Top 7 Social Media Marketing Best Practices of 2019

According to 2018’s Global Digital suite of reports from We Are Social, Hootsuite and Kinetic Social, there are now more than 4 billion people around the world using the internet.  This means that half of the world’s population is now online – with Africa leading in as the fastest in terms of growth rates; its number of active users increasing by more than 20% every year.

Last 2017, a whopping estimate of more than 200 million people got their first ever mobile device – making two-thirds of the world’s 7.6 billion population become mobile phone users. Social media usage isn’t going in without a fight too, as the number of social media users for 2018 raked in a total of 3.196 billion – with 9 in 10 of those users accessing their social platforms via their mobiles.

Here are some of the world’s biggest Social Media and Internet Data Usage by the numbers:

The top 3 Global Social Media Platforms include Facebook (2.1 Billion), YouTube (1.5 Billion), and Instagram (800 Million).

The top 3 countries conquering the Annual Growth Report for Social Media are Saudi Arabia with 32%, India with 31%, and Indonesia with 23%.

For the top 3 countries with the highest spent average hours on the internet per day, Thailand takes the first spot with 9H 48M, Philippines at second with 9H 29M, and Brazil at third with 9H 14M.

Top 7 Social Media Marketing Best Practices of 2019

Let’s kick things off with this year’s best Social Media Marketing best practices now, shall we? Here are Contevo’s top seven picks:

Video is the New Visual  

People are visual. With so many ads and marketing tactics being spread like wildfire all over the internet, you have to acquire a powerful and grasping ability to catch your viewer’s eyes in a split second using video ads. According to WordStream’s video marketing statistics, viewers retain 95% of a video ad’s message, compared to 10% of when read in plain text.

With the average user spending 88% more of his/her time on a website with video, it is obvious that 2019 will be highly dominated by this powerful media platform – its new traffic percentage accounting to a total of 80% consumer internet traffic worldwide.

Here are some of the most notable facts you should know about video marketing:

• YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.
• More than 500 million hours of videos are watched on YouTube each day.
• 72 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every 60 seconds.
• 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter.
• Over 500 million people watch video on Facebook daily (via Forbes).
• 87% of online marketers use video content.
• Video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80% or more.
• Native videos on Facebook have 10x higher reach compared to YouTube links.
• Video drives a whopping 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs.
• Marketers who utilise video content grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users.

The Reign of Instagram Stories

Instagam Stories have become an essential tool for every social media strategy. For a Social media marketing platform that has the most power to glamourise life and all things people fancy, there’s Instagram. Instagram Stories have become the ultimate ‘crowd-favourite’ for video-type contents – giving users various options in customising their personal clips and posts in the way they want them to be – fun.

What makes this feature highly valuable for brands, is the limitless option of sharing their chosen, personalised photos and brand’s contents at absolutely zero cost.  There are currently 1 billion active monthly users on Instagram, of which more than 400 million people are consuming Stories on a daily basis.

Live Streaming

Live streaming has taken video channels to a whole new level and is a clear social media best practice for 2019. Social media managers can now efficiently live stream what they’re doing ‘live’ – giving potential customers a closer, more intimate look at how things are around the office or even publicly showcase a short, live glimpse of how their products are being made in real-time.

Live streaming helps marketers offer a more natural, organic CTA or ‘call-to-action’. For example, a business can offer a one-time promotion via the live stream feature – interacting with their audiences directly through the main comment section. The interactivity of live video makes it a substantial tool for marketers to engage with their viewers and strengthen their overall branding.

For Facebook Live’s 2nd year Anniversary, they were able to proudly showcase these amazing live usage statistics, making them become the leading live-streaming platform in the world:

According to Web.com, Facebook Marketing also ranks as the number one driver of (ROI) Return of Investment for businesses and advertisers; taking in a total of 95.8%, with both Twitter (63.5%) and Instagram (40.1%) placing in the second and third spots respectively.

Messaging Apps + Chat bots

Next one on our list? Messaging Apps and Chatbots. According to Medium.com, there are now more people using the top four social messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, and Viber) over the top four social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn).

Facebook Messenger is on the phones of over 1.2 billion people, with Facebook stating that there are now more than 2 billion messages sent between businesses and people on Messenger each month.

The combination of messaging platforms with chatbots (powered by AI) will make it possible for companies to engage in more relevant, personalised and helpful customer conversations at a much higher scale.

AI can also come in providing automated messaging to customers who want an answer to a common question. Brands can easily set up this bot feature that can help them save time and money more efficiently – all while still giving their page visitors the ‘great customer service’ that they are aiming for.

User-generated Content

According to B2C.com, user-generated content is content created by unpaid fans of businesses that businesses can use to promote their products. It can come in the form of photos, videos, or memes. Utilising these raw and personal contents are an essential way of getting the customers highly involved within the business’ main strategy – which leads to an improved overall customer experience.

Crediting your customers for these contents can also help grow out your base and give your audience a more personal sense of connection.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing has become an established key element of social media best practices. Influencers earn thousands of dollars seamlessly through paid ad sponsorships. Any time you see a sponsored video by anyone with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, chances are you’re probably watching someone who’s considered as an Influencer.

By reaching out to Influencers on YouTube and (even on) Instagram, your business is able to successfully hire Influencers who come off as normal, everyday people to their audiences, while also promoting your products in their daily lives – naturally.

Influencers gain fame and followers by putting out content that relates to specific audiences. The bigger the account, the higher audience impressions your business gets. When an Influencer talks about a certain product or service, they’re also taking advantage of social proof to help give off the feeling that the product or service that they’re marketing plays a significant role in their lives.

Customer’s Trust & Transparency

While all the things we’ve discussed so far has been pretty wonderful, let us also not sugarcoat the obvious, 2018 has represented (probably) the biggest crisis year for ‘trust’ on social media. In the wake of the Cambridge Analytic scandal and a Congressional hearing, Facebook faced pressure from users and regulators to improve their security, transparency, and accuracy.

Meanwhile, Twitter fought controversies over the large presence of bots on its platform, purging millions of fake accounts. The result? 60% of people no longer trust social media companies.

The 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report: Brands and Social Media – a nine-country study composed of 9,000 respondents; revealed that a vast majority of consumers around the world want brands to pressure social media platforms to more effectively safeguard personal data (71%), curb the spread of fake news (70%), and shield them from offensive content (68%).

Based on Hootsuite’s social media best practices data, smart brands are focusing less on maximising reach, and more on generating high quality engagement. Companies like Adidas and The New York Times for example, are working to develop intimate, more meaningful dialogue with smaller audience groups. They’re creating communities and sharing insightful content – then getting out of the way and letting passionate users talk to one another.

How Contevo Can Help Maximise Your Social Media Marketing ROI

Here at Contevo, we are driven by one thing – ‘Continuous Evolution’. We help our clients design and execute their sales blueprint so that they can grow and scale their businesses using advanced market-leading technology.

We have over 15 years of social media marketing experience, we can help you maximise your full business potential by enabling you to make intuitive decisions – every step of the way.