the smart social report v4 - private vs. public communication, restaurant-branded hashtags,...

Report: Volume Four

The

2The Smart Social Report: Volume Four

2016 looks to be a game-changing year for social, on the heels of tremendous growth in 2015—

the kind of growth that requires numbers to fully wrap your head around. For example:

• In 2015, social media users rose by 176 million

• Facebook now adds a new user profile approximately every six seconds

• WhatsApp gained 300 million users from August 2014 to August 2015

As marketers, this level of penetration presents new opportunity and responsibility alike. We have the chance to reach more customers than ever before on social—but we can no longer substitute experimentation for strategy.

In our fourth Smart Social Report, we’ve tracked fourth-quarter performance for the 50 major brands who make up our State of Social study. We’ve also gone international, examining data from airlines in the Asia Pacific region, and we dug deeper in our home base, examining hashtags on Instagram to find which casual dining chains Americans prefer by state. We’ve taken a closer look at live streaming and one-to-one marketing as well, with some surprising results.

At Spredfast, we help marketers work smarter. Our smart social software allows you to infuse the

art of your social strategy with the science of data. And the data in this report is an extension of that

effort—we hope you find your next great move or advice you can lean on within these pages.

It’s time to get smarter about social.

| Jim Rudden | CMO, Spredfast


The State of Social A survey of 50 brands across 10 verticals

Content & Community The Social Iceberg: Customer Care on Twitter

Brands & Consumers #Dinner in America

Fan Activation Going Live with Social

Building Relevance Social Travel in Asia Pacific

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Table of Contents


The State of SocialA survey of 50 brands across 10 verticals


IntroductionThe State of Social report is our quarterly check-in with

50 of the top brands in the world and their sophistication

across the major social properties. In Q4, we’re introducing one new channel and researching new tactics,

strategies, and campaigns to see who’s pushing the

envelope in the social world.

Last quarter, sports, retail, and automotive were the leading industries in our study. Who led the industry in

Q4? Let’s dive into the data.


• Audience size: followers, likes, etc.

• Consistency of response: time to respond

to inbound communication

• Post frequency

• Use of rich media: images, GIFs, video

• Audience engagement: comments, likes, shares,

favorites on posted comments

MethodologyWe looked at 50 leading brands in ten different verticals to gauge their maturity across eight of the leading social networks.

Brands were measured at the end of December 2015, and will

continue to be measured on a quarterly basis to chart growth and

sophistication over time.

To evaluate social sophistication, we used a combination of the following metrics, depending on which metrics are available publicly for individual networks:

50Leading

Brands

10Different Verticals

8Social

Networks


LinkedIn

Over the past few years, LinkedIn has grown into so much more than a hyperactive jobs board or a way to digitally update your resume. They’ve added social sharing features, blog posts, and a timeline used by professionals and companies alike. A company is only as good as the people who work for it and

LinkedIn’s growth allows companies to directly engage with the best possible candidates.

The network also allows current employees to share the work their companies are doing, or their own

projects. For these reasons, we’ve added LinkedIn to our study.

Retail Rejoins Media and Sports as a Top VerticalBrands from the sports and media verticals in our study remained the top two verticals, just as they were in Q3. But retailers edged out automotive, reclaiming one of the top spots they held back in Q1 of 2015.

Key Takeaways

Retail is back.


TescoDuring Q4 we saw the retailer advance in maturity across several of their channels. Their LinkedIn posts saw 118% more conversation per follower than the average brand.

NFLEven with a huge Twitter follower base of over 15M people, the NFL still managed to score the highest

engagement-per-follower ratio of any company in our

study through a solid mixture of rich media (video and images) and an aggressive posting schedule.

Across all 50 of the brands we researched, a few stood out for growth in different areas of social.

Top Moving Social Brands


American AirlinesThe improvement to the airline’s overall score was partially driven by their performance on Instagram. Their audience responded to their strategy and the

airline saw a 30% increase in their follower base

between quarters.

Microsoft Throughout the 4th, quarter Microsoft engaged with their followers on Tumblr by providing unique tips and tricks for how to use their OneNote product to keep

track of ideas. These posts increased their average engagement by 30%.


• Few brands can attract a huge base of followers while continuing to keep their audience involved at high levels. MTV does both of these very well, leveraging rich media content and content around breaking pop culture trends to stay relevant to their young audience.

