Content Marketing Grows, Social Networks Slow | Social You Should Know

Content Marketing Budgets to Increase 59% by 2017

Content marketing and native advertising budgets are set to increase 59% and 46% respectively by 2017. We usually don’t write much about ourselves in these updates, but this week we announced a $500,000 investment in our sister company Carusele, which specializes in social content marketing at scale. Coverage here and here. We’ve found a really interesting way to generate hundreds of pieces of great content for brands and then place them around the social web as native ads.

 

Besides Pinterest and Instagram, Little Social Network Growth Since 2012

While Pinterest (up from 15% of users in 2012 to 31% in 2015) and Instagram (from 13% to 28%) more than doubled in % of online adults using them, Facebook (67% to 72%), LinkedIn (20% to 25%) and Twitter (16% to 23%) saw only modest growth. Separately, eMarketer (subscription required) reportedthat brands are seeing a 108% growth in engagement on Instagram (Q1 ‘15 vs. Q1 ‘14) while only 32% growth on Twitter and 27% growth on Facebook.

 

Mobile Messaging Apps Growing Rapidly

So if growth has slowed on traditional social networks, where are the online conversations happening today? Increasingly on mobile messaging apps such Snapchat, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and more. These apps are sticky too, with 62% of users using them after 12 months (versus 11% average of all apps). What’s a brand to do? Honestly, it’s tricky. These are not the public networks where brand content spreads somewhat easily. It takes a different approach. Start with our Snapinar for a 2-minute overview of Snapchat, then consider this piece on the rest.



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