Social Media News You Need To Know About
This week we'll discuss social media trends to help jumpstart your brand's content strategy, three trends shaping social commerce, and why brands are in it for the long haul when partnering with influencers.
For more news and trends, be sure to check out my blog. You can find more of my recent writing here and here.
6 Social Media Trends to Jumpstart Content Strategy
In an article by Buffer, there are many ways for brands to tap into social media trends that can lead to engaging content that resonates with one's audience. Some of my favorites include:
Invest in Influencer Collaborations - More to come in another article, but I'll always use an opportunity to promote influencer marketing. With 77% of marketers planning to dedicate a budget strictly to influencer marketing this year, influencers continue to be a powerful medium to reach new audiences at scale and create highly-engaging content.
Share User-Generated-Content (UGC) - Recent data showcases that 72% of consumers see reviews and testimonials from actual customers as more credible than a brand talking about its products. In my career, the brands I’ve worked on regularly implemented this tactic by leveraging UGC via Stories and specific campaign work.
Create Meme-able Moments - We've talked about cultural moments in the past and how important it is for brands to know when to activate and when to pass. Many brands recently decided to meme-ify the physical violence inflicted on Chris Rock at the Oscars. While definitely a moment everyone was aware of, many pointed out that making fun of violence can negatively impact consumers' views of a brand.
3 Trends Shaping Social Commerce
The growing trend of social media commerce is nothing new, but let's hear directly from Facebook why this trend is here to stay. Some of the highlights include:
41% of consumers reported shopping daily or weekly via a mobile device, compared to 12% in 2017.
Looking at social commerce specifically, nearly 50% of social media users in the US reported buying something via a social media platform in the last 12 months.
While social commerce for the cannabis industry may not happen until federal legalization, cannabis brands are finding ways to tap into this, like selling merchandise through another account that has zero cannabis content (e.g. DogWalkers’ merchandise social account).
Brands Looking For Long-term Influencer Partnerships
In a recent AdWeek article, brands discuss how they're marketing efforts focus on partnering with influencers in the long term. At a high level, this is for two main reasons:
To create a long-term plan to establish genuine brand affinity by having an influencer create content around a brand multiple times throughout the year. This showcases how a product truly fits into one's lifestyle.
To save costs. If influencers know they're going to have consistent work, their overall rates tend to go down. Brands get to save on costs, and influencers have peace of mind knowing that incoming funds will be consistent.
I hope you found these news articles to be informative and useful. Until next time!
Marketing News Worth Knowing
I’m excited to share three marketing and social media trends that you should be aware of. . Today we’ll discuss Instagram’s latest change to their feed, an experiential activation tied to an HBO Max show, how to assess if your brand should activate on a cultural moment. Looking for more social media news? Check out more of my blog posts here, and here.
Instagram Going Back To Chronological
They say fashion is cyclical, and now we can say social media is too. Six years ago (yes, really), Instagram decided to forgo the traditional chronological feed for one based on its algorithm. Recently, Instagram announced that two new modes will be rolled out to all users.
Soon, you will be able to toggle between "Following" mode, which only shows content from accounts you follow in reverse chronological order. And "favorites" mode, a separate feed where you can select up to 50 accounts to highlight.
While this news is exciting for those longing for a chronological feed, the change isn't fully permanent as Instagram still sees value in its algorithm. Specifically, if you close out the app and reopen it, you'll be presented with the current algorithmic feed. Now, maybe Twitter will reconsider adding an edit functionality to their platform.
HBO Max Experiential x Basketball Moment
If you're unfamiliar with HBO's latest series, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, the dramatic miniseries follows the rise of the NBA's Lakers, Dr. Jerry Buss, and Magic Johnson. To help promote and raise awareness of the social, HBO leaned into a cultural insight to create a lasting experiential activation.