• Netflix buoyed their performance on YouTube by increasing both their average views per subscriber during the quarter and their positive affinity for the videos posted.

• Media brands MTV, Netflix, and the BBC all continued to boast the most engaging Tumblr strategies of any brands within the study.

This quarter, the brands in our media category jumped their sports counterparts to become the leading vertical from a total score perspective. Three brands, including MTV, ESPN, and Netflix jumped up in the rankings.

Based on data from Q4 2015, the media, sports, and retail verticals are leading in terms of social sophistication across channels. Let’s see where the individual brands in each vertical improved most and where we can look to learn from their success:

Top Verticals for Social Maturity

Q3 Q4Media


Each of the major sport leagues have fans with seemingly endless appetites for content. This motivates them to keep pushing content out no matter the time of year and to experiment with ways to keep excitement levels high.

• The NBA was the leading brand in the sports vertical this quarter with an above-average presence across a wide number of networks, including Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

• The NFL made weekly appearances within the Snapchat live feature. Their partnership throughout the early weeks of the season provided fans with a unique view into game day and a deeper perspective than a typical television broadcast.

• The MLB was the top sports brand on LinkedIn. They performed better relative to their peers thanks to regular posts engaging professionals interested in the aspects of the league beyond highlight reels.


Sports Q3 Q4


• Victoria’s Secret not only posts a high volume of content on Facebook, but their video content sees one of the highest engagement rates (combining shares, likes, and comments) of any brand in our study.

• Target saw their YouTube scores improve through a combination of increased affinity for their content and a higher volume of content posted in Q4 over Q3.

• The Gap’s Tumblr strategy is paying off. Their original content was 88% more engaging than any other

retailer active on the network.

This quarter, retail edged its way over automotive to return to the top three verticals. The improvement was largely assisted by the LinkedIn addition to the study where, taken as a whole, retail is the third best performing vertical on average.


Q3 Q4Retail


Social Maturity by Vertical

* FULL BRAND LIST: BofA, Progressive, Citibank, State Farm, Barclays, Pepsi, Crest, Nescafé, Dove, Cadbury, Target, Coach, Victoria's Secret, Gap, Tesco, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, VW, Audi, Hilton, Hyatt, American Airlines, Delta Airlines, British Airways, MTV, ESPN, Fox News, Netflix, BBC, NFL, MLB, NBA, English Premier League, Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, EA, IBM, GE, VMWare, Siemens, Accenture, Verizon, AT&T, BT, Orange, T-Mobile

5

6

7

8

9

10

1

3

2

4

Q3 Q4Vertical


AT&T scored an improved Twitter rank by including the most rich media (specifically, video content) in their Tweets this quarter. In fact, telecom brands took four of

the top five spots for rich media on Twitter.

Audi had the highest engagement of any automotive brand on Tumblr during the quarter. They regularly

post playful photosets of their brand imagery to

further connect with their fans on the social network.

During the fourth quarter, Pepsi strengthened their

engagement on Instagram and had 17% higher-than-

average engagement per follower than Q3.

State of Social Takeaways

Tesco was one of the top brands rising on Pinterest in

Q4, posting high volumes of content including recipes, crafts, and product imagery.

Dove’s parent company, Unilever, is a leader on LinkedIn. They frequently post corporate-wide

initiatives and individual brand successes. These posts deliver higher-than-average engagement and continually help them expand their voice with professionals worldwide.

The brand making the most gains on Facebook this

quarter was Mercedes-Benz. They adopted a great strategy across all of our scoring categories, including

a solid mix of audience growth, responding quickly to

customer questions, and industry-leading Facebook

video engagement rates.

Cadbury created a flood of content on Pinterest this quarter, posting 10x more content and boosting the total

engagement from their user base with delicious-looking

recipes featuring their products as a main ingredient.

Delta posted nearly 400% more content to Instagram in

Q4. This frenzy of activity helped them to almost double their following on the platform.


Content & Community The Social Iceberg: Customer Care on Twitter


Understanding the Two Sides of SocialSocial marketers are constantly looking for great examples of strategies and tactics to

push their campaigns ahead of the competition. We often look to examples that are

broadcast to all followers of a brand—messages centered around the latest marketing

campaign, live event, or scheduled post. We call this type of social post “1:many” social content, and it’s what we normally see from brands in our daily feeds or highlighted in the

latest articles from AdAge.

