Social Media Marketing World in San Diego

In early March, our team flew to sunny San Diego to join thousands of social media professionals from around the world at Social Media Marketing World 2020.

With roughly 10-20 sessions a day, our team divided and conquered. Here are some of the main themes we took away from this experience.

What Is Social Media Marketing World?

Before we dive in, let us share a little background on the conference. Social Media Marketing World is a mega-conference designed to empower marketers and influencers with business-building ideas.

It’s hosted by Social Media Examiner – “the world’s largest social media marketing resource” – and has been running since 2013. Each year they bring in roughly 100 expert speakers to share their experiences and insights on various topics in the realm of digital and social media marketing.

Be Authentic [Taylor Carlier]

Sendible meetup at Social Media Marketing World

One of the biggest takeaways from the conference as a whole was authenticity. As brands and social media managers, it is easy to get stuck in a sales-y, buttoned-up approach to content. If you don’t like looking at that as a consumer, you don’t have to perpetuate that just because you’re a brand. People connect to people, so cultivate a personal brand presence on your social media! Here’s how:

1. Be a consistent comment responder that responds as a person. Communicate like you would with your friends. This will encourage engagement and dialogue, instead of cutting off the conversation with a simple “thank you.”

2. Focus less on branding your Instagram feed grid, and more on authentic individual posts. More often than not, people are only seeing one of your posts on Instagram. If you are posting that post just to make your Instagram grid look more designer, don’t. You get one shot to draw in a customer or follower with a post. Don’t waste it on trying to achieve a look.

3. Authenticity doesn’t equal ugly, it equals genuine. Post pretty content, but it doesn’t have to be taken by a photographer or created by a designer. Don’t strive for perfection, just work towards good-looking posts that tell a story.

4. Encourage user-generated content! 79% say that UGC influences their purchasing decisions. People want other people telling them what they like about your brand. Here’s how you get more UGC:

a. Create remarkable experiences that are shareable by developing talk triggers— parts of your customer journey that are so unique that they have to be talked about.
b. Take photos of customers in your stores, restaurants, etc. and encourage them to post and tag your brand.

5. Turn the camera around, even if it’s imperfect. Show your employees, owners, and social media managers on camera to talk about your brand. Essentially, stop acting like a brand and act like a person!

Use Algorithms To Your Advantage [Kelly Perigo]

Chalene Johnson speaks at Social Media Marketing World

As social media marketing professionals, it’s not uncommon for us to feel like the social media algorithms in place are working against us. However, a common theme we heard in our sessions at Social Media Marketing World was that the algorithm is not out to get us. It’s actually in place to provide a positive experience to users.

When brands use the algorithm to their advantage, they can be a part of that enjoyable user experience. Here are a few steps to using algorithms to your advantage:

1. The first thing an algorithm looks for is spam, basically any post that people are not connecting with or engaging with. To avoid being marked as spam, you want to create content that drives connection. The key to doing this is through creating content around shared experiences. When you can relate to your audience you’ll see that they are more inclined to engage. As speaker Holly Homer said, “people do not relate to perfect.”

2. In order to use the algorithm to your advantage, you have to know what content your audience wants to see and what channels they want to see it on. This can take time and a lot of testing. Once you find top performing posts, keep creating those types of posts. Is there a trend your audience is latching onto? Continue to use it in creative and engaging ways. Is your audience is more engaged with Stories? Keep posting there. Just remember to monitor your posts and adjust your strategy to match high performing posts—it’s your audiences’ way of telling you what they want from your brand.

3. Be relevant. When you continue to show up on social and change your focus from gaining numbers to gaining relationships, the algorithm will notice. Instead of focusing on getting more followers or likes quickly, think about the amount of time people take to read and engage with your content. Then provide them with respect by creating valuable and shareable content. Focus on creating conversations and content that benefits your audience, not yourself or your brand.

