Quickbyte: 5 Social Media Marketing Trends Your Brand Should Try in 2019

Quick Byte

Episode Transcript

Announcer: Welcome to the Quick Byte podcast, your five-minute digital dose of tech news and tips and trips for digital-first marketing. Quick Bite is brought to you by Lance Montana, a digital marketing agency based in Brisbane, Australia.

Grace: Hello and welcome to the 7th Quick Byte. I’m here with Lawrence today and our chief of content, Lucy to chat about the social media marketing trends you to know about in 2019.

Laurence: Hello Chief. Hello Grace.

Grace: So, Lucy, kick us off.

Lucy: Okay. So the first of our trends to watch out for in 2019 is micro influencers. So, like many of the social marketing trends, this one’s been around for a little while and it’s been growing for some time. And naturally, brands have been pretty quick to harness their reach with, you know, their products that are seen millions of their followers. But as the trend has increased, so too has their prices. As well as a bit of a mismatch between the influencer and the product that they’re trying to sell.

Laurence: Yeah. So, would you consider me to be a micro-influencer? Like how small do you have to be to be micro?

Lucy: I’m not quite sure about you, Lawrence. But generally speaking, a micro-influencer is somebody who has say, sort of between 5,000 and about 50,000 followers.

Laurence: Okay.

Lucy: But the numbers are sort of debated. But that’s kind of more or less…

Laurence: Is there a term for kind of sub-micro? Am I a quantum influencer?

Lucy: Potentially there is. Macro influencer?

Laurence: Macro, that’s much bigger.

Lucy: And brands basically being sort of working with, you know, sort of big influencers. Previously at a massive cost but with limited success because they weren’t assessing their audience. They weren’t sort of finding out whether or not their product was actually relevant to those who were seeing them first. So, the advance of macro-influencers is great for a number of reasons. They exist within every marketing niche. So you’ll be able to find at least one that aligns with your brand, your products, your audience. They’re considered incredibly trustworthy within their field, and as such, have great influence. Due to their smaller followings, they’re also cheaper. Which means your dollar is going to go much further.

Laurence: A little bit of higher kind of administration costs cause you’re gonna need to find more audience with the same kind of reach. But you have much higher engagement.

Lucy: Yeah. You know, it’s probably more of a time investment I suppose, but with bigger dividends.

Laurence: The maturity and evolution of the advertising channel is such that basically the massive kind of handles, you know, the Jenners and the Kardashians and all the rest of them, it’s just obvious now that, you know, and it doesn’t feel real. You know, it’s just sponsored. It feels like interruptive, interruption star advertising. Like traditional broadcast ads on TV.

Grace: Yeah. Especially when you’re seeing it 30 times a day now. You start to get a bit sort of desensitised to it. So if it’s coming from someone that, you know, is a little bit more relatable to you and you, you know, feel like their values are much more similar to yours, you’re probably a lot more likely to pay attention to it.

Laurence: So, any hacks for business to be able to harness the power of micro?

Lucy: I think the first step is kind of making sure that you’re really sort of engaging with your audience. Having a look through your organic audience and seeing, you know, who sort of fits that bracket of micro-influencer who already follows you. Reaching out to them, building up a bit of a relationship with them. Some of them will sort of expect payment. Which is totally fine. But make sure with those that do think there is potentially a beneficial relationship there, ask for their media kit. You know, anyone who requests payment should be able to give you some data in terms of their rate, in terms of any other sort of partnerships they’ve done previously. And what they can expect for your money.

Laurence: Okay. Awesome. Yeah. So, a quick Google search shows that there is a massive proliferation, that is a real word in case you’re wondering, of influencer platforms. And there’s even like featured snippets showing up here at the top of the search rankings for influencer platforms. One is a local Brisbane company called Scrunch. So, I highly recommend checking that out.

Lucy: All right. On to number two, live video content. So, we’ve talked quite a lot about video content. I think we learned video content, haven’t we, Lawrence?

Laurence: Absolutely. Look, it gets results. Yeah, we’re videoing this podcast right now, much to the discomfort of all involved.

Lucy: Well with live video, you know, it adds another dimension again. In that it allows viewers to be a part of the moment as it actually happens. There’s a few reasons that audiences love this. First, it’s engaging. You know, it’s video, which audiences find far more visually engaging over still images anyway. And it’s in real-time. So audiences and brands can interact and now work together.

Laurence: It isn’t dormant. It’s real. It’s happening right now. Yeah, exactly right. It’s like walking up on to a stage. You know, so you get all the adrenaline rush and people feel that. They feel that it’s real. They feel that anything could happen. We’re excited. We’re in the moment together. I think that’s a big part of it as well, which people kind of miss, as to why it’s so successful. It’s because you’re sharing the moment. You’re actually connecting with people. You know, it’s a way to feel alive and connected to humanity and to other people.

