that are intended to reach highly engaged users.
“ASSETS INCLUDING AUDIO VISUALIZERS, PERFORMANCE VIDEOS AND MUSIC VIDEOS TYPICALLY HAD A VIEWERSHIP HUNDREDS OF TIMES LARGER THAN THEIR INITIAL BASE.”
KEY DIGITAL MARKETING TACTICS Think Mobile First Digital consumption on mobile devices has been steadily on the rise for years. Currently, mobile devices account for over 45% of all online traffic, and within the US, audiences are spending 51% of their time consuming digital content on mobile devices compared to 42% of the time accessing content on desktops. With research indicating that over 50% of smartphone users grab their smartphone immediately after waking up, it is important to capture this audience whenever possible. Two key trends in thinking mobile first are text-based promotions and ensuring website/emails are compatible with mobile devices. Many mobile consumers say that a platform’s incompatibility with their mobile device is a reason they quit engaging with a specific piece of content. And according to Venture Beat, SMS-text based campaigns are extremely effective with an “SMS-TEXT BASED CAMPAIGNS ARE open rate of about 98% (compared to around 20% for tradiEXTREMELY EFFECTIVE WITH AN tional email campaigns). And the average click through rate OPEN RATE OF ABOUT 98%” for text marketing messages is 36% compared to email’s average of 6-7%.
Integrate Realtime Interactions In 2016, live experiential moments, specifically live streamed videos, became one of the driving forces in digital marketing strategies. 100 million internet users watched online video everyday and Facebook Live videos were watched 3x longer than regular videos posted to Facebook. Live content from concerts were among the most popular live content digested by users making up 43% of live video consumption. Brands and organizations are expected to continue to lean heavily on live video in 2017 because 80% of audiences cite that they would rather watch live video from a brand than “67% OF LIVE VIDEO read a blog, and 67% of live video viewers are more likely to VIEWERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO buy a ticket for a concert or event after watching a relevant live video. Live video is also a good incentive for pay-for-play access BUY A TICKET FOR A CONCERT with 45% of live video audiences saying they would pay for live, OR EVENT AFTER WATCHING A exclusive, on-demand video from a favorite brand, performer or RELEVANT LIVE VIDEO.” entertainer if that brand is producing compelling content. Audiences cite that high-quality video and behind-the-scenes access are compelling to 87% of audiences.
E-Mail Is Still Key “THE AVERAGE ROI ON EMAIL MARKETING IS $38 FOR EVERY $1 SPENT.� E-Mail marketing remains one of the most effective avenues to reach audiences. In fact, Email is 40 times more effective at acquiring new customers than Facebook or Twitter and a user is 5x more likely to see an email than a post on Facebook. The trend among smaller businesses and artists however, is to put a larger emphasis on social media and skip both regular and automated e-blasts. It might not be the newest or trendiest way to get the word out about an upcoming album, product, or event; but it is incredibly effective and profitable- it is estimated that the average ROI on email marketing is $38 for every $1 spent.
Leverage Online Platforms to Mobilize Audiences Share-ability is one of the key factors to any social campaign’s success. Most people want their content to go ‘viral’. But the reality is that going viral is not a strategy in today’s digital space. As one UK Social Media Agency Executive put it in an interview with Digiday; “Until two years ago, organic reach was achievable; it was what good social media was… But with the algorithm changes, that rarely happens now… There’s no recipe to go viral, and that’s not a sustainable approach, not anymore.” Even though social media platforms’ algorithms and paid promotions are changing the game, there is still plenty of opportunity to mobilize your audience to maximize content exposure. Social sharing and word-of-mouth among your audience will help increase your content’s organic reach. Much of the reason these ‘grass-roots’ social strategies work is because people trust their friends and families more than brands. According to HubSpot, 89% of millennials trust recommendations from friends and family more than claims by the brand. There are many tools to leverage to help encourage audiences to share content. The most simple is just making the ask to share a post or piece of content. One more in-depth way Wander Creative has used in the past is by using digital tools such as hive. co and Thunderclap. With one client we were able to release a new “THERE’S NO RECIPE TO GO VIRAL, piece of premium content that reached half-a-million people and AND THAT’S NOT A SUSTAINABLE mobilized 600 uses in a matter of minutes. What it lead to was the APPROACH, NOT ANYMORE.” largest 24 hour debut for a piece of premium content across social media platforms for the client.
Take Advantage of Promotions Contests, incentives and special promotions can add extra value to a campaign and help fuel success for your digital marketing efforts. Research indicates that 51% of US millennials are willing to share information with companies in exchange for an incentive and 56% of millennials in the US would even share their location with companies to receive coupons or deals for nearby businesses. This type of access can translate to increased conversions and additional revenue. Running a campaign that encourages users to exchange information/platform sign-ups for products or exclusive content can quickly grow digital platforms. Nearly half (44%) of millennials are willing to promote products or services through social media in exchange for rewards while 77% of millennials actively participate in loyalty reward programs. One example Wander Creative implements regularly is early access to premium content such as videos, VIP experiences or pre-sales exclusively for email list subscribers. Another tactic Wander Creative uses is to ‘gate’ premium content. For instance, to view a video a user must first follow a particular digital platform such as Spotify or a social media page. Likewise incentives “51% OF US MILLENNIALS ARE such BOGO offers, coupons or loyalty programs can help drive adWILLING TO SHARE INFORMATION ditional sales and encourage users to sign-up for email/texting lists WITH COMPANIES IN EXCHANGE for future conversions. Studies show that the best duration for a promotional campaign is 25-60 days and are most effective in April, FOR AN INCENTIVE.” May June, November or December.
www.wandercreative.com info@wandercreative.com 615-933-9449