But while concentrating on these polished pieces of social media, we often forget the

other side of the value that social media brings to organizations.

There is a plethora of social content created by brands every day that is never seen by the general public. It lives in direct messages and individual replies, reaching out to customers about their comments, questions, and raised hands. We call this “1:1” social content, and as any social media team can tell you, it’s a huge piece of how they reach out to customers

each and every day.

But we’ve been wondering: how much 1:1 social content is being created by brands vs. 1:many?

As it turns out, much more than you might think.


Software/Internet GrocersElectronics Airlines

Amazon AsdaGE Cathay Pacific

Apple KrogerLG JetBlue

eBay SainsburyPanasonic Lufthansa

Google WalmartSamsung Southwest

Microsoft 7-ElevenVizio United

We mined 43 Twitter accounts from 20 brands—across the industries of electronics, software, airlines, and grocery

retail—to measure the volume of brand conversation, and the breakdown between 1:1 and 1:many.

We looked at not only the primary Twitter handles for these brands (@eBay, @Samsung, @Kroger, etc.), but other

supporting accounts, (like @askEbay and @SamsungSupport, @KrogerSupport, etc.) to form a holistic picture of each

company’s complete Twitter presence.

We pulled every Tweet from the 20 brands’ accounts and their sub-accounts for 2015, for a total of over 1.3M pieces of social content.

The Data

Number of Twitter Handles by Brand

* FULL TWITTER HANDLE LIST: @Appstore, @iOS_support, @Google, @GoogleNexus, @GooglePlay, @Gmail, @Amazon, @AmazonHelp, @AWScloud, @AWSsupport, @Microsoft, @windows, @office, @Xbox, @ebay, @askebay, @SamsungMobileUS, @SamsungTweets, @SamsungSupport, @GeneralElectric, @GE_appliances, @GElighting, @LGUS, @LGUSAmobile, @Vizio, @VizioSupport, @Panasonic, @PanasonicUSA, @Lufthansa, @United, @SouthwestAir, @Jetblue, @CathayPacific, @Walmart, @WalmartAction, @WalmartGiving, @Kroger, @KrogerSupport, @Sainsburys, @7Eleven, @7ElevenCares, @Asda, @AsdaServiceTeam


The 1:many Tweets we see from brands get all the attention,

but after looking at the data across all 20 brands in our study,

it seems that we, as an industry, might want to devote more attention to the other side of the social iceberg.

The wide majority of social content in our study—over 93% of Tweets in 2015—was not meant for the general public to

see. Most Tweets were 1:1 communications between a brand and a person. The percentage varied by brand, of course, but the rate of personal communication was fairly consistent over the set of brands and industries we studied, with 16 of the

20 brands in the study seeing more than 85% of their Twitter

content being 1:1.

Not only does 1:1 conversation dwarf its 1:many cousin, the ratio grew each quarter in 2015, ending with almost 95% 1:1 content in Q4 2015.

The “Social Iceberg”

Q1

85%

87%

89%

91%

93%

95%

Q2 Q3 Q4

1:1 Twitter Content Growth 2015

2015 Twitter Content

1:many

1:1


2015 Twitter Content, by Industry

Marketing and support needs will differ by industry, so we broke the data down to examine which lines of business were driving the most 1:1 interaction.

Airlines saw the highest ratio of replies to original content, with over 98% of their Twitter content in 2015 being 1:1. Software was the lowest category, at 89% averaged over the five companies in the study.

Pa!erns By Industry

Software/Internet Electronics Grocers Airlines

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%1:many

1:1


The biggest standout brand in our study was, without a doubt, Amazon. Their social team is hard at work on both sides of the equation, and saw the highest Tweet count in 2015 for both 1:many Tweets

(at over 35,000, the majority of which came from their @amazon account) and 1:1 Tweets (at over 317,000 for the year, the majority of which came from their @AmazonHelp account).

Biggest 1:1 BrandsAverage Daily Tweet Volume, 2015

Google

Aver

age

Twee

ts p

er D

ay

ASDA Samsung United Amazon

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

10001:many

1:1


The data revealed a few brands that worked hard to ramp up their customer outreach strategies in 2015.

