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Updates to Facebook Business Pages
Ever since Facebook introduced their “meaningful interactions” update in January 2018, engagement on business pages has dropped significantly. Despite the fact that 80 million businesses use Facebook pages and every week, two out of three people on Facebook visit a local business or event page, that drop has been by than more than 50 per cent over the last 18 months, according to this report from BuzzSumo and Buffer.
The update to the Facebook algorithm prioritized posts from friends and family, which made it much harder to get page content seen in news feeds. However, Facebook recently announced a series of changes to mobile versions of its business pages to make connections with their user base “simpler and more valuable.”
This is how the social media giant aims to improve those connections through their new layouts, which will be different for each page category:
Recommendations
Facebook has retired their star rating system for customer reviews. Instead they have added recommendations to pages, this allows users to write in-depth reviews of at least 25 characters in length, with pictures and text. They have also added category-based business tags which are easily selected, easy to search for and work like hashtags for your business.
As Facebook say, “People can easily indicate if they recommend your business to others by simply answering "Yes" or "No", and can explain why with tags, text and photos. By selecting a tag, they can help themes emerge in the feedback from Recommendations, making it easier for potential customers to see what your business is known for.”
Actions
People will now be able to tap on a simplified and prominently featured selection of buttons to take actions like book an appointment for a haircut, order a pizza, send a message or write a Recommendation, all on mobile. Page managers will have the option to select the action buttons that make the most sense for their business.
Increased Visibility for Stories
Page Stories were added to Facebook in 2017, yet have never been as visible as those on Instagram and their original home, Snapchat. With Facebook’s new changes, the content can now be viewed by simply tapping on the business page profile photo.
Customized Business Info
Businesses can now feature information such as hours and prices, recommendations and restaurant menus much more prominently on their pages, as well as special events and offers.
Events
700 million people use Facebook Events each month and now businesses will be able to sell tickets directly through Facebook Pages. Facebook is also creating event-specific ads to help with promotion and marketing.
Jobs
To help more local businesses hire people, Facebook are expanding Jobs to all people and businesses across the world in the coming months.
Social Media Statistics You Need to Know
We are always on the lookout for new and useful social media statistics, as they provide interesting bite-sized pieces of content to share across our own social media channels, as well as key information about an industry that is evolving and growing by the day.
Every year We Are Social releases a huge amount of stats, centered on the growth and usage of social media across the globe. It makes for intriguing reading and, we think you'll agree, there's some pretty mind-boggling numbers in their latest offering, "Digital in 2018" from Hootsuite and We Are Social.
Below, we give you some of the key takeaways and the figures that impressed us the most. Enjoy!
Did you know:
- There are now 3.196 billion people using social media, which is up 13% from last year.
- 11 new people start using social media every second, which is about 1 million people every day.
- More than 3 billion people around the world use social media at least once a month.
- The total number of global Instagram users increased by a third over the past year.
- There are more than 800 million monthly active users of Instagram.
- Instagram age demographics skew younger, with roughly 30% falling between the ages 18 and 24, and another 30% falling between 25 and 34.
- The most popular Instagram hashtags are, in order, #love, #instagood, #fashion, #photooftheday, and #beautiful.
- Instagram users are also highly likely to use Facebook (95%) and Pinterest (54%).
- Users under the age of 25 spend 32 minutes a day on the platform, while those over 25 spend 24 minutes a day on it.
- 80% of Instagram users follow at least one business on Instagram.
- More than 300 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day.
- Around 50% of businesses make regular use of Instagram Stories.
- The number of daily videos produced daily on Instagram has quadrupling over the past five years.
- About 60% of top brands use the same filter for every post, creating a consistent brand “feel” on the platform.
- 60% of Instagram users claim they’ve discovered at least one new product on the platform.
- Instagram has a follower interaction rate of 2.2%, higher than any other social network.
- Instagram posts with hashtags tend to get 12.6% more engagementthan those without.
- The total number of Facebook users has grown 15% year-over-year, with more than 2.17 billion users at the beginning of 2018.
- On Facebook, the number of users aged 65 and up has increased by 20% over the course of the past year.
- Though the number of teenagers using Facebook is growing, it’s growing at a slower rate than other demographics, at just 5%.
- Organic reach and engagement has dropped 10% over the past year.
- The average reach of a post is just 10.7% of your total page likes.
- The average Facebook engagement rate for all types of page posts is just 4.20%.
- The average Facebook engagement rate for video posts is 5.23%, for photos it’s 4.4%, and for page links it’s 3.9%.
- 95.8% of social media marketers believe Facebook offers the highest ROI of any platform.
- Twitter has more than 330 million monthly active users.
- Roughly 46% of Twitter users are on the platform daily.
- More than 36% of Americans aged 18 to 29 use Twitter. That percentage drops with each subsequent age group.
- Like many other platforms, individuals with a college degree are more likely to use Twitter. 28% of degree-holders use the platform, compared to 24% with some college education, and 14% with a high school education or less.
- 80% of Twitter users accessing the platform on a mobile device, and 93% of video views are on mobile.
- Roughly 500 million tweets are sent per day, which illustrates Twitter as one of the most active social media platforms.
Finding Your Online Voice
You have a website, a blog and a number of social media platforms, your online marketing strategy is in place and you’re ready to start spreading the word.
However, you don't know who you want to address, what you want to say or how you want to say it.
