Showing posts with label Christine Warner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christine Warner. Show all posts

Thursday, May 3, 2018

How YOUR Social Media Platform Algorithms Work?


This is exactly how social media algorithms work today..



Each social media network has a unique set of technical elements, intricate logic, and usage analytics that make up the algorithm that delivers content to its users.

Seen in the fluctuation of social media algorithms in the past, the biggest consideration -- or debate -- is balancing personal relevance with post timeliness.

These algorithms are managed by dedicated teams of software engineers, data scientists, content strategists, and more, so nothing you see is an accident. Here's a look inside the criteria and priorities that Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn use to surface content and updates in users' personal feeds and search results -- and what it all means for your social media strategy.



Facebook Prioritizes Meaningful Interactions

Facebook's latest algorithm update, which they announced in January 2018, now puts posts -- that spark conversations and meaningful interactions between people -- at the top of your News Feed.

This means the content that receives the most engagement -- reactions, comments, and shares -- will be the highest.

Facebook keeps a historical account of your personal engagement with posts by friends and brand pages, and the Facebook News Feed algorithm also predicts what you want to see based on those past interactions with friends or brands.

Then, it aims to put similar posts upfront in your News Feed from the same people and pages and from those with relevant posts or profiles.



According to Facebook, it defines engaging content and "meaningful interactions" based on:

--Comment Activity: Back-and-forth comments on posts or a news article or video prompting lots of discussion
--Interactive Posts: Posts that you might want to share and react to, such as:
--A post from a friend looking for advice
--A friend asking for trip recommendations

As a marketer on Facebook, you should focus on engagement as the pathway to reach. Let Facebook's engagement metrics lead your measurement strategy: reactions, comments, and shares.

Although Facebook explicitly states that they will "show less public content, including videos and other posts from publishers or businesses," all hope is not lost for appearing in the Facebook News Feed. The more your page followers engage with your content, the more you will continue to appear in their feeds and the feeds of their friends.



Following the criteria above, create content and copy that triggers conversation—or even a healthy amount of controversy.

Facebook also calls out live video as a high-engagement format, getting six times as many interactions as normal videos.

Facebook admitted that with these changes, pages will likely start to see their overall reach, video viewing time, and referral traffic dip. However, pages that keep conversation going among friends will see less of a negative effect. Followers can also proactively choose to see page content first through the "See First" option instead of "Default" in your page's "Following" drop-down menu.

In its latest public announcement about Facebook Search in October 2015, Facebook explained its approach to search results. As you type in the search bar, Facebook predicts your complete search query in real-time, then includes posts and conversations shared publicly and from your friends' accounts.



Instagram Features Newest Posts First

After updating its feed algorithm in March 2016 to have "posts you care about most" appear first, Instagram reverted to a time-based feed in March 2018.

Why backtrack? Instagram states the change was the result of user feedback to make its feed "feel more fresh" through timely content. So it seems that while Instagram felt users would appreciate a more personalized feed based on interaction history, users actually care more about the most recent content.

To summarize the differences between the two updates:

--Relevancy Algorithm: Launched in March 2016, it reordered content in feeds based on the user's relationship (a.k.a. interaction history) with the person posting and the post's timeliness
--Recency Algorithm: Launched in March 2018, it places content in feeds based on each post's timeliness



Instagram's current time-based feed doesn't mean that post engagement isn't as important as before.

But it does mean that post times are more important to ensure your content appears in your followers' feeds at the ideal time.

While there might not be a silver bullet solution for the perfect distribution time, do pay attention to the peak engagement times (or time frames) of your followers—specifically to make the most of any action-oriented content.

Unlike its feed algorithm, Instagram's Search algorithm operates based on personal activity. The mix of photo, video, and story results depend on the people you follow and the posts you like. As your activity changes, so will your search results.



Twitter Puts Personal Relevance Before Timeliness

The current Twitter timeline algorithm, released in February 2016, places relevant tweets first based on your interaction history with the accounts you follow, presented in a section titled "In case you missed it."

