Member Article

Blink and you'll miss it: The constantly changing world of social platforms

Euan Stubbs, Digital Director at WhiteNoise Media dives into how social media platforms are becoming increasingly volatile and how a ‘one size fits all’ approach just won’t cut it.

**Traditional Marketing **

As social media platforms now take up a significant majority of digital ad spend, I think it is important that brands understand the complexity and depth of each of these networks.

Traditional marketing has always gone down the route of creating a campaign and pressing ‘Go’, implementing it across a number of different channels and hoping to watch customers roll in. This is why a lot of brands may not be seeing the ROI they would like from their paid social media advertising campaigns.

In the digital landscape we live in today, traditional media routes are simply not reactive enough. Gone are the days we could make a ‘12 month plan’ and stick to it. Due to the volatility of platforms we need to be constantly evolving and expecting the unexpected.

Specific channel approaches

The thing with social media is the audience on each platform can vary dramatically. There is a greater need to understand the demographic of a channel before pushing content out to them all. Only a certain level of people are on certain platforms, and the attention span of these people can be more or less depending on the platform. Having a true understanding of audiences on each channel can help create true connections.

When selecting channels, start with your audience and work backwards. According to a Bain & Company report ‘Improved understanding and targeting of customers’ came out on top for future investments with industry leaders.

Snapchat and Three

What was once the platform that had every brand asking ‘How Can We Get a Piece of the Action?’, Snapchats dominance in the market is dropping drastically. Showing just how volatile this industry is. According to SocialBakers, Snapchat is losing over 1000 fans per month, with shares falling 17% after the unveil of their new redesign. Kylie Jenners famous tweet also didn’t help shares after she said she no longer uses the app.

2017 may have been Snapchats ‘year’ and ‘only year’ after the decline over the past 3 months. So Three’s recent partnership with Snapchat has me wondering if big brands such as this are being reactive enough to keep up with the market.

Partnering with Snapchat to create a ‘lovable puggerfly’ will no doubt engage people with the app as it oozes viral ability and creativity. However, it is also tieng Three into a diminishing marketplace that shows no signs of revitalizing itself.

**Fierce competition **

With Twitter creating a ‘new Snapchat style feature’ behind closed doors that will make it easier to share videos on the platform, and Facebook announcing a potential ‘dating feature’, is this even worse news for the app?

With so many options to produce creative on so many constantly changing platforms, creating an approach that is specific to each channel is more important than ever.

**Data-first **

Relationships with customers start inside the data. Data-driven campaigns give us control over our audiences to ensure the right message is being communicated to the right person. Which is really the pivotal of marketing.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Niamh Byron .