9 Key Takeaways From The First Keynote At Social Media Marketing World 2017

I just got back from attending one of the biggest social media marketing conferences on the planet Social Media Marketing World 2017; a couple of weeks ago. I must confess that I’ve been dying to attend this conference for the past 4 years and I finally made it this year! Also, according to them, I’m the first Srilankan to attend this massive conference, so YAY for that!

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The event comes on top of probably every blog post out there that tells you which are the best SM conferences to attend this year. The event takes place in the beautiful city of San Diego, California every year. SMMW17 website says that some of the recognized brands that attended this year’s conference include Apple, Cisco, CBS Interactive, IBM, Deloitte, Hilton, Humana, Macy’s, Mayo Clinic, McDonald’s, ReMax, Reuters, Sprint, Toyota, the United Way, UPS, WalMart; to name a few. It also says that people from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter and other platforms also attended.

120+ Sessions in 3 Days – Totally Worth It

The 3 days of the conference was packed with 120+ sessions. These included 4 Keynotes, multiple sessions on  Content Marketing, Corporate Social, Measurement & Analytics, Social Strategy, Social Customer Service as well as Tactical sessions on the major social networking platforms. They also included multiple Workshops and’a Creator Series’on the topics of Live Video, Blogging, Podcasting, Video & YouTube.

If these details make you kinda wish that you too could have had the opportunity to attend the best social media marketing conference of the year, you still have the chance to catch up on all of these sessions with the virtual ticket to the SMMW17 conference which is still available at the time of publishing this blog post. You can purchase it here at a cost of $697. And no, I’m not getting a cut out of this! lol, I just think it was truly worth it.

If you’re also interested, next year’s conference will be held on February 28th, March 1st, and March 2nd and the tickets are already available at a discounted price  Also, next year they will have two different ticket categories – All access ticket and Creator ticket. If you ask me, would I be going again? Absolutely!

Key Takeaways

On this post, I really would like to share the key takeaways from the first keynote of the event – Social Media Marketing in 2017: What the Newest Research Reveals By Michael Stelzner. Mike is the founder and CEO of Social Media Examiner, founder of the Social Media Marketing Society, and author of the books Launch and Writing White Papers. He also hosts the weekly Social Media Marketing podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk show.

During his keynote, Mike revealed the hottest trends in social media based on the brand new research they did with the participation of over 5,700 marketers from all over the world. This survey is the 9th edition of their annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report.

The most interesting insight from this survey is that Facebook is the most important social network for marketers as. 62% of those who took the survey have revealed that Facebook is still the most important social media marketing platform for them. Back in 2016, only 55% have said the same thing.

Also, Facebook is updating the News Feed algorithm and marketers are finding it difficult to get around it. In fact, 54% of marketers who took part in the survey had agreed that Facebook’s algorithm has decreased their News Feed exposure in the last 12 months. Only 4% have disagreed with this while  42% were actually clueless about this.

Facebook is Running Out on Ad Space?

Not so long ago, Recode published an article that Facebook says it’s running out of places in the News Feed to show people ads. The consequence of this would obviously be that it’s going to be more and more difficult for marketers to get their content in front of their audience organically.

What is also interesting is that based on the survey, 42% of marketers who’ve said they were uncertain if Facebook’s algorithm has decreased their News Feed exposure, have also said that they post 7 times a day on their Facebook page. Also, 74% of the same audience had said they will be INCREASING their post frequency in future.

Meanwhile, out of the 54% who’ve said they DID see a decrease in their News Feed exposure – are currently posting 8 times per day on their Facebook page and 64% have said they plan on increasing their post frequency as well! Is this the right thing to do?

Less is More for Facebook Algorithm

Mike says, increasing your post frequency is NOT the answer to this and that with the Facebook algorithm – less is more.

Mike’s Advice to Marketers

So what should you as a marketer do, to beat Facebook’s algorithm game and get your content in front of your audience? Here’s Mike’s advice in a nutshell:

1. Number 1 key to beating Facebook’s algorithm game right now is with Live Video
2. Refocus on community development. Influencer marketing anyone? In general, as a brand, be helpful to your community and customers
3. Stop worrying about the big numbers. They won’t make much of a difference
4. DO advertise on Facebook. But only do so with highly targeted ads so that you don’t have to spend a fortune on them
5. Instagram is HOT. And you need to get on it! However, you need to work on your content game
6. Your content must be visual
7. Messaging is the future. You need to learn how to, in terms of bots and ads
8. Create Amazing Content (Yes, content is STILL King! LOL)
9. Make blogging part of your content creation

Details of the Keynote

If you’d like to know details of this keynote, in terms of market insights along with why these are important steps and exactly what you can do as a marketer to include these key points in your social media marketing game this year; let me know and I’ll do another post on the details.

I’d also love to know what YOU think about the above steps and if you would actually implement them in your action plan this year. If so, which of them would be most important to you and why? Do share your thoughts with me in comments below. Also, if you disagree with these ideas or have any questions with regard to them, I’d love to hear from you!