Grace: Yeah. Absolutely.

Laurence: One of the few reasons why traditional TV exists still, I think in this day and age is because of live sports and live reality TV shows, like Married at First Sight, which was just amazing quality television.

Lucy: you know, yeah, it feels personalized. It feels authentic. It helps the audience to really sort of believe in what the brand is doing. If you’re not quite sure about going live, there is a new platform that we are trying out called Facebook Premier. And it allows you to basically reap the benefits of live video. Like building buzz, posting a timely broadcast on your page with the benefits of normal video. So pre-recording. Being able to schedule a time that suits you. And then interacting with the video and with your audience in real-time.

Laurence: It’s like the best of both worlds. It’s a really savvy operating product really sort of from Facebook to kind of, it’s like a gateway drug to live video, isn’t it, to get people involved.

Interviewer: Yeah, it is.

Laurence: Yeah. And it’s really, I think helpful. Obviously, I think in a large way targeted at small businesses where it’s difficult to actually be running whatever content machine you’re doing that you’re actually recording while interacting with the community. Which is, you know, obviously, a massive benefit of operating a live video. Yeah, so great. We’re looking forward to trying it out potentially with this podcast right here right now.

Lucy: Yeah. All right. Next on our list, we’ve got Instagram Stories.

Laurence: Lots of them I see in the subheading. So, I’m gonna quiz you straight up on the subheading, and say isn’t it quality over quantity?

Lucy: Not necessarily. When it comes to Instagram Stories, it’s kind of a way to reach out and connect with your audience in a way that’s not so polished.

Laurence: So we can just put all about crappy outtakes on Instagram stories.

Lucy: Well, I wouldn’t say put everything in that. You have to sort of be consistent. And, you know, as with all content that you produce, it should be good content. But it does allow you to spend sort of less time in planning and more time actually implementing your content. The key thing is to sort of be consistent. So, ideally, you’d want to post every day. But realistically, in a team of say three, that’s probably not going to be possible. So, I would suggest giving it a go. Don’t be afraid to use it. So, use the polls and the questions for engagement and feedback. Try lots of different things. Track and measure your sort of feedback from your audience and just use those as learnings as you go to guide you. You know, if you’re getting that sort of interaction and engagement, you’re seeing it really sort of increase then you’re sort of doing the right thing. If you’re not, then it’s best to try something else.

Laurence: Cool. And stickers. Lots of stickers.

Lucy: Yeah. Lots of stickers.

Grace: And something I’ve been really loving seeing with Instagram stories that a lot of small businesses have been doing is putting those little polls and asking their customers questions about what products do they want to see next. What do they like about the ones that are there? And just asking their opinions on things. I think it’s a great way of getting people involved. Making them feel like they’re part of something.

Lucy: Yeah. As well as actually getting feedback.

Grace: Yeah.

Laurence: Okay. Awesome. And now Instagram Stories as well, working on like huge traffic going through this platform, you know, from a background level. So more people on Instagram Stories at a unique, active visitor-level than there are on Snapchat.

Lucy: Yeah, definitely.

Laurence: Sorry about that Snapchat.

Lucy: So, next on our list, number four, we’ve got private groups and accounts. So, how many groups are you are part of on Facebook, Grace?

Grace: I can check. Let’s have a look.

Laurence: I’m going to put my hand out and say I don’t know. And I don’t really use groups on Facebook. In fact, I’ve really pulled back, you know, personally on Facebook, you know, for a couple of years now. And probably on Instagram as well. Obviously, given the, you know, what I do for a living. You know, I’m heavily involved in social media. But normally, company, accounts. So, you know, it’s probably two or three years ago I started to just fall back from a personal involvement in Facebook and Instagram. But yeah, I still use them. Because otherwise it’s like, do you even exist and how do you communicate with people? But yeah, I have a minimal amount of time each day that I would use my personal social media kind of stuff. So I haven’t really enjoyed many groups. A few professional groups, but that’s more of it.

Lucy: Yeah.

Laurence: Yeah.

Grace: I’ve easily got over 50 here. Which is very surprising.

Lucy: Yeah. Wow.

Grace: Because a lot of them I don’t remember what they were. But the ones that I use probably on a weekly basis I reckon is probably at least eight or so. So yeah, I reckon they’re still really valuable. Even if we all are trying to cut down on our social media time as much as possible.

Laurence: Yeah. So, I have got 11 groups I’m a part of. And some of them actually I do use. I’m going to take that back and say I do actually use some groups that I was barely even aware of. But yeah, most of them are just from years and years ago. And, yeah, they’re probably defunct and not really active anyway.