Of the 20 brands in our study, three accounts saw the largest increases in the

raw number of Tweet replies sent each quarter. @GooglePlay, @askeBay, and

@SouthwestAir are not only responding to customers in high quantities, their

numbers are getting bigger by the day.

2015 Fastest Growing 1:1 Twitter Activity

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Twee

t Re

plie

s pe

r Q

uart

er (t

hous

ands

)

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35 @GooglePlay

@askeBay

@SouthwestAir

“During the Papal visit to the U.S., Golin was tasked with helping the United States Catholic Church of Bishops amplify the messages of Pope Francis. Golin engaged one-on-one with people talking about the impact the Pope’s visit had on them and asking them what they pray for. We received a 75% response rate on the outreach compared to a 7% engagement rate on our one-to-many content pieces.” Geeta Patel, Director, Digital Analytics, Golin


Social media is here, a!er all, to connect people with people.

A robust, modern social media strategy is not just about getting retweets and likes. As we’ve seen through this study, it’s also about providing a dependable and effective 1:1 marketing strategy on a platform where the modern consumer expects a brand to be present. How can you make sure your social team is balancing their priorities in the right way?

Here are three questions to ask yourself: Does your budget reflect your content output?It’s natural for budgets to migrate toward the big, shiny objects in social media: those Tweets and posts that the whole world can see. But does your budget reflect how your company actually spends its time on social? Make sure there’s a good balance. Does your team embrace your brand’s voice with 1:1 communication?Quick-turn responses can be a tricky thing for any team to manage. People on the front lines need to make sure they are answering not only with the right information, but with the right tone and in your brand’s voice.Are you prepared to surprise and delight your customers?There’s a big difference between social customer service and social customer care. Truly elevate your 1:1 strategy by preparing for surprise and delight—which can sometimes start with a personal message, but spread to 1:many.

The social iceberg shows us that with all the questions around social media’s place in the marketing world, we

shouldn’t forget that social teams everywhere are leveraging this platform to devote the majority of their time to connecting with individuals, addressing concerns, and solving problems, at scale.

All Roads Lead to Social


Brands & Consumers #Dinner in America


Tracking Food Love State by StateWhen you want to spend your marketing dollars wisely and make sure your campaigns

truly speak your customers' language, you rely on market research. Whether you’re making

sure a new idea makes sense for the market or fixing past mistakes, market research has long been a reliable answer—but it's also pricey and time-consuming. Because of this,

market research is often a luxury afforded to only the biggest brand advertisers.

But thanks to social, marketers essentially have access to a full market research report at a moment’s notice. Lack of data is no longer a problem facing marketers—if anything,

it’s the inverse. So what kind of data is worth tracking to learn more about your target market? And how can social data help you unlock unexpected insights about, for example, geography and brand preference?

With these questions in mind, we set about analyzing data from branded hashtags across the United States. We chose to hone in on food, to see what regional differences exist. State by state, we aggregated the data: Where did

people love Braum’s? What about Dunkin Donuts? And most importantly: What can we learn from

these differences?


Whenever a photo is uploaded to Instagram there’s an option to include the photo’s location. This is a way for people to let their followers know exactly where to go if they want in on the pictured fun.

We wanted to find instances where a brand name was used as a hashtag. A branded hashtag is a strong signal of affinity because the user must manually type and consider the hashtag as they’re posting their perfectly filtered photo. Our dataset included 97 fast food or casual restaurant chains from all over the United States. We gathered photos from June 2015 through mid-January 2016, then analyzed only those that had geographic information—around half a million photos.

Methodology

Starbucks In-N-Out Shake Shack Cheesecake Factory

Dunkin Donuts

IHOP Krispy Kreme McDonalds Hooters Olive Garden

0

50

100

150

200

Most Instagrammed Restaurant Brands

Inst

agra

m P

ost

(tho

usan

ds)

