Thanks to the success of social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, social media is now being pitched as a surefire way to strengthen your brand. But, unlike death and taxes, social media does not guarantee brand lift. The space has become a highly fragmented market, and several new products being introduced into the social space are niche-focused.
Some brand’s can leverage new products like Vine, whereas others can’t (or shouldn’t) produce content for some of the emerging mediums because it would be like stuffing ten pounds into a five-pound-bag.
Likewise, sometimes a brand simply doesn’t align with a platform’s user base, which can make for awkward appeals towards an uninterested audience. Nevertheless, it is important that your company is ahead of the curve in recognizing new social media trends; it’s equally important that you establish a strategy how to integrate and use a new product. Once you have done that, you can then determine which social platforms are right (or wrong) for your brand.
Looking at Vine, there are some trends indicating that the Twitter-owned product has established itself as a worthwhile endeavor for communicators. Unruly recently conducted a study using 10 million Vine submissions as its data set and determined the following:
- An average of 5 Tweets per second contain a Vine link.
- 4% of the top 100 tracked Vines is branded content.
- Weekends are the most popular time to share Vines.
- According to Unruly co-founder, Matt Cooke, vines that evoke emotional response are shared most frequently.
On the flip side, Facebook has demonstrated how a new social-media product can land with a veritable thud. The company’s Home app has been described as a “flop,” and many are describing the smartphone home screen app as “too intrusive” and “pushy.”
Home integrates Facebook into all of your smartphone’s activities and makes the assumptions that users always want to stay connected to the Facebook network. Facebook was so confident of the plan that it launched the app with a $99 dollar price tag. That price has been dramatically slashed down to $.99 cents, while product reviews have been less than stellar.
The main point is that just because a social media product is new, doesn’t mean it can help your brand.
So you may be better off taking your time and planning a more deliberate, methodical approach to entering into a new social space.
Follow Caysey Welton: @cayseyw
Great article. I tell my clients all the time that you cannot use every social media platform. I educate my clients on the social media landscape; then I give them a list of platforms that have proven to work well within industry.