Grace: Mm-hmm. How about you, Lucy?

Lucy: Looks like I’m in about maybe 40 groups. But quite a few of them are defunct. But I probably, I probably engage with maybe 10 of those groups on a regular basis. And I do find them really helpful. Like Kmart Styling Hacks.

Grace: Can you invite me to that?

Laurence: This is legit. Kmart & Beyond Hacker Ideas in Australia. Did Kmart start that group up?

Lucy: I don’t think so. No.

Grace: That would be such a perfect example though of Facebook groups working to your advantage. Yeah.

Lucy: Woolies, Coles Mud Cake Hacks.

Laurence: How many are there? I’ would have assumed there’s like two. You need a Facebook group to tell you about them? It can get much simpler than that. Speaking as a professional baker.

Lucy: But, you know, this social media marketing trend has been growing organically. But it’s one that can work really well for your business if you have the time to manage it. Lots of online fitness or business training brands will often have access to Facebook groups as part of their packages. And it sort of allows the clients to share their tips and tricks for achieving success. It’s a really good way to offer value and build a tribe of like-minded customers. With customers actually producing the bulk of the content for you. It’s also a really good opportunity to gain feedback and improve your business by posting questions and then observing the interactions amongst your community.

In 2018 Facebook incorporated some brand-new features into Facebook Groups. And these features include being able to participate within the group as a business, post live videos, and leverage the group as a platform for online course content. Or a way to sort of organize your posts by topic. So it is a good way to really sort of add that extra sort of offering and add extra value to your customers. But you do sort of need the time to be able to sort of manage and make sure everyone’s sort of behaving as they should within the group.

Laurence: This seems like it’s a really sophisticated new suite of tools. Like Facebook obviously is super behind this part of their offering and, you know, it dovetails exactly with this kind of high-level messaging that was coming out from Mark last year about how they want to make it all about personal connections and real experiences, meaningful, genuine community experiences on Facebook in 2019 in the wake of Facebook apocalypse last year. So, you know, as a brand, we could just jump on and try to be super at that and use it for the purposes of the economy. Yeah.

Lucy: And last but definitely not least, farewell fakery

Laurence: I love it. What a great section heading.

Lucy: So, this is a social media trend that will probably take a little while to change. But as you probably saw throughout most of the social media trends that we’ve suggested you should watch out for in 2019, there is an element of authenticity and transparency. You know, there is fakery everywhere on social media. Fake followers, fake influencers, fake images, Fyre Festival.

Laurence: Fake festivals! Entire festivals are being faked It’s amazing. Yeah, even Grace lost like millions of followers just the other day.

Grace: Oh yeah. Yeah, it lost 2.5. Yeah.

Lucy: And some influencers last year even went to the extent of posting fake sponsored content in a bid to seem more popular and generate other sponsorships.

Laurence: The depths of depravity. Shocking, isn’t it?

Lucy: Absolutely. And at the end of last year, Instagram started removing fake likes, followers, and comments from accounts that use third-party apps to increase their popularity. So, essentially, they’re attempting to stamp out bots. And they have implemented machine learning tools to identify the activity so that they can actually prevent it from happening in the future.

Laurence: It’s actually a great idea. So much more activity on the internet. It’s really good to see the larger social platforms on the front foot finally with trying to make things a little bit more authentic. And, you know, obviously, it’s in their best interests because everyone gets those kind of bot requests and bot interactions and it just cheapens the experience. Really, it doesn’t make you want to spend time on it.

Lucy: Yeah.

Grace: All right. So well do a really quick summary of all of those social media marketing transfer 2019. First up we got micro-influencers. Next up we got some live video content. Really getting that into our strategies for 2019. Lots of Instagram Stories. Using private Facebook groups and accounts. And getting rid of all the fakery. So, we’ll do a full blog article on how you can implement some of these trends. And if you have any ideas of what you’d like us to cover the next podcast, let us know via the social handle @lancemontana. Thanks for listening. Thanks, Lucy. Thanks, Laurence.

Laurence: Thanks, Grace.

Lucy: Thanks, Grace.

Laurence: Bye.

Lucy: Bye.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to the quick bite contest. This has been a production of Lance mom and up, a digital marketing agency based in Brisbane, Australia. For more great free resources go to lancemontana.com.au.

 

Show Notes

Tune into QuickByte episodes for a 5-minute dose of tech news and marketing tips.

Topics covered in this podcast:

• Micro-Influencers
• Live Video Content
• Instagram Stories – lots of them
• Private Groups and Accounts
• Farewell Fakery

Other Links:

• Lance Montana blog post: Social Media Marketing Trends Your Brand Should Embrace in 2019