These recommended tweets show up in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent tweets appear first. The rest of the tweets that appear beneath them are also in reverse chronological order.

Twitter made this change so that you can "catch up on the best tweets from people you follow." Also, Twitter found that featured tweets get more live interaction to stimulate commentary and conversations.

Not a fan of Twitter's recommended tweets? You can also choose "See less often" right in your timeline or turn it off completely in your Settings by deselecting "Show me the best tweets first." So while your timeline defaults to personalization, you can have control over which you want to see first:



--Recommended Tweets: Tweets surfaced based on your personal interaction history
--Timely Tweets: Tweets surfaced based on post time in reverse chronological order, with the most recent posts appearing first

Of course, marketers aren't able to know the split of their own followers who do and don't use the recommended tweet timeline.

So when in doubt, optimize for engagement and time. It can only help to create interactive content and distribute it at the optimal times for engagement.

It's important to note that although Twitter's timeline is presented in reverse chronological order, the results of Twitter search are ordered according to relevance -- not time.



Twitter rolled out this search algorithm in December 2016 after much experimentation with balancing tweet and account results, managing the density of video and image results, and optimizing Twitter's machine learning model.

All testing had the goal of giving searchers diverse yet hyper-relevant results, using logic to tweak the relevance scoring and tweet positioning.

Twitter landed on the current search algorithm since the engineering team found that it yielded higher engagement, with people spending more time on Twitter and becoming more active.



LinkedIn Presents Updates by Individual Relevance

As of March 2018, LinkedIn's Feed algorithm focuses on understanding your individual preferences to give you relevant updates per visit. Upon every visitor session, the algorithm scans and ranks tens of thousands of posts in less than a second.

The thousands of signals used to present this content are grouped into three main categories:

--Personal Identity: Your individual LinkedIn profile, including your workplace, skills, and connections
--Content Engagement: The total views, total likes, update topic, post recency, language, and mentioned people or companies
--Personal Behavior: Your past likes and shares, interaction frequency, and time spent in your Feed



The overall mission of LinkedIn's Feed team is to help users be as productive and successful as possible.

Instead of evaluating relevance based on click-through rates, LinkedIn analyzes a variety of signals to measure your interest. These signals include time spent reading, insights from your LinkedIn social graph, and user experience research. Therefore, brand success on LinkedIn is largely determined by time spent with shared content, likes, and comments. Again, it seems that engagement is core to pleasing the algorithm.

Much like Facebook, LinkedIn's Search bar suggests search results as you type, whether for people, companies, or groups. For People searches specifically, LinkedIn's proprietary algorithm returns results through analysis of the searcher's activity and search history, resulting profiles, and other LinkedIn users who have performed similar searches.



What's It All Mean for Marketers?

With all the technical details considered, here's each social media network's default feed algorithm primary criterion (excluding custom user settings):

--Facebook: Relevance
--Instagram: Timeliness
--Twitter: Relevance
--LinkedIn: Relevance

Since relevance is the most common factor, let engagement metrics lead your social media strategy. Even though Instagram is all about post timing, you're more likely to appear in Instagram Search if your posts get a lot of likes and comments.

Guest Authored By Christine Warner. Christine is is a freelance writer and digital marketer with agency, brand, and non-profit experience developing integrated campaigns and content platforms for diverse brands such as Uber, Samsung, Walgreens, Victoria’s Secret, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Dignity Health. Her digital marketing specialties include content marketing strategy, customer relationship management, brand product marketing, digital media planning, social media marketing, and search engine optimization. Currently, she is the Senior Manager of Digital for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where she oversees the digital marketing efforts for the various non-profit communities and ministries throughout Southern California. As a freelance writer, she contributes regularly to various lifestyle and marketing publications. Follow Christine on Twitter.





"This is the current state of social media algorithms, but you never know when the next optimization might come and change it all.

So follow each network's news and engineering blogs, and stay alert! -ChristineWarner


    • Post Crafted By:
      Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)
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    Location: Loveland, CO 80538, USA

    Monday, April 30, 2018

    Social Media Data For YOUR Marketing Strategy?


