Welcome to The Watercooler, issue 51.
LMTD has picked out some of the most interesting digital and social media stories making waves around the web this week, to keep you up-to-date with developments in the world’s most exciting and fastest-growing industry. Something else you’d like to see?
This week, we’re also excited to share a little more about us, in a way only we know how: Coffee + Infographics!
Let us know at news@teamlmtd.com.
The rise and rise of native video
Ladies and gentlemen, rumours of Facebook’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.
But while your grandmother’s favourite social network released a community update this week showing off some pretty impressive numbers, it’s the performance of natively-uploaded video that should be the biggest cause for celebration.
According to a new study from social analytics firm Locowise, videos natively uploaded to Facebook outperformed videos shared from YouTube or Instagram in nearly every metric.
That nearly 80% of the 555 video-posting pages studied chose to upload videos natively shouldn’t really be a surprise, given how they enjoy preferential treatment in the platform’s newsfeed algorithm.
And maybe, to a certain extent, the rest of the numbers can be similarly dismissed. Of course the videos Facebook prefers will go further and attract more engagement.
But if the importance of video on social is only likely to increase over the next few years. are big brands really likely to consider other options? Would they risk reaching fewer of the 1.49 billion people using Facebook each month? Or not turning up in quite so many of the 1.5 billion searches the platform sees in the same time period?
Probably not.
Seven secrets of social media conversion
So you have a product or service to sell, and you’re promoting via social media. You would be forgiven for thinking the hard part is getting the audience’s attention, but just because they click doesn’t mean it’s time to relax. Now you need to convert. Luckily, Unbounce has some tips.
Our top takeaways include:
– Use a landing page: sending your social media traffic to a landing page improves the clarity of your message vs. a cluttered homepage. Well, Unbounce is expected to say this, but it makes sense given how important visuals can be in how we process information.
– Make it easy to share: You came from social, and to social you will return. At least if you make it easy to share. Don’t underestimate how much of a boost your sales can get from influencers or brand advocates reaching out to their following.
– Social message match: in the age of clickbaiting it’s more important than ever to match the voice, tone and content of your landing page to that of your ad. Users shouldn’t be surprised by what they see post-click…if they are, they may smell a scam and leave your page just as quickly as they arrived.
See the full infographic here.
This week, LMTD HQ has been overtaken by Beme-ers. But rather than talk about the videos we’ve been sharing, we’ll leave it up to man behind the curtain — Casey Neistat — to tell you all about it.
A week since launch, Beme has already seen 1.1m videos shared. Saying ‘it’s going to be big’ seems like we’ve missed the bandwagon already!
#ICYMI
Google search now shows you when local businesses are busiest
Facebook is testing tags for your profile
The Watercooler 