HBO's marketing team landed on a concept, turning a basketball court in Inglewood, California, into a long-lasting celebration of the Los Angeles Lakers and the show itself. No small feat in itself, as HBO partnered with a non-profit, Project Backboard, founded in 2014 by Daniel Peterson. Project Backboard's goal is to restore old basketball courts and install striking visual art to strengthen communities around the country.
Following approval from the city to restore a basketball court in Rogers Park, Project Backboard and HBO worked for four months on the restoration itself, repairing cracks in the court, repainting court lines and markings, installing graphics on backboards, and replacing the nets and rims on the existing hoops.
How to Assess Cultural Social Media Moments
The blue or gold dress, "Yanni" or "laurel," are just a few notable social media moments that gain significant levels of consumers' attention and brands' attention. These moments are opportunities for brands, but only when they activate authentically. My friends at Sprout Social provide some insights as to how and when brands should insert themselves via social content.
At a high level, brands need to have a north star to assess whether a cultural moment is a good fit for their respective audiences. That can often be done through tools like social listening and just having a firm understanding of one's brand.
Let me know if any of the above information is useful information. What other information should digital and social media professionals know about?
3 Marketing and Social Media Trends Worth Sharing
In today’s blog post, I’ve got three marketing and social media trends worth sharing. Today, we’ll cover HubSpot’s 2022 Instagram Engagement report, insights from how small businesses are doing marketing differently, and the evolution of D2C brands. For more of my writing, you can find my latest blog post here.
HubSpot 2022 Instagram Engagement Report
In Hubspot's newest report on Instagram and how to create an engaging social media presence, we wanted to share some highlights from this report. Including:
Benchmarking Engagements: In both North America and the UK, the average engagement rate for Instagram was 5.21%. Given the challenges we face as a cannabis brand, our content on Facebook and Instagram received an average 5% engagement rate (ER) for Sunnyside in Q4.
Steps to a strong caption: Stay true to your brand voice. The post copy we create is the perfect place to let it speak loud and clear, as it's a chance to talk directly with our followers., Always lead your caption with the most important, compelling information. Because Instagram will clip your caption when it appears in users' feeds, they'll need to click 'see more' to read the whole thing.
How Small Businesses Are Doing Marketing Differently
While the cannabis industry is nowhere near considered a small business, most marketing teams run lean and scrappy. So seeing how digital marketers with truly fewer resources succeed can inspire digital marketers like myself. Some highlights from Buffer include:
Finding Influencers Who Align With Your Business: With shifts in consumer privacy and the growing trend of shoppable content, brands are shifting their marketing spend toward partnerships with Instagram influencers overpaid ad strategies. Given that we cannot leverage paid ads as an industry, influencers are critical in helping us reach our target audiences at scale.
Rewarding Loyalty and Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM): We've talked about the value of WOMM before, but with discussions around ways to improve loyalty in our industry, it felt right to share this. Brands already lean on their brand advocates to help spread the word, and an advocacy engine can be created and become self-sustaining by investing in incentives to encourage consumers to do so.
The Evolution of D2C Brands
eCommerce continues to evolve, with Direct To Consumer (D2C) gaining larger market shares across multiple industries. Traditional brands with brick & mortar locations are now looking to tap into emerging e-commerce trends. 2PM partnered with Deloitte to release a report covering eight trends; some of our favorites include:
Brands to drop 3rd-party retailers: To better control inventory and customer experience, traditional CPG brands will focus on their own distribution channels. For example, Nike has committed to selling 70% of its products directly by 2027.
Apple's privacy changes: We've talked about this before, but Apple's consumer privacy changes will have a long-lasting effect. The change has significantly impacted Facebook's ad tracking and prompted Apple to begin building its advertising platform.
Rising customer acquisition costs: It is more challenging for brands to stay top of mind with their target audience than ever and forces companies to invest in their own content to reach future customers. More prominent companies like HubSpot are acquiring popular newsletters like The Hustle to help supplement their content library across digital marketing channels, including social, web, email, and more.