* FULL BRAND LIST: Applebees, Arby’s, Au Bon Pain, Baskin Robbins, Ben & Jerry’s, Big Boy Burgers, Biscuitville, Bojangles Chicken, Bonefish Grill, Boston Market, Braum’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Burger King, Captain D’s, Carl’s Jr, Carrabas, Carvel, Charley’s, Cheddar’s, Cheesecake Factory, Chick-fil-A, Chili’s, Chipotle, Chuck E. Cheese’s, Church’s Chicken, CiCi’s Pizza, Cinnabon, California Pizza Kitchen, Cracker Barrel, Culver’s, Dairy Queen, Del Taco, Denny’s, Domino’s, Einstein Brother’s Bagels, El Pollo Loco, Famous Dave’s, Firehouse Subs, Five Guy’s Burgers, Friendly’s, Golden Corral, Graeter’s, Hardee’s, Hooters, IHOP, In-N-Out, Ivar’s, Jack In The Box, Jamba Juice, Jason’s Deli, Jersey Mike’s Subs, Jet’s Pizza, Jimmy John’s, KFC, Krispy Kreme, Krystal Burger, Little Ceasar’s, Logan’s Roadhouse, Long John Silver’s, Macaroni Grill, McDonald’s, Olive Garden, On The Border, Outback Steakhouse, P. Terry’s, Panda Express, Panera, Papa John’s, P.F. Chang’s, Pita Pit, Pizza Hut, Popeye’s, Qdoba, Quiznos, Red Lobster, Red Robin, Ruth’s Chris, Sbarro, Schlotsky’s, Shake Shack, Smash Burger, Sonic, Steak ‘n Shake, Subway, Taco Bell, Tasty Burger, Texas Roadhouse, TGIFriday’s, Umami Burger, Voodoo Donut, Waffle House, Wendy’s, Whataburger, White Castle, Zaxby’s


#Starbucks, perhaps as no surprise,

is in a league of its own. It’s used

6.4x more frequently than #Innout,

the next-most used hashtag, and on

the state level it was the most-used hashtag in every state except Vermont, which uses #benandjerrys the most.

This speaks to both the brand

strength of Starbucks and the nature

of Instagram. Instagrammers use the

network to curate a view into their life. It’s obvious that Starbucks has become a major part of many Americans’ daily lives—plus, who doesn’t enjoy a good cup of coffee?

To dive into regional differences we needed to exclude our outlier, Starbucks. Once we did this, a more robust picture of the United States emerged.

Starbucks


Our first finding was that the most popular brands aren’t necessarily those with the most physical locations. Looking closer, we can see Dunkin Donuts consuming the East Coast, and there’s both a Cracker Barrel belt and a

Krispy Kreme belt through the South. Meanwhile on the West Coast, In-N-Out is the only burger that matters.

The United States Does #Dinner

Excluding Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts is the top brand in eight states compared to Krispy Kreme’s four, but when you add the population of those states together it represents the same amount of Americans—about 10%.


In-N-Out has been a regional favorite in California since it was founded in the 1940s, but it has been expanding its footprint dramatically and its reputation is following. Shake Shack was established in 2004, but its youth only seems to

be working in its favor. This demonstrates that even in a saturated and mature market like dining, there is always room for a new brand to gain a share of

voice on a national level.

In-N-Out just barely edged out Shake Shack with the total number of photos tagged. Though each burger joint dominated in four states, considering population, In-N-Out is preferred by 16 percent of Americans, compared to

11 percent who nosh on Shake Shack.

There are several states where brands like Braum’s (Oklahoma) or Graeter’s Ice Cream (Ohio) are the most hashtagged. Many of these will be unknown if you’ve never visited these states, but local favorites have a tremendous advantage in this dataset. Many people in the area will have decades of associations with them or visitors will want to show the unique thing they’re doing while traveling or heading back home.

Shake Shack and In-N-Out

Smaller Brands


Rhode Island & Sonic

Rhode Island by Month Cumulative

June

Totla

Num

ber

of P

hoto

s

July August September NovemberOctober December January

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

180

160

140

Dunkin Donuts SonicBen & Jerry’s

When looking at a smaller state like Rhode Island, we were able to uncover the impact that an entry to a new market can have for a brand. We charted the cumulative usage of each hashtag in the state on a monthly basis. Yes, aside from Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts is overwhelmingly the most used hashtag in the state, but a new brand appears in October and becomes the second-most used during the time we were studying.

Sonic opened their first location within the state in October of 2015, and people trying out the midwestern fast food chain mentioned it frequently enough to rise above the other entrenched food choices in the state. So even if a brand isn’t new, its new arrival in a location could herald a change in branded hashtag sentiment and activity.


Social data is about so much more than hashtags. Marketers can add additional layers like the geography we focused on within this study to more finely hone their brand voice.

