SOCIAL MEDIA ROUND-UP: Instagram Takes the Crown for Best Social Marketing Tool

In this week’s social media roundup, find we examine reports that Instagram is the best social network for social marketing. We also take a look at Twitter’s success in the week following their somewhat controversial introduction of Twitter hearts and we review Facebook’s Notify news app that was launched in America last week.

Instagram above Facebook and YouTube as ‘most influential social marketing tool’

The app company Takumi that connects Instagram influencers with brands researched the 15 biggest influencers on consumer behaviour. They crowned Instagram as the most effective social marketing tool as the platform has been found to deliver more sales and consumer actions than any other social platform.

The most significant marketing influence overall was friends, followed by family and partners, showing that word of mouth is still the most influential method of communication.

Instagram featured in sixth place, ahead of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It was reported that 56% of consumers have purchased a product after seeing it on Instagram. Millennials were found to be most responsive to posts on Instagram.

Moreover, 68% of 18-24 year-olds said they would be more likely to purchase an item if someone they followed on Instagram shared it and 54% said they had bought items after seeing them on the platform.

Are these figures enough to justify increased advertising spending on the platform? If so, should you be endorsing influential individuals to drive your messaging?

As 14% more millennials would buy a product posted by someone they follow on Instagram, influencers and product placement could be your best bet!

Twitter ‘likes’ have increased since the launch of hearts  

In last week’s roundup, we discussed Twitter’s introduction of hearts to replace the ‘favourite’ star symbol and found that not everyone was impressed with Twitter’s change of heart!

A week has passed and it has been announced that the platform has seen an increase in ‘like’ activity of 6% for existing users and 9% for new users.

Twitter’s reasoning that hearts make sense and are easier to understand is believed to be the cause of this increase in activity as Twitter’s SVP of Product, Kevin Weil, explained:

“The heart is a universal symbol. It’s a much more inclusive symbol”.

Luckily for Twitter, the heart haters did not seem to last long. An increase in engagement is good news for Twitter as they aim to get more and more people engaged on their platform.

Facebook’s Notify news app arrives in the US

Last week saw the launch of Facebook’s Notify app in America. The app is Facebook’s answer to becoming a source for real-time news and world events. Now Notify has been launched, more information on the app has since been released.

Each day users can sign up for particular types of notifications (called stations). For example, sports updates and scores, movie trailers or local weather forecasts are some of the available popular stations. The app suggests stations based off the information on your Facebook profile, which could provide an easy way to follow or subscribe to news outlets of interest.

This is no real innovation as Twitter has been a go-to-source of real-time news since it launched. Notify, however does have a few advantages over Twitter. It notifies the user at the time the article is released. It also gives the user the option to save the notification and news article in a folder to read later. Furthermore, Notify does not have a character limit, which offers the app the ability to share more information on news stories with its users.

Visit the WePlay website HERE and follow WePlay on Twitter HERE.

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