Let me know if any of these insights were useful! Where are you finding new inspiration when it comes to social media and digital marketing? Until next time
The Best Social Media News & Trends You Need To Know
Without further ado, let's get into the latest cannabis and social media trends. If this is the first of these blog posts you’re reading, you can find more news and trends here.
How To Maximize Instagram Video Strategy
In late December, we shared that Instagram's lead, Adam Mosseri, revealing that Instagram would put an even bigger focus on video in 2022. Fast-forward to today, and that is still true, with Reels becoming a key post format on the platform and recently rolled out to Facebook. And the algorithm prioritizes Reels despite the increased time needed to create an engaging Reel.
To help provide more inspiration across all of our brands, Social Media Examiner highlights tactical ways to maximize our video strategy. Some of my favorites include:
Expand Audiences with Collaborators - Whether we partner with another brand or influencers, the collab feature enables us to easily get more eyes on our video content by introducing our brands to a new audience.
Make Time to Jump on Trends - Reels are typically fun, entertaining videos that range from dance challenges to lip-syncs and other fun ideas. Life is hectic at times but brands can find inspiration by making time to just scroll through Reels on the platform and look for patterns/trends in top-performing creative.
1 in 4 Americans Today Consume Cannabis
No surprise here, but cannabis consumption in the United States is growing. In partnership with Sunnyside, a national study conducted by YouGov found that nearly one in four Americans consumed cannabis over the past year. The study indicates that the cultural shift in cannabis occurred partially due to a few reasons.
Cresco Labs Regional President, Cris Rivera, summed it up perfectly, stating, "Whether it's the stressors of a global pandemic or increased accessibility due to expanded state decriminalization, cannabis has become the leading CPG [consumer packaged goods] category for exploration as people flock to dispensaries to discover the range of novel formats and modern products available to them."
Tinuiti 2022 Influencer Guide
Last but not least, let's talk influencers! In the Tinuiti 2022 Influencer Guide, there is a treasure trove worth of information! Did you know that 88% of consumers surveyed have been inspired to purchase based on what they saw from an influencer? Or that the influencer industry is on track to be worth up to $15 billion by 2023, up as much from $8 billion in 2019.
Here are some exciting trends worth sharing:
A Greater Focus on Diversity - Representation is a critical part of any marketing strategy, and influencer marketing is no different, especially for an industry like ours. Consumers care about diversity, especially when looking at younger generations. According to Quantilope, "76% of Gen Zers feel diversity and inclusion are important topics for brands to address, compared with 72% of millennials, 63% of Gen Xers, and 46% of boomers." For our Sunnyside Dry January campaign, more than half of our survival kit recipients were from diverse backgrounds, and the majority of our sponsored content creators were also from diverse backgrounds.
Long-Term Partnerships > One-Time Deals - It's general consensus between marketers that consumers typically require multiple touchpoints before making a purchase. A percentage of "organic" sales often come after consumers see our brands or products online or in real life. The best way to truly bring an influencer's audience into ours is by having our brand show up multiple times. More brands are building long-term partnerships with influencers instead of one-off campaigns. Not only does this reduce overall costs, but it cements a brand into an influencer's daily life with consistent sponsored content.
Looking for more on influencers? Check another of my blog posts addressing four misconceptions around influencer marketing. I hope you enjoyed my latest blog post, until next time!
3 Social Media News & Trends Worth Your Time
Without further ado, let's dig into three social media news and trends you need to know. Want to learn more? You can find my previous blog posts here, and here.
Top Design Trends Shaping Social Media
We often look for inspiration for our brands' content strategies by evaluating other brands outside of our category. Later provided some more inspiration by evaluating top design trends that are shaping social media. With ten trends, there are plenty of things we can look to implement, but here are a few worth sharing:
60s and 70s Iconography - Culture is cyclical, and design elements are included in that. Elements from the 60s and 70s are finding their home in 2022. Everything from funky fonts to flower-power icons, the retro feel is back.