Keep Testing [Lauren Johnson]

Duncan Wardle presents at Social Media Marketing World

Another common theme throughout the sessions was to keep testing. Although there are best practices for all things social, every brand has a unique story for success. Through constant testing you can find and develop the success sweet spot for you.

Here are some areas you can start testing now.

1. Ads

• When creating Facebook Lookalike Audiences don’t be afraid to test past the 1%. You may find you have the most success with 2%, 3% or even 4%.
• Test placements. Start with Facebook’s combined placements and track results. Pull top performing placements out to their own ad sets for better optimization.
• Test copy and image variation to find the winning combo. Try different calls-to-action and copy length. Make sure you grab their attention in the first sentence.
• Test ad campaigns throughout the funnel. You should have ads running in every stage of the funnel.

2. Content

• Use Instagram and Facebook Story placements as a way to test out content for your feed. Since Stories vanish after 24 hours, they’re a great way to try different versions of communicating the same message—allowing you to see which resonated with your audience more. You can then use the top performing Story in a Feed placement.
• Use mixed media in your Feed. Test out various types of content (video, IGTV, single image, carousel images, graphics, quotes). Find what works best for you!
• If you have a question about your ads or copy that starts with “Should I try…” the answer is YES!

What’s Next [Duncan Alney]

Duncan Alney shows his Social Media Marketing World all-access pass

With content to produce, conversations to manage, and programs to optimize, it’s easy to get stuck in the business of today. However, being future-oriented is critical and there were some real food for thought moments at this year’s Social Media Marketing World.

Some of it we’ve heard before, some of it was unexpected, and some of it new. Here’s what stuck out most to me:

1. Video will be bigger (and smaller) than ever. With streamed platforms poised to enter a war for attention, the insight for us is clear—there is a large and growing appetite for video. With TikTok’s audience starting to skew older and YouTube’s immense popularity, we have a number of ways to distribute and amplify our content. TikTok’s growth and adoption signals a continued rise and spread of ephemeral and micro-video. This will be both important and baffling to brands as they work to figure out how to make it work for themselves.

2. Brands as publishers. While this has been the domain of larger brands, there is an opportunity for small and medium sized organizations to tell their stories, to focus on people, to be helpful and to have more conversations. There is a hunger for content and brands that deliver that authentically and with an intent to help will be the winners. And not just plain content, but rich content that is developed and delivered in an agile way with the emphasis on substance and not image.

3. Human intelligence and instinct is still the killer app. While every marketing automation player claims artificial intelligence, the reality is—beyond efficiency and some token predictive capabilities—there is no real groundbreaking tech that can make critical decisions. We the people have to do that. That’s where our experience, intuition and gut comes in.

4. Facebook (and Instagram) will continue to dominate. With Facebook emphasizing Live, groups, and numerous new ad capabilities, there is no doubt that the big dog will continue to produce big results—regardless of skeptics and naysayers. With everything going on this year, we will see prices for ads fluctuate as both demand and supply are affected by current events around Covid19 and the upcoming presidential elections.

Tools & Apps

So many amazing tools and apps were sharing during the sessions. We wanted to share these with you too!

• Story Swag App: Helps you turn photos into videos for more engaging Stories.
• Wave.video: This easy-to-use video tool helps you create seamless storylines for any social channel.
• Video Leap: Advanced video editing tool.
• Hyperlapse: This app helps you create timelapse videos without a tripod and expensive equipment.
• UpViral: SaaS that easily creates viral competitions, giveaways & sweepstakes.
• PixelMe: This link management platform shortens links while keeping them branded to your business.
• Natural Readers: A free text to speech tool that helps you review your copy with your ears.
• Hemingway: This app helps you write copy at the right reading level.
• Picmonkey: Use this tool to add sticker effects and circle text on your photos.
• Easil: This tool makes making multiple Instagram stories a breeze.
• Life Lapse: Creating a video with multiple photos over a long-period of time.
• Pixaloop: Animate your still photos with this gem.

Firebelly's Top Takeaways From Social Media Marketing World