Weekly Marketing Insights and News Digest (22-28 June)

Instagram separated from Facebook. Snapchat is watching you. Why do companies spend half of their budget on content? Why you shouldn’t snooze on event marketing in 2020? The cheat sheet you want to save and much more useful reads in our new episode of the RGray Weekly Marketing Insights and News Digest.

• 96 % of marketing decision-makers say content marketing has been effective for their brand. Why does content mean so much and why does Bill Gates consider him the king? – Read in our new digest below
• 79% of marketers generate sales and close deals with the help of event marketing. Why event marketing is relevant even during a coronavirus and how can it generate 100 times more leads than Facebook ads? – Read in our new blog article.
• 55% are looking forward to socializing in restaurants and bars when the lockdowns finally end. Read more statistics and insights from Snapchat in our research.
• Shift on Facebook! Read how to promote your Instagram Post separately from Facebook in our insight week digest below.
• We knew you were missing it! The best cheat sheet on social media image sizes. See the bottom of our article.

1. Content builds relationships. Relationships are built on trust. Trust drives revenue

Imagine that you have a customized e-commerce store and you are ready to launch. Once it goes live, the key to prosperity lies in getting consumers to visit your store.

The main question here is: HOW?

Quoting Bill Gates, the answer is “Content is the king.”

One of the most effective ways to increase website traffic is content marketing. To do this correctly, it is necessary, first of all, to understand its aspects, for example, what goals to set for yourself, what indicators should be taken into account when evaluating the effectiveness of content marketing, and much more. 

Here’s a little insight for you: 86 % of marketers have successfully reached their brand awareness goals through content marketing.

Oberlo reviewed ten statistics on content marketing that show you not only the importance of content marketing for business but also some of its best practices so that you know how to create a content marketing strategy that best suits your business.

See all content marketing insights in our infographic below:

2. Event Marketing: there is no such thing as a “Fix Everything” button

Recently we’ve posted a new article on how beneficial event marketing is to your company and brand. The effect of implementing this strategy will knock your socks off.

Event marketing grew into something bigger than just a form of experiential marketing. Considering the fact that 44% of experienced marketers state 300% ROI from events, it may bring your business unseen success.

Event-based marketing works for companies of all kinds and sizes. A quality event will bring the awareness you need to grow your small business further. Great enterprises will have their share of benefits by investing a great deal of capital into a memorable and unique attendee experience.

If done right, an event will guarantee you:

• Boosted brand awareness
• Elevated brand engagement
• Gathered an unseen amount of leads

You may question our praise for this strategy, considering the global pandemic, but what you should also take into account is virtual events. Our new post also digs into the world of webinars, online conferences, and trade shows.

Read our article to discover how event-based marketing works and see great examples of successful events that will inspire you and your business to move on to new heights.

3. Snapchat knows everything about your tastes

Snapchat has posted a new update on how its users cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, and its various impacts, providing information on developing habits, shopping, problems, and more.

The results come through surveys in applications with different levels of answers (almost 2000 users answered one of the questions, but each of them saw different indicators). Thus, this is a relatively small group of 229 million active Snap users per day, but it gives an idea of ​​how young people see the pandemic.

First of all, Snapchat looks at what users expect most when restrictions finally end:

• 69% of respondents said they were excited to personally chat with their loved ones and resume some of their regular activities
• 55% look forward to talking in restaurants and bars (55%) and visits to hairdressers and beauty salons (48%)
• Users under 17 are looking forward to shopping and going to the movies.

There are no real surprises there, but it is interesting to think about the preferred directions of the people’s attention when the restrictions are gradually lifted. Understanding these specific trends may help in the future to better focus your marketing and information efforts.

• 60% of respondents also said that in the future they will seek to invest more in savings,
• and 54% of Snapchat users plan to store more essentials in their home as a result of the crisis.

In terms of how young people stay connected, messaging wins.

The use of messages has increased over the past few years, and the quarantine period has only exacerbated this trend. This can provide marketers with new opportunities to communicate with consumers through messaging applications (i.e. using chatbots) to meet them in applications where they spend their time.

While most of these trends are great, as you would expect, specific notes highlight some key areas that can help marketers maximize their messages, both now and in the future, when people can leave their homes more freely again.

We do not know exactly when this will happen, but the youth clearly hopes that this can happen in the near future.

4. Instagram is no longer part of Facebook

This seems like an interesting shift on Facebook.

According to AdWeek, Instagram now allows new advertisers in some regions to create Instagram advertising campaigns without the need to link it to a Facebook page.

By Instagram:

“Now you can create Instagram ads without being on Facebook. If you advertise a message from your Instagram account, you don’t need to connect to your Facebook advertising account or Facebook page. ”

The key condition here is “for the first time” – most Instagram advertisers have already connected their profile to the Facebook Advertising Manager, as required, and now these companies will not have to disconnect their Instagram profile from their Facebook page, and there are still the same opportunities to display ads for existing accounts.

Companies that prefer to post their ads only on Instagram will obviously not be able to manage them through their Facebook advertising account, which by the way has much-advanced functionality. Instead, they will have to run their ad campaign and track Instagram ad performance directly.

Instagram notes that at this stage this option will be available only to new Instagram advertisers in the US and Turkey.

5. The best cheat sheet for marketers and designers 2020

Due to the fact that the channels of social networks are becoming more crowded, attracting attention to your business is also becoming increasingly difficult.

Among the thousands of posts, updates, and stories that require the attention of users every day, you need to somehow highlight your messages, and the key element in this will be your visual effects, which can capture people’s attention while scrolling and make them stop and pay attention to your content.

But in order to maximize the potential of visual effects requiring a thumb, you must use the right presentation formats for each platform. The world’s best header image doesn’t matter if it looks pixelated and unprofessional. Thus, you must make sure that when creating visual content you do this with the right information about what each platform requires in terms of dimensions and formats for each specific element.

To help with this, we compiled an updated list of all key visual dimension data for each of the major social platforms.

It’s worth keeping this table handy and cross-checking the downloaded images, as well as checking the visual elements on mobile and desktop computers and, if possible, in preview mode, to make sure your images and videos look marvelous.