Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

The (Social Media) Marketing Trends You Need to Understand Today [Matt Navarra Interview]

January 02, 2019 Neal Schaffer Episode 136
Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer
The (Social Media) Marketing Trends You Need to Understand Today [Matt Navarra Interview]
Show Notes Transcript

Social media keeps changing. It seems that every few weeks you hear that Facebook has some new algorithm that messes up all the energy you’ve been putting into it. Then a new feature appears and everyone tells you how amazing it is for branding and marketing. And then it turns out that it’s not as amazing as everyone says (remember Periscope?). How do we keep track of the social media marketing trends? How do we adapt? How do make sure to stay atop of the ever-flowing changes but at the same time never waste too much energy on them either? Today I interview an expert to help you answer all those questions about social media marketing trends. During my recent trip around the world, I was able to go to the Falcon.io "Spark" conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where I finally had a chance to meet up with someone I've known and respected in social media for quite some time: Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former social media director for the The Next Web as well as consultant to organizations such as the United Nations and BBC. In this interview I talk with Matt about what has happened to social media in the past 12 months and what’s next for the future with regards to social media marketing trends. Should businesses continue experimenting with Facebook? How can brands make use of both Instagram and Facebook Stories? What is the next big thing? Listen to find out!

Key Highlights

[01:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Matt Navarra

[02:47] Areas Where Matt Is Shifting Focus On

[03:48] Is Facebook Underutilized By Brands?

[05:08] How Matt Helps Brands Create Visual Content Strategy Around Stories

[06:39] Tools That Matt Recommends

[08:27] The Instagram Swipe Up Feature and Facebook Stories

[11:33] Matt's Take on Pinterest

[13:35] Trends That Brands Should Be Focusing Now

[18:57] Matt's Advice on Creating Strategy

[20:35] Final Thoughts

[22:00] Connect With Matt

Notable Quotes

  • So the big thing that most people are talking about at the moment is really moving away more than ever, from focusing on Facebook pages, and also post pages and profiles in general. And it's that trend of people wanting to understand the value and how to leverage the value from stories as a format, which is not new, per see.
  • Well, the first thing is that, you know, there's you don't always have to do all yourself and sometimes I think brands and both small and large organizations try and do everything themselves.
  • I think that some of the best stuff that's created is often the simplest, and the little things that look more most authentic. It's not a medium that needs to be polished, I think the more polished it is, the less authentic it becomes. And that's when it kind of loses its value.
  • It all comes down ultimately to how creative you've been in kind of steering people towards swipe up, also giving them a reason or inner motivation, a desire to want to see what it is that you needed to do to take that next action. So it's really it's the classic stuff back to marketing is creating the desire, making it easy to do, giving them something that they can't get somewhere else, all of that stuff and making the call to action

Learn More:

spk_0:   0:00
What's up, Les? Go! Welcome to the Maximize your social podcast. Follow me. Discover the latest social media marketing techniques from the world's leading experts from top to bottom, this is the podcast where business professionals come together to master social media without all the confusing mumbo jumbo with no further ado. Turn it out. Here's your host, the one and only Neil Shaper. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another exciting episode of Maximize your Social. As you know, from my recent podcasts on my instagram What have you I was recently traveling around the world and at the falcon dot io spark conference I had the chance this was in Copenhagen, Denmark, my way. I have a chance to meet someone that I have been engaged in within social media for several years and finally had a chance to meet this incredible person in person but intended you know, I thought he he is such an amazing resource of information. He is a social media consultant similar to who I am and has been in the space as long as I've been. Some of you may know him because he used to be director social over at the next Web not Navarra. Welcome to the podcast. I am gonna have you further introduce yourself for the audience. And today we're gonna talk about now. I recently had a blood count. How fresh is your content? So this is going to be a little bit dated because it's the end of 2018 right? We're literally, you know, a week and 1/2 away from Christmas. But what we talk about now, even if you're listening to a year or two from now, I think we're gonna be talking about some trends and changes that are going to be important for you to know well into the future. So advice for 2019. But it's advice for 2019 and beyond. So without further ado, Matt, welcome to the podcast. Please introduce yourself.

spk_1:   1:48
My name is Matt Navarro's, you said, And I'm I used to work for the next one is a director of Social. I was involved in heavily in creating social strategy for the editorial team and our big event that we run every year which has 20,000 people that come to in Amsterdam on Prior to that, I used to be social sort management really in strategy for the UK government in the Cabinet office and various other departments. But now I am a social media consultant, and I work with the United Nations, BBC various other kind of big brands you may recognize on get to go to some great events and meet people. I kneel

spk_0:   2:21
well, said Matt. It was a pleasure, Uh, pleasure getting to know you as well, although at the after after party we sort of got separated. But anyway, we'll get caught up next time. So Matt, let's first begin. We're at the end of 2018 you know, Let's wrap up the year What? What did you see when you work with your clients? Were the areas that you found It found yourself sort of shifting focus on over the last 12 months.