So how else can this type of brand research be applied—and done well? Spend Effectively:Tracking your brand's hashtag by location can help demonstrate the effectiveness of dedicated real world ad spend. These correlations can help your team decide where to allocate budget effectively for your next campaign.Learn The Language:Are you targeting a specific region of the United States on Instagram? When doing so, consider placing a regional favorite into your Instagram photo collages. If you’re aiming to relate to a specific geographic audience this can help identify brand associations that are more resonant than might initially be evident.Competitive Analysis:Why are your competitors being talked about more than you—and where? Not only can you find areas where your brand is stronger, but by looking at other commonly used hashtags for your competition, you can uncover what products you might need to reposition or improve to better compete.

Marketers can apply social data analysis like that explored above at any scale, thereby removing some of the advantages that used to only be enjoyed by the largest brands with the biggest budgets. Data is now democratized: in the past, a brand might’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to divine uplift from a billboard campaign, but now marketers can see campaign results in real time.

Making What's Neat into Something Concrete

Data is now democratized


Fan Activation Going Live with Social


Broadcast 2.0For as long as social teams have been around, they have carefully planned out content calendars and crafted polished messaging. But technology and trends

continually redefine the social space itself, and in 2015 a new category of

content came to marketers in the blink of an eye.

Live streaming, originally popularized when Meerkat launched at the SXSW interactive conference, had brands and agencies scratching their heads, wondering what the ability to broadcast live feeds meant for their content plans.

Has live streaming taken off, or just been a flash in the pan? And if this technology is here to stay, what are some best practices that marketers can leverage to make the most of the broadcasting side of social?


Here’s a quick breakdown of the most popular live streaming platforms and capabilities.

The Platforms

Periscope Available in a dedicated app, Periscope broadcasts to the public and integrates tightly with Twitter, Periscope’s parent company. There are private Periscope sessions available as well.

MeerkatThe first big live streaming app, Meerkat is still a major player. Videos can be shared through other social channels like Twitter or Facebook.

Facebook Live VideoVideos appear in the Facebook newsfeed to all friends of the broadcaster.

Videos can only be shared on Facebook.

Longevity:

Videos expire after 24 hours

Longevity:

Videos must be watched while live

Longevity:

Videos are saved to the brand’s “Video” section in Facebook like any other media.


We looked at Twitter data from March through December of 2015 to see how many livestreams were taking place, and how many different people were using the technology.

First, we looked at instances of Twitter users sharing Periscope links, month over month.

The growth was phenomenal and, more importantly, steady in its rise. The continual

increase of instances month over month (a +700% increase from March to December) indicates that this trend is carving out its place in our social lives.

In addition to live stream session growth throughout the year, we’re also seeing more unique users on the live platforms.

The data shows the number of users creating and sharing live streams tripled (+307%) from March to December 2015, with a fairly steady rise month over month.

The Rise of Live Streaming

Unique Users

doing Live Streams

INCREASED

307% in 2015

March April May June July August September October November December

Live Streams Shared on Social


What are some of the top brands in the world doing well on live streaming platforms? Let’s take a look at a few leaders across different industries.

The iconic pizza brand does live streams with behind-the-scenes looks at the kitchen and products.

Top Brands Live Streaming Today

Pizza Hut


ESPN leverages live streaming to expand the experience of its audience, allowing them to see what happens inside commercial breaks and after shows—a great way to turn social from a messaging platform into a

deeper viewer experience.

ESPN


MashableMashable leverages live streaming to conduct live Q&As with their audience on breaking tech topics.

Dallas Cowboys Hosting smaller, less formal events on live streaming platforms (like this Q&A with sports reporter Bryan Broaddus) helps engage the audience, allowing them to

have real interaction with topics central to the brand.


“The key to live streaming is be aware of the moments that people want to participate in. Celebrating on the volleyball court after our team won the National Championship was a no-brainer, and we saw more than 30,000 live Facebook viewers on the live stream celebrating along with us. Since that moment, hundreds of thousands more have watched the video. Knowing that your biggest audience is tuned in during the event, and being able to bring that audience into a post game content funnel is pretty huge. Live video is a great way to do that.” Kelly Mosier, Assistant AD of Digital Media for the Nebraska Huskers

University of Nebraska


With the rise of any new technology, it’s important for marketers to not only understand the capabilities

of the platform, but to use it in a way that is authentic to the brand.