    10 Social media usage statistics you should know, and what they mean for your marketing strategy..

    There is no scarcity of data, predictions, or opinions about social media trends. But it can be hard to sift through the endless white papers, reports, studies, and commentary to uncover the most significant social media usage statistics, compare any contradicting results, and come up with actionable insights and next steps.



    Thankfully, We've Done That For You

    Take a look at these ten current statistics from reputable sources (Pew Research, Statista, eMarketer, and more) and the implications of each for your social media strategy today. Some of them might not be surprising, and many are consistent with the direction of past usage trends. But they're all recent and relevant.

    To start it off, here's one to boost your confidence in the promise of social media marketing: In 2017, social media exceeded marketers expectations for performance by eight percent—the biggest gap between expected and actual effectiveness of any other marketing effort.

    Now, let's get into the usage details:



    1. Over 3 billion people use social media each month—42 percent of the total global population

    That's 3,196 billion people to be exact, up 13 percent since 2017. And in the United States, there are 230 million monthly active social media users, 71 percent of the total population.

    This penetration is proof that social media usage is on the rise all around the world, but is 58 percent away from saturation. Social media hasn't maxed out its potential audience, and people will keep on converting along with the growth of smartphone ownership and Internet access.

    While each social media network will have its own usage ups and downs, you can be confident that the global community of social media users will just get bigger. Your own audience probably isn't saturated yet, either. So continue to invest in both organic and paid tactics to gain followers, in addition to engaging your current ones.



    2. Every second, 11 people use social media for the first time

    When added up, it turns into one million new social media users every day—whoa. The granularity of this statistic is further evidence of the potential of social media marketing.

    Just as the three billion monthly users means social media is far from a stale marketing channel, 11 new users per second really puts the growth into perspective. How many people have started exploring Instagram or browsing Facebook for the very first time, even since you started reading this article?

    And as they stumble across your own social media channels, will it be a good first impression? Welcome them warmly with a cohesive and creative content strategy.



    3. Mobile's share of web traffic increased by 4 percent, while desktop's share decreased by 3 percent

    Nine in ten social media users opt for mobile browsing. Web traffic trends have been going in the direction of mobile for quite some time. But it's clear, now more than ever, that mobile optimization is nonnegotiable.

    And beyond the mobile experience, create social media content for mobile over desktop. Get as tactical as the image sizes, design ratios, character count, device dimensions, and call-to-action copy. These details can make all the difference for small-screen consumption.

    4. Mobile apps account for 70 percent of time spent on social media networks

    Just another reason to always optimize for mobile. Taking up the vast majority of time spent using social media, mobile devices dictate the user experience.



    5. People use mobile apps 7 times longer than mobile web browsers

    This app dominance isn't groundbreaking. Especially when it comes to social media, the in-app experience is (or should be) much better than the mobile browser experience. Test your content in-app as well as in mobile browser previews.

    6. The networks with the most penetration among social media users in 2018 so far are Facebook (60.6 percent), Instagram (37.4 percent), and Snapchat (30.9 percent)

    What do they all have in common? These three social media networks are each big on photo, video, and live content. Other networks similarly support visual, video, and real-time content, but these are the most mature. Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat also focus heavily on the mobile experience (which brings us back to statistics three and four above).



    People's attention spans aren't getting longer, so interactive and attention-grabbing content breaks through best.

    With the biggest user communities and usage this year, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat should be among your top channel considerations—as long as they are relevant to your audience.

    And on the other networks you manage, keep photo and video content types at the forefront of your content strategy.

    On Facebook alone, the content types with the most growth in average engagement per post in 2018 are videos (up 5.23 percent) and photos (up 4.42 percent).



    7. Facebook still has the most app usage in the US (164.58 monthly users) but is growing only among users ages 65 and older

    Older generations might be just starting out with Facebook (the 65-plus age group grew by 20 percent in 2017), but Facebook usage is declining among social media users under 25. This accounts for a total loss of about 2.1 million users.

    The takeaway? Don't let size deceive you. Facebook's algorithms now prioritize engagement and personal interactions. So put it in its place in terms of engagement—not just reach.

