You’re busy. I know you are. That’s why I make it part of my job to keep an eye out on what’s happening in the world of small business, social media, and marketing to bring you all the stuff you need to know but don’t have time to learn or worry about.
No research required. I’ll just give it to you straight in a digestible format.
Quick and easy peasy. Sound good?
We’ll call these summary blog posts “Denise Delivers” so keep an eye out for them and think of me as your business assistant bringing to you the most important parts of what’s going on.
Now let’s get going.
This week’s installment is about social media and Facebook’s recent Facebook Community Summit and Gen Zer’s preferred social media platform.
Ready?
The Facebook Community Summit Addresses Small Business Needs
On February 7, at their Melo Park Campus, Facebook hosted a Community Summit inviting over 400 small business leaders for the first time. There it unveiled several features that will help small businesses.
Here’s what you need to know with none of the stuff you don’t:
- Introducing the Pages Manager App: this application will be available in a few weeks and it provides the ability to consolidate responses and inquiries to the Facebook page, Instagram Direct messaging, and Messenger for a streamlined experience.
Why you should care: more control, less fuss. You needn’t log in to multiple platforms to read messages and respond to them. They’re all delivered to a central location and can be handled from there.
- Business conversations on Instagram are now topping 150 million a month.
Why you should care: if you sell something that fits this social media platform and its demographic, you need to get involved in the conversations. Start using messaging.
- Business pages can now join groups as themselves.
Why you should care: Previously, businesses that wanted to participate in Facebook groups had to use a personal page to join in on the conversation. This was more personal as it let the group know the person behind the business but it was also more difficult to manage from a company standpoint. Plus, if that employee left the company the connection suffered because all of the interaction was done through their personal profile.
Why Facebook? Stats and Resources
In addition to the Facebook Community Summit, it’s important to know a few awesome tidbits about Facebook and your business:
- 80% of consumers find retail products on Facebook and claim to use it regularly. That’s a huge number. Are you capitalizing on it?
- In January, Facebook launched a podcast entitled 3.5 Degrees: The Power of Connection. It’s designed to show how small businesses are connecting in the internet-based world. According to host David Fisher, the bi-monthly podcast scheduled to end in April, is designed to “…reach aspiring entrepreneurs, business leaders and people in their local communities who are looking to learn valuable life lessons about starting a business, leading teams and continuing to grow.”
- Facebook Blueprint offers free online courses for businesses to help them grow their Facebook following. Did I mention courses were free? Yes, no kidding. They also have a cool search. Key in what your Facebook business goal is and the site will tell you how to get there with some suggested coursework. Awe-some!
- Instagram is Facebook’s cool kid sister with about 1 billion users (okay, not so much a kid anymore). Its largest number of users are between 25-34, with the most active demographic being 18-24.
YouTube and Gen Z: Their Preferred Network
Gen Z is now the up and coming demographic in that sweet 18-24 year-old-market. And guess what? They love YouTube. From learning to entertainment, videos are tops with them.
Here are a few stats on the generations from the Visual Objects Survey that may cause you to rethink your marketing approach. The info below was taken from 612 participants who claimed to visit at least five websites a day and ranked their favorites.
Gen Z:
31% said YouTube was their favorite site (Criteo logged their time as streaming 23 hours per week of video and Google reports 70% of Gen Z says watching YouTube helps them feel more connected.)
15% said Facebook was their fave
Gen Y:
19% YouTube
33% Facebook
Gen X:
16% YouTube
29% Facebook
Baby Boomers
10% YouTube
39% Facebook
As you can see every generation outside of Z prefers Facebook to YouTube.
A few more findings from that survey:
- Gen Z finds pop-ups the most annoying part of the web experience
- All other generations admit that an unreliable website is the worst
- From a user experience standpoint, Gen Z loves YouTube, Gen Y prefers Facebook, while Gen X and Boomers think Amazon is tops
- 59% of Gen Z say YouTube is their preferred way to learn (Pearson)
- 80% of Gen Z claim YouTube has helped them become more knowledgeable (Google)
- Facebook has lost close to 20% of the 18-24 demographic over the last four years. This is notable because its the demographic that made the site popular.
- Facebook’s user base is aging up as more older people sign up to stay in touch and see pictures of friends and family.
What does this mean for you? Take a look at those demographic picks for top website. Where does your ideal customer fit in? What’s their favorite? Are you sharing good content and valuable resources on that site? If you’re targeting younger demographics with your business, are you “teaching” them on YouTube? This could be a valuable content area for you.
Also, keep in mind YouTube is the second-largest search engine, second to Google. Older generations prefer the text search returns of Google, while the younger like visual hits.
That’s it. That’s everything you need to know about social media in early 2019. Stay posted or follow this blog for more digestible updates of things you need to know for your business.
Have a topic you want someone to dig into for you? Drop me a line and I’ll cover it in a future Denise Delivers blog post.
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