Prep for Planned Spontaneity:Live streaming can capture great in-the-moment opportunities, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no planning involved. Make sure you have people ready to broadcast key moments to take advantage of every live opportunity.

Know the Platforms:Different live streaming platforms offer very different capabilities, especially around sharing content, so make sure you know which platform(s) you’re looking to target. A good place to start is to ask: which audience do we

want to stream to?

Your Downtime Has Now Become On-Air Time: Live streaming is a great way to show behind-the-scenes content that is less polished, but gives the audience more access than ever before. The audience loves content that adds to their experience but doesn’t seem too polished or rehearsed.

Hacking Hashtags

Here are three takeaways to get your team pointed in the right direction around live social broadcasts:

Now On-Air


Building RelevanceSocial Travel in Asia Pacific


How Social Takes Flight in Asia PacificEvery day, marketers are communicating directly with more people in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region than ever before. An explosion of mobile devices and accessibility throughout the region has made it possible for foreign and domestic social media

platforms to be adopted widely—and to deliver significant business value.

But the sheer variety of cultures and options in APAC can lead to paralysis when deciding where to allocate resources.

What types of strategies should be adopted to succeed? To find out, we took a look at the air travel industry within the region. By focusing our study on one industry, we can quickly summarize best practices and avoid getting bogged down in the volume of companies marketing in APAC.


Communicating at Home & AbroadNational airlines are well suited for our study because they are required to serve domestic travel needs, but they are also the most common choice for travelers visiting the nations where they are based. This means that airlines use different tools to reach domestic and international audiences.

The Right Network for the Right AudienceThe number of networks on which these Asian airlines have a social media presence is directly related to the countries they are seeking to operate in. For example, any airline seeking Chinese business is all but required

to have an active presence on WeChat, but if they are not focusing on China then there is little need to operate on the platform because it only dominates in that particular country. Typically, the carriers we studied have about three active social properties at any given time, but there are outliers. Air Asia, for example, had 10 active accounts across the six networks we analyzed.

We were also interested in the most commonly used languages. It goes without saying that the diversity across the region also makes it more challenging to communicate. Communications for these airlines are commonly in

English, but this isn't always the case. In China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Laos, and Thailand it’s best to invest in communicating regularly in the home country’s language. However, when responding to customer service needs, it’s still a best practice to reply to any question received in the language it’s asked in, even if the rest of the channel operates in a single language.

Let’s take a look at the social platforms and how airlines are using each in APAC.


Australia

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

Hong Kong

India

Pakistan

Indonesia

Japan

South Korea

Malaysia

New Zealand

Papua New Guinea

Philippines

Singapore

Thailand

Vietnam

Laos

Domestic Focus International Focus

Who Is Active Where?Each of the content examples we provided are representative of how the network can be leveraged to accomplish these goals. However, this is still a tremendous amount of information to take in. For quicker reference when considering a new network or country, this table can help determine if either is worth the effort. Use the table to quickly answer the following questions: Is a particular social network being used in a country or group of countries? And is it being used for domestic or international communications needs?

Facebook is the only network used by every airline we looked at, and two-thirds use the network with a primarily domestic focus.

All airlines active in China had a presence on both WeChat and Weibo, essential networks for the country.

Japan and Malaysia were the most social countries. Japan Airlines and Malaysia-based Air Asia had more active properties across more networks than all other airlines.

With this in mind let's walk through each of these networks and their typical use cases for the airlines:

We’re seeing a few key trends:


WeChat | Established 2010 | 650 Million Users

For any airline seeking to communicate

digitally with Chinese consumers, WeChat

is crucial. All of the airlines active on the platform provided the same range of services, including:

Point of Sale: Customers can easily book trips

within WeChat.

Special Offers: Official accounts are limited to four unsolicited messages per month to

subscribers. These airlines offer last-minute deals or credit card ads with this feature.

Flight Updates: Updates for any flight can be searched for directly from the application.

In this example, China Airlines offers the ability to book a trip directly within the application.


Line | Established 2011 | 400 Million Users

Line is unique in that each country has its

own regional setting within the application.