    Launched in 2004, Facebook was one of the first social media network to rise to popularity. Many of the early users (the declining 25-and-under crowd) have moved on. And younger generations are skipping Facebook altogether, getting hooked early by the instantaneous and addictive nature of social media networks like Snapchat and Instagram.



    Prioritize Facebook as a marketing channel if you've got an older audience, and still keep it in your channel mix—although not a primary marketing channel—if your audience skews younger. By 2022, it's predicted that Facebook's share of Internet users will slip by 10.8 percent.

    8. Instagram is growing the fastest, with global users up by a third, and is predicted to increase by 13.1 percent in 2018

    Outpacing Facebook for growth, although still behind in total users, Instagram now has a total of 106.17 million app users as of February 2018. Growth trends are the ones to watch when projecting the promise of social media networks. Instagram's combination of visual, video, and live content makes it an all-in-one channel for users.



    The largest demographic on Instagram are 18-to-34-year-olds, with 64 percent active users. If your key audience falls in this age group, or even older, consider Instagram as an ideal channel—it will likely just keep on growing. It's predicted that user growth in 2018 will focus on those 35 and older.

    9. Ranked by popularity, YouTube (73 percent) and Facebook (68 percent) are used the most by US adults and LinkedIn (25 percent) and Twitter (24 percent) are used the least

    That isn't to say you should remove LinkedIn and Twitter from your social media mix. Remember, it's all about knowing where to find and engage with your own audience.



    Here's the full popularity breakdown of top social media networks based on percent of US adults who use each:

    --YouTube: 73 percent of US adults
    --Facebook: 68 percent of US adults
    --Instagram: 35 percent of US adults
    --Pinterest: 29 percent of US adults
    --Snapchat: 27 percent of US adults
    --LinkedIn: 25 percent of US adults
    --Twitter: 24 percent of US adults

    10. On a daily basis, US users visit Facebook (74 percent) and Snapchat (63 percent) the most and LinkedIn (40 percent) and Pinterest (23 percent) the least

    The personal nature of Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram make it likely that daily usage is far above that of other social media networks. Let these daily usage insights inform your publication frequency. You probably don't need to publish daily on LinkedIn, but keep up the cadence on Facebook and Instagram.



    To fill in the gaps for percent of US users who visit each social media network daily:

    --Facebook: 74 percent of US users
    --Snapchat: 63 percent of US users
    --Instagram: 60 percent of US users
    --Twitter: 46 percent of US users
    --YouTube: 45 percent of US users
    --LinkedIn: 40 percent of US users
    --Pinterest: 23 percent of US users

    Guest Authored By Christine Warner. Christine is is a freelance writer and digital marketer with agency, brand, and non-profit experience developing integrated campaigns and content platforms for diverse brands such as Uber, Samsung, Walgreens, Victoria’s Secret, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Dignity Health. Her digital marketing specialties include content marketing strategy, customer relationship management, brand product marketing, digital media planning, social media marketing, and search engine optimization. Currently, she is the Senior Manager of Digital for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, where she oversees the digital marketing efforts for the various non-profit communities and ministries throughout Southern California. As a freelance writer, she contributes regularly to various lifestyle and marketing publications. Follow Christine on Twitter.





    "With these ten social media usage statistics in mind, revisit your social media strategy to make any necessary overhauls or tweaks.

    The global and national scope of this data gives you a solid grasp on current social media trends, but know that your own social media strategy should first rely on the presence of your specific audience on each social media network.

    Know the community data points, even memorize them, but take action on your audience data points. -ChristineWarner


      • Post Crafted By:
        Fred Hansen Pied Piper of Social Media Marketing at YourWorldBrand.com & CEO of Millennium 7 Publishing Co. in Loveland, Colorado. I work deep in the trenches of social media strategy, community management and trends.  My interests include; online business educator, social media marketing, new marketing technology, skiing, hunting, fishing and The Rolling Stones..-Not necessarily in that order ;)
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      Location: Loveland, CO 80538, USA
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