Contrasting Fonts - While not new, brands are utilizing different typefaces in a single word or sentence. There's a visual contrast when viewing content that pairs modern fonts with some more classical, often leading to more engagement or at the very least, more time spent "on-screen."
8 Creative Ways To Use Instagram Carousel Posts
More from Later, this time, we will focus on creative ways to utilize carousel posts on Instagram. Some of my favorites include:
Before and After Reveals - Consumers are curious how a product or brand fits into their daily lives. Being able to showcase either the real-life impact of a product or service or, in our case, how something like the cannabis plant can be turned into other product forms like edibles or concentrates continues to drive engagement by prompting more swipe-throughs.
Customer Reviews - We've discussed the impact of brand advocacy in the past and how customer reviews are a huge driver when it comes to consideration. Consumers love our brands, and being able to share positive reviews as content can help foster brand advocacy, reaffirm the quality of our products, and increase shareability by reaching new audiences.
Behind-the-scenes Content - Our audience is curious about the inner workings of our brands and the products we carry. By utilizing multiple images in a single post, we can highlight unique angles from photoshoots, feature our cultivation facilities, and even experiential events when they return.
Zero-Party Data
Last but not least, I wanted to touch on a marketing term that's picking up steam across multiple industries, zero-party data.
Coined in 2018 by Forrester Research, zero-party data is information a consumer provides to a brand in exchange for something that might improve their overall experience with said brand.
What's the difference between first-party data and zero-party data? Let's look at it through the lens of Hulu.
When you create an account and provide information about yourself like an address or email, that's first-party data. You can also tell Hulu what shows and movies you like, helping their algorithm put the right content in front of you over time; that's zero-party data.
As brands and advertisers continue to adjust to new privacy features that protect consumers, expect to see your favorite brands request some form of zero-party data to help create a better experience for you as a consumer.
I hope you were able to take away some learnings this week! Let me know in the comments below your thoughts on zero-party data. I’d love to see how other digital marketers are approaching this marketing tactic.
More Cannabis & Marketing Trends Worth Knowing
If you’re like me, it’s been a busy start to the new year. But with the seasons beginning to change, I feel like I’ve been able to get more into a groove over the past few weeks. And I’m excited to get back to sharing my learnings!
To get up to speed on more of cannabis industry, social media, and marketing trends, you can read more of my recent writing here, and here.
Meet Brock Ollie
You've most likely seen this campaign by now, but if you haven't yet, meet Brock Ollie! Weed Maps’ newest digital spot addresses the current advertising restrictions imposed on legal cannabis businesses and brands regarding digital marketing.
The ad shines a light on the marketing challenges we face when growing our audience and providing education surrounding the plant. While we may never get a cannabis emoji to use, we hope that Brock Ollie can stop being mistaken for our favorite green plant.
How To Harness Digital Marketing Magic
BuiltIn shares shared six tactics to help digital marketers unlock the magic, and we want to share some of the learnings. My personal favorites include:
Engage with Relevant Communities: Brands need to integrate themselves into the communities where their target audience is already part of, making it easier to find one's brand. This is true beyond social platforms; it includes forums and other digital "hang-outs."
Never Stop Refining Your User Experience (UX): Brands must provide a positive user experience when patients and adult-use customers interact with any of our digital channels like social media, email, and web. For our brands to continue to grow as we expand, we need to get existing customers to share their love of Sunnyside with their audience through Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMM) and a positive UX is needed to do just that.
Creating A More Equitable Tribal Medical Cannabis Program
Earlier this week, Minnesota state Representative Mike Freiberg introduced a new bill, HF 3162, providing for the operation of tribal medical cannabis programs and authorizing Tribal compacts regarding medical cannabis. To create a more equitable cannabis industry, this bill would also establish dual registration of Tribal patients and provide for transportation of medical cannabis by manufacturers registered with Tribal medical cannabis programs.
While a Senate companion bill has not yet been introduced, I am hopeful that similar bills will be presented in states with Tribal communities.
Until next time!