It’s a stumbling block facing many businesses and finding the right voice for your brand is crucial when it comes to communicating and standing out on social media.
Giving your company consistent character by using a single, recognizable voice will allow you to enter into more conversations with your followers. It will also add personality to your brand, setting you apart from your competitors. Even better, if consumers like what you’re saying, they will start sharing your content and marketing it for you.
Developing and conveying an authentic online voice for our clients is something we pride ourselves on and will always be one of the first things Cake Media addresses when taking on a new marketing role.
Need Help? Here are Some Key Things to Think About:
Who is Your Target Audience?
Are you a bar, hoping to catch the attentions of the 21-35 year-old market, a hotel targeting families, a pet store going for animal lovers or a cafe, aiming to bring in local foot traffic?
We recommend a brainstorming session, to determine exactly what kind of customers you want to target. This will help you to define WHO you will be addressing online and will allow you to think more about how your brand will communicate.
This Fourth of July tweet from @Macys was obviously written with female customers in mind and is conveyed in a chatty, friendly voice:
What Do You Want to Say?
Will your social media channels promote new products, will you be showcasing recipes and pictures of food and drink, will you be a resource for information about a particular subject such as financial advice or mechanics, are you selling clothes or showcasing a hotel?
Planning WHAT kind of things you want to say to your target audience can help to shape the online character of your business.
Posts from brewing company @newbelgium are targeted at beer lovers/bargoers and are focused on their product line. This gives them a relaxed, informative and often-humorous delivery.
How to Say It
Ask yourself—if my brand had a personality, what would it be? Fun, young, reliable, healthy, older, professional, educational, motherly, whimsical, casual?
Before you start posting, try to have a strong grasp of your online character. It will prove central as to HOW you are going to get your message across.
This tweet from @Target is friendly and relatable. It appears to be targeted at women, it is pushing the Target product line, while maintaining a casual and conspiratorial voice, furthered by the use of a winking emoji.
While it's important to maintain an authentic voice (i.e. your brand's consistent personality) online, we should note that the tone of your posts can change and you shouldn't feel restricted by one single type of delivery.
Think of tone as being the mood your business is currently in and ask yourself - if my brand was speaking right now, what would it sound like? Funny, serious, casual, informative, professional, friendly, sassy?
Telling customers that you are going to be closed for the day or talking up your new happy hour specials—they'd be communicated very differently in real-life. Think of conducting your online conversations in exactly the same way.
Still confused or (we hope not) even more confused? Connect with Cake Media and we can help!
Thanks for visiting, Laura and Jenny.
Welcoming a New Client: Aloha Mixed Plate
We are delighted to have Aloha Mixed Plate as our newest client at Cake Media!
In early June, we began working on a social media management strategy for AMP and spent a day on site to shoot original pictures and video of their food, employees and oceanfront location. This is a service we provide for all our clients, built into the price of our social media packages.
Our early aims include growing AMP’s follower count, increasing follower engagement levels and boosting their presence on social media, by paying special attention to Instagram and Twitter feeds that need to be populated with content.
On Facebook, where AMP employees had already done a great job in cultivating a following in excess of 10,000, we want to add video content, further images of menu items and to interact with customers in realtime.
With video, a wide selection of brand-new images and a strategy in place, we went into action on June 11.
Little over two weeks later, we’ve already seen some great results, such as a Facebook video post that reached over 12,000 people, with an average video completion rate of 95 per cent. Plus, Instagram and Twitter follower counts which are increasing by the day.
Mahalo for choosing Cake Media to be your social media management team, we are thrilled to be working with you!
Have you followed Cake Media on Instagram yet? Follow us today: @cakemediamaui
Until next time, thank you for reading! Laura and Jenny
Cake Media: An Introduction
Welcome to our first blog here at Cake Media!
This is where we will be sharing our news, examples of our work and social media insights in the weeks, months and years ahead. Hopefully this will become a useful and informative content, design and social media resource for you and your Maui business.
As a new company, the last few months have been dedicated to getting our project off the ground—formulating a business plan, registering our LLC, building and populating a website, designing a logo, printing business cards, meeting with clients, designing and creating content and more. In short, it’s been a busy and exciting time.
One of the biggest early challenges we faced was picking a company name that a) we both liked, b) would be memorable to our clients and c) would work from a copy and design perspective on our site/logo/business cards, etc.
So… you may ask, how did we arrive at Cake Media?
As sisters from England, we both love tea and cake, you could say it’s an integral part of life in the land of rainclouds, cricket, village tearooms and country pubs. Whenever we were brainstorming ideas for our burgeoning business, our meetings were often (okay, always) accompanied by tea and cake.
Several name ideas came and went but nothing stood out. Nothing felt right. Until one of us (probably gazing at the crumbs on our plate) remarked that, “We should just call ourselves Cake.”
As you can see, it stuck.
We are now one month into being an official LLC here in Maui County and we are delighted to be working with several local companies already. Our first clients are Star Noodle, the Kaanapali Beach Hotel and Leoda’s Kitchen and Pie Shop and it’s a real pleasure to be working with these fantastic west Maui businesses for their social media and design needs. We also have some exciting projects in the pipeline, which will be revealed right here very soon.
To take a closer look at Cake Media and the work that we do, please follow us on our social media platforms by clicking the tabs below.
Mahalo for visiting! Laura and Jenny