the social summit – top takeaways

This year we got the amazing privilege to attend The Social Summit here in Calgary. It was held over a two-day period and filled with incredible speakers on a wide range of topics focused around Social Media Marketing.

The speakers were INCREDIBLE. It was packed with top, thought leading companies willing to share their knowledge of social marketing in today’s world.

Although I could go on forever about the crucial content that was discussed over the two days we attended, I will narrow it down to a few takeaways. These were topics I found were constantly repeated throughout the conference and are KEY to Social Media Development in 2016.

 

Video is crucial in 2016

Yes, video has always been a helpful marketing tool. However, we are seeing it more and more sprinkled throughout social campaigns and much (much) more. It isn’t just all about high budget video anymore. People just want to watch things.

You Tube is the second biggest search engine next to Google. People look up EVERYTHING because they want to see how it’s done.

West Jet was talking at the social summit about how their search on YouTube “how to redeem west jet credit card points”. What they found was someone else explaining this process and owning their space. What did they do? Created a video on this topic and became first in their rightful dwelling.

The point? Be present in video. 2016 is going to see a major push towards video content on all channels. Especially with new platforms such as periscope coming out with live streaming of content.

 

Know your influencers

 This was a big topic throughout the seminar. Know what people influence your specific topic. Be aware of bloggers and well known people in the social space that promote similar values, products and ideas.

This is where you will want to position your product or service. The fact is – people can now block any sort of “ad” that comes their way with high functioning ad blockers. This is not the way you want to go.

Instead become aligned with your influencers. There is a big trend that consumers want to know what certain influencers are doing and what products they use. Get your influencers in line with your product or service and let them help be the voice for your brand.

One big thing I learned about working with influencers? Make the transaction mutually beneficial.

 

Be aware of New Trends

One key element of marketing is the first mover advantage. We have known this about marketing since the dawn of time. The difference with Social Media Marketing is this move needs to be fast, quick and almost instant to be effective. Also, the content needs to be NEW. When we can see and experience everything available to us online, we are constantly looking for “new”.

Periscope is a new platform that came out this year that is paired with Twitter. It is a live streaming of content where people can engage and interact while the video is being recorded. A girl named Amanda Oleander took to periscope as soon as it came out. She was a first mover – and by doing this she became known as “the Kim Kardashian of Periscope”.

The point being that if you are the first to do something new, first to create something new and first to make your brand into something new you are going to see big results.

 

There is so much more we could talk about on this topic (literally- so much). Social Media Marketing is so exciting, complex and still a mystery in a lot of ways. What we at Red Blue want to do is remove some of that mystery and dive in to how Social Media Marketing can make your brand into something remarkable.

 

If you have more questions or want to have a conversation about what social Media Marketing can do for your company, contact us!