Social Media has revolutionized the way we consume news, communicate with friends, and interact with brands. It’s complicated to keep up with as a user, and even more difficult to navigate as a marketer.
Advertising on social comes with a host of challenges. One of the biggest questions today, is how the content creation processes will adapt to the speed, volatility, & scale of today’s social world. We believe that these three changes pose the biggest challenges for modern marketers to keep up with the speed of social.
Speed of Creation:
Social networks are quickly becoming the largest channels for advertisers. Global social media advertising is growing at 20 percent a year and by 2019 will be worth $50.2 billion. As advertisers invest more money into social platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the social networks are continuing to release new features and ad formats at a rapid pace. A year ago, Instagram Stories, a brand-new content format, rolled out to consumers. Today, 300 Million people are using the feature every day and usage is poised to overtake Instagram feed. To ensure your brand’s message reaches your audience on social in the way that fits how they’re consuming content on those channels, marketers need to find ways to keep pace with the scale & speed of the networks.
Activating “The Now”:
With the current need for so much content, brands will win when they’re able to experiment and echo cultural trends and conversations on social. Social is fragmented and less condensed than tv spots that only send one message and often miss the mark by the time they go live. The best brands on social, like Wendy’s, truly understand the undercurrents of what people are talking about as it relates to their brand and why. From sassy responses to trolling other fast food chains on social media, Wendy’s understands the importance of taking a chance, and experimenting with their voice rather than playing it safe.
Democratizing creativity:
As brands more meaningfully engage with their audiences via social, brands can access their biggest fans to source marketing or even product ideas to smartly build out their best social self. This collaborative relationship goes beyond focus groups and testing capabilities that agencies used to lean on. If you tap into the people that support and love your brand, you’ll get better ideas and serve better creative. At their core, social platforms are meant to create connections between people, so why not use the platforms for what they were built for and leverage it for advertising content?
As social networks continue to grow in popularity among users, the future of connecting with consumers is online. The “how” of connecting with them will continue to change as new content formats and types take hold. Advertising today is different than it was in years past. This change requires marketers to adapt to more agile content production methods and bottom-up brand building. Marketers that step outside of the box to find innovative solutions for content creation will be the winners in this new age of advertising.