This means that if an official account is created in the Thailand region, it won’t be

visible when a user is searching for the same account in any other region. The airlines

adopted the following best practices:

Speak in Local Languages:Marketers can hone their focus in each individual country by leveraging multiple accounts wherever they are operating.

Offer Branded Stickers:Japan Airlines regularly provides limited-edition sticker packs to both new and

existing followers. Having more unique stickers gives Line users new ways to express themselves, and lets Japan Airlines have more opportunities for direct marketing.

Advertise Flash Sales:These are time-based offers that are

pushed directly to their followers, only

available via Line.

Japan Airlines offered a chance to win an international business-class ticket and used the popular Line emoji character, Cony the bunny, to help relate to their audience.


Travel Inspiration:Each of the airlines posted tantalizing photos of the carriers’ destinations to

convince travelers to consider those locations for their next trip.

People: Airlines frequently showcased their in-

flight crews and other service members to further humanize their brands.

Promotions: Occasionally the brands highlighted

specials to either bring people to

their home country or for inter-

regional travel.

Instagram | Established 2010 | 400 Million Users

Lao Airlines advertising a Thailand getaway.

Instagram was the second-most adopted platform by airlines within the region and was primarily used for domestic

communication needs. Imagery typically used by the airlines included:


Twi!er | Established 2006 | 320 Million Users

Airlines primarily used Twitter,

where they had some of

the largest audiences for a

single channel, for domestic

communications, including:

Customer Service: The airlines active on Twitter sent thousands of replies a year

to keep travelers up-to-date or resolve issues in real-time.

Special Offers: Airlines frequently offered

giveaways and limited-time special deals to their followers.

In-Flight-Service: To entice first-class passengers,

many airlines highlight their

unique, region-specific in-flight

food options.

Korean Air uses multiple languages in the countries they target—like French in this example.


Facebook | Established 2004 | 1,190 Million Users

It doesn’t matter where an airline is active throughout APAC: Facebook is key to all

of their communication strategies. Here’s what APAC airlines shared on Facebook:

Cultural Events: All of the airlines highlighted celebrations of

the Lunar New Year throughout the region—

and their own branded events around the holiday.

Travel Updates: Major weather updates that impact a large number of flights were proactively pushed out by airlines to help keep concerned

travelers ahead of potential snafus.

Customer Service: Each airline either answered customer

questions directly on their page or via Facebook Messenger.

Garuda Indonesia frequently communicates directly to their followers in Indonesian. Here, they are celebrating the Lunar New Year.


Weibo | Established 2009 | 198 Million Users

To Give Travel Recommendations: Weibo has an abbreviated and conversational post structure, which airlines used to share local highlights

for destination cities.

To Match Network Personality: Airlines weren’t afraid to use Weibo’s

animated emojis and speak in the context of the network. By using the

network in a casual and friendly way

their posts more readily fit the norms of the platform.

To Amplify Users:Frequently brands shared posts

from their followers with additional

commentary, showing their customers

they are heard and deepening

connections with their most

enthusiastic travelers.

In this example, China Airlines shared a positive experience a tourist had while visiting Los Angeles.

Like WeChat, this microblogging platform is focused entirely on the Chinese market. Five of the 18 carriers we studied used Weibo as part of their communication strategy. Here’s how airlines used the network:


Marketing in APAC presents an enormous opportunity– 60% of the world’s population lives there. Each of the airlines we studied have found winning communication strategies across the region.

A few things to keep in mind for developing or expanding your APAC strategy:

Set Goals: By defining the goals of your brand’s communications strategy, selecting the right social network in the right country becomes a less daunting task, and your marketing and customer care teams can then define realistic, achievable goals.

Examine Team Makeup: Depending on the strategy employed, you might not need a team that can speak every language in the region. If all communications can take place in one language, the available hiring pool of qualified candidates widens. Conversely, knowing which markets and languages you plan to enter might dictate and narrow eligibility.

Research Thoroughly: The social market has matured past the point where failure counts as experimentation. By combing through

one industry, we were able to find patterns that could inform campaigns and strategic decisions. Build time and resources into your budget to do the same before expanding internationally.

Lead By Example: Marketing teams that have had success in the region should consider adding new networks or experimenting with new communication techniques. This will help keep your audience engaged and your team ahead of the curve if any new networks gain significant traction.

APAC: Next Steps

More Opportunity Than Ever Before


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