Lessons from #SMWOne: virtual social media conference

At Thompson & Co. Public Relations, one of our Tenets and Convictions is to have a focus on personal and professional development to provide our clients with fresh ideas, the latest in communications trends and new ways to stay ahead of the competition. To do this, we continue to learn and push ourselves beyond our comfort. Recently, our social media team attended the virtual Social Media Week, SMWOne, which was moved online and extended to a four-week program.SMWOne features presenters from leading brands in social media, from major influencers to data analysts and everything in between. This year’s lineup included representatives from Savage x Fenty, TikTok, Google, and Disney. After weeks of live video presentations, networking via Slack and virtual hangouts, our team is energized with new knowledge and ideas, and we’re excited to share what’s next in social media.The rise of the micro-influencer Nearly four out of every five brands on Instagram uses influencers in marketing tactics, creating an industry worth nearly $10 billion in 2020, and growth estimated to hit $15 billion by 2022. Choosing an influencer for your brand isn’t just about who has the biggest numbers. For a successful partnership, brands need to look at an influencer’s personal brand and how it aligns with the company’s culture. This year, we’re also seeing the rise of the micro-influencers (influencers with 10,000-100,000 followers) because of their smaller, more-engaged audience. These micro-influencers are often experts in specific industries and bring a human voice into a brand’s marketing that fosters authentic relationships with consumers. With larger influencers, especially those who frequently promote and advertise products, consumer skepticism can grow. Micro-influencer partnerships are more niche, and specific to a brand. The more authentic your partnership is, the more value is presented to all parties involved: the consumer, the brand and the influencer.Social listeningIn 2020, more brands are using social listening tools. Social listening allows you to keep a pulse on the conversations happening around your brand and industry — even if you aren’t directly tagged or mentioned.With social listening, you can set up monitoring reports on keywords, misspellings of your company name, your industry and more. By observing your audience and how they interact with the industry as a whole, you may be able to uncover trends that lead to better marketing decisions. Take the guesswork out of developing new strategies and ideas! Social listening insights allow you to dive into not just the what, but the why, and really begin to understand audience behaviors.Social listening is not to be confused with social media monitoring (which you may be more familiar with). Social media monitoring is when you keep track of photos you’re tagged in, posts you’re mentioned in and what’s coming in your inbox. This can give you great insights but it doesn’t paint the whole picture.Reach out to our team today to talk about developing future campaigns, discovering authentic influencers, informing your target audience for paid social and more with social listening!Using data to inform your paid social Social ad spending is expected to increase by 20% this year, making it an industry worth over $43 billion. With more than half the world’s population using social media, you’re bound to capture some of the market when you put your dollars toward social ads — with a good PR team, of course.Building a strategic social ad strategy, like building most anything, relies on its foundation. Social listening insights provides a head start on your competition. By using existing data and social listening tools, you can answer important questions on a broad scale before drilling down into your strategy.Data helps answer questions like these, which are integral to an effective paid social ad strategy.

• Is my target audience who I thought it was?
• Are they responding to my messaging?
• What messaging is my target audience responding to?
• What platforms do they use?

A key takeaway from SMWOne is how important it is to start planning at a high-level before narrowing in, even if we assume to know the audience and what they are looking for. Not only is this important to maintain strong brand sentiment, but also to increase market share.Interested in learning how your company can add influencers, social listening or paid social to your tactics? Email us and we’ll help you get started.