What network do you think has the most untapped potential for marketers and why?

Here at Social Media Today we are committed to bringing our readers fresh ideas from the greatest minds in Social Media. The Ask SMT series brings our influencers together to explore the questions that are on the minds of our readers.

Question: What network do you think has the most untapped potential for marketers and why?

I think it’s time to turn our attention towards Twitter again. During the first round of Presidential debates, Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) livestreamed the entire 90 minutes from their handle. You could also view the debates live from debates.twitter.com. While livestreaming events and shows online is not exactly a revolutionary concept, livestreaming it from a social platform like Twitter allowed for a fully interactive experience. In addition to providing the livestream, Bloomberg also included special political programming before and after the stream, allowing users to tweet along for the entirety. But the most innovative aspect was that if you didn’t have a Twitter account, you could still watch without creating one or even logging in. In today’s world that offers the ability to livestream from most mobile devices — but typically only if you have an account or login — this made the debates truly accessible to one and all. Right alongside the livestreaming capabilities, real-time commentary and hashtag visibility, and endless Twitter chats to join in discussions to reach a wider consumer base, Twitter is still an unflappable bird to beat in the social media landscape. 

- Deborah Sweeney, CEO, MyCorporation

 

Instagram. Many marketers have stayed away because its model does not allow for including links. But now, with 500-million+ users and an advertising platform, it's hard to ignore Instagram's insane ascent. Gen Y devours Instagram. Users enjoy it. Engagement is ridiculously high. Ads appear to be laser-targeted. 

 

Tap Instagram now. The majority of content on it is user-generated, which means trust levels are higher.  

 

- Barry Feldman, Director at Feldman Creative

 

 

 

Without a doubt. . . SlideShare. It’s one of the most underutilized lead generation tools we marketers have in our quiver. It’s also the most efficient lead driver of any social network by far. 

Since 2012, visitors to our website from SlideShare have converted at a whopping 27.9% rate. To put that in perspective, Facebook converted at 1.1%, Twitter at 1.2%, and LinkedIn at 1.7% in that same time frame.  

We’ve even had individual decks send traffic to our site that converted at over 78%! I’m not a rock scientist or anything, but these numbers are screaming that SlideShare is definitely worth using in your social media mix.

The key to making it work is by placing a top to mid-funnel CTA slide at the end of the deck organically. This slide should link directly to a landing page with a content offer and form. Why this works so well and how we do it is outlined in detail on Inbound.org.

-  Chad Pollitt, VP of Audience, Relevance

Again, this depends on your audience, Instagram has received the highest levels of engagement for brands in the last 6 months, but not all brands need to be on Insta. Test, test, test. If your Facebook ads are generating a low CPC and a high conversion rate compared to Twitter, then stick to that. However, a broader answer would be worth noting that most marketers have yet to jump on Snapchat filters. Hint hint.

- Chris Kyriacou, Managing Director, iSocial UK

Facebook Messenger is growing really quickly and offers consumers a fast and easy way to engage with brands. Its private nature can be a blessing for brands experiencing high levels of complaints on social media, and indeed the most responsive brands on Messenger are seeing fewer negative public posts. Chatbots – if used correctly as a complement to, not a replacement for, human interaction – will become valuable for both marketers and customer service professionals to handle orders, returns, questions, and basic account information. Messenger’s big advantage is that it is part of Facebook, which like it or not has the largest number of users of any social channel by far, and the most sophisticated ad targeting. 

- Dan Gingiss, Co-Host of the Focus on Customer Service Podcast

I still think its data driven content marketing. Both sides of that coin. Using data to drive all aspects of content development and targeting. Clarifying audience and personas, and then generating topics that are of interest to those personas. Taking it a step further mining interactions for great content topics. Then the other side, from our perspective, is incorporating great data into your content. Data from your own community or elsewhere on the web. Including real data makes abstract concepts concrete and connects marketing ideas to real scenarios and results.

- Bob Carver, Principal Consultant, Carver Technology Consulting LLC

I’m going to cheat a little and say live broadcasting. Users are quickly adapting to using live streaming across platforms, from Facebook to Twitter, but I see very few businesses with actual strategies around live content. Going live is very easy to adopt into your marketing strategy, with limited costs or tech required.

Just make sure you have a strategy in place first. Now is the time to gain mindshare in this space. You don’t have to get on all networks - just the network your customers use the most.

Putting in the time now will yield huge influence gains in the future.

- A.J. Ghergich, Founder & CEO, Ghergich & Co.

The network that has the most untapped potential for marketers is the niche private network that relates to their product or service. It is the place where fans,  practitioners, and enthusiasts gather to discuss the brand, the experience or the details of practice. It is the community that already has members, vibrant exchanges and a peer-comradery that yields influence. Examples can be found everywhere – from travel groups, car brand fans to professional gatherings of project managers to CFOs. Many of them use older technology – but marketers shouldn’t be skeptical just because they don’t have a modern interface. They are often mighty, powerful and often bootstrapped.  However, marketers shouldn’t barrel in and try to market to these groups as that behavior is not welcome there. Just as you wouldn’t walk into someone’s Livingroom and try to sell them something, the same decorum applies to the virtual world. Instead, marketers should bring something to the party – idea exchange, thought leadership, early access invitations in order to be welcomed into the group. Trust building is essential in these spaces and it takes time to grow.  Once the marketer has established as part of the group, then there are numerous opportunities serve as a channel between the fans and the firm. For example, such communities can be a direct channel to listen and to learn what the community wants from their organization; to gather early feedback on new products or services; to learn about problems before the press does. They can serve as living focus groups and be invaluable to an organization – as long as the rules of the road are respected and ample time is given to relationship building.  It all starts (and ends) with trust. 

- Vanessa DiMauro, CEO, Leader Networks, LLC

As crazy as it may seem, I think Facebook has the most untapped potential. Of course, everyone's aware of Facebook and their hugely powerful ad targeting, but The Social Network's access to in-depth personal data on each of its 1.71 billion users is truly unmatched - no one fully understands the extent to which that data source can be utilized to maximum effect.

 

For example, through Facebook data and correlations, you can map almost anything. Given enough time and access, you could identify all the common processes that people who've made a purchase from your business have shared. From that, you could trace it even further, down to what traits and habits have lead to those people taking those actions. In this way, you could actually, feasibly, determine the people who are most likely to become your customers before they even know what they want - and you could reach them at the exact right time in that cycle to maximize your ad impact.

 

Given the rapid rate at which social data has increased, there's no way to fully understand the possibilities of it. This is why Microsoft bought LinkedIn, why Salesforce was interested in Twitter - those who have the data stand to benefit in the long term as we evolve and understand how it can be used to best effect. And Facebook has the most data and insight of them all, and the most potential for growth in international markets. Given this, I think there's still a lot to Zuckerberg's social network we haven't even begun to fully utilize. 

 

- Andrew Hutchinson, Moderator, Social Media Today

 

What do you think of our influencer's responses? Do you feel they left out a network that you see a lot of potential in going forward? Or maybe you have another question you would like to see our influencers tackle. Let us know in the comments!

Author:  Patrick Sutton
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