spk_1:   2:47
So the big thing that most people are talking about the moment is really moving away. More than ever from focusing on Facebook pages, Onda also pages and profiles in general, and it's that trend of people wanting to understand the value on how to leverage the value form stories is a format which is not new per se. As we know it's been around for some time now, but the format has grown in in creative options. Andi ways that people can use it for both businesses and for themselves individually. So a lot of questions from clients for me has been around but around stories area on. Also, I try to understand what is the value in using Facebook pages with this shift towards stories from from them as an organization with all of their wraps, you

spk_0:   3:30
bring up really, really interesting point to talk about witches story. So do you feel, you know, looking at the broad landscape of brands are out there, including your clients. But I'm gonna guess that still stories, especially Facebook, is still extremely under utilized by branches. That a A correct, Yeah, I think

spk_1:   3:49
that people are still sort treading carefully with how they use stories on Facebook and not wanting to maybe invest heavily in it on the basis that notoriously Facebook has been unreliable in terms of removing or adding features and getting you to kind of engage and create stuff for something that then suddenly they don't realize, don't think works anymore. What I don't want to do it anymore. I think that's part of it. I think also that there's a bit of the lack of understanding of whether there's a difference between Instagram stories and Facebook stories and if you should be doing the same thing on birth or different on how they're different. So there's confusion there as well. But I think you'll see probably, I think, in the early part of 2019 an increasing number of brands starting Thio really jump into to the Facebook stories as much as anywhere else.

spk_0:   4:33
So let's get into sort of the nuts and bolts of stories. So, you know, I think that brand still struggle with what I call visual voice or visually representing themselves, especially on a platform like Instagram. And I think that story's obviously requires a heck of a lot more creativity and, ah, well refined way of how do you want a visually represent your brand? So, you know, I consider stories. The absolute was challenging type of medium for brands. How do you help brands tackle? You know, creating a visual content strategy around stories and actually building out that content

spk_1:   5:08
well, the first thing is that you don't always have to do it all yourself. And sometimes I think brands and both small and large organizations try and do everything themselves on and hope that their social team have the skills and also the creative ideas to do it themselves on their own. There's huge numbers of people set up just to create content, whether it is because they're an influencer and their content creator that does this with lots of brands or is with through an agency. So I always saw check to see, you know, who were they using to create their content and where that kind of sorts skills deficit is all the creativity gap is. I think that the other thing with stories is a bit like saying it. They can be such a wide range of creative options with them. It's sometimes could be parent paralyzing in terms of what to do next with it. But actually, most of the tools for a story creation, particularly with with instagram stories, is pretty straightforward. Once you get an understanding of how to best use them, they're quite so easy to kind of play around with Andi. I think that's Ah, some of the best stuff that's created is often the simplest and the things that Maur most authentic. It's not a medium that needs to be polished. I think the more polished it is, the less authentic it becomes. And that's when it kind of loses its value.

spk_0:   6:20
Yeah, well, said any Ah, and I told the Agree that, you know, keep it simple, you know, think like a average social media user would think, and you can still create a compelling story. But that being said, you know, you look into the APP store and you start seeing all these tools that say, You know, we will help you create instagram stories. Are there any specific tools that you recommend or do you think really through instagram? You know, through Facebook, it can all be created a well natively

spk_1:   6:47
well, if there are hundreds and hundreds of video image editing APS both on desktop and on your phone. But but I think from for most brands issue may be excluded the moment like the larger you know, Nikes of the world and the companies that have huge resources. But you, your everyday smaller, medium sized companies it can perfectly cope with the native tools are available to or just any you saw general editing out because most of things you want to do is capture what's going on on and then create something either on desktops still finesse it and polish it or two. Then use the features that were within within instagram itself. S O. I don't think it requires specific outs. I think the thing that sometimes is most use for beyond just the creation aspect of it, is the analytic side of things. And that's one area that I've always felt that instagram stories and other platforms lack a really good analytics dashboard for user's natively. And so there's several products like Del Mondo is one that comes to mind on. I think even that about two or three others that are out there that haven't very deep Social Analytics product for for stories. So I and that's the thing. You know, you could spend ages creating something, but does it actually work? Does it actually encapsulate? What you're trying to do is the brand and what your audience wants to engage with So analytics are as important as the creation aspect of it.

spk_0:   8:01
Sure, sure Well said Final note. For those of you that don't know. Mac, can you talk about swipe up feature in instagram stories and Facebook stories and sort of minimum requirements that brands need in order to be able to get access to that? It's something I still get asked about it, and I'm sure some of that brands and look for the Arli, obviously, the looking impressions. But another thing that you look out I'm assuming, depending on the campaign, are click. So you wantto, you know, give a little brief overview of that.

spk_1:   8:27
Well, the moment the swipe up on Facebook stories is very much luck. If you got it because it's only available to some people, it's, I think it's not many. There's still testing it. I can't see it be long before everybody gets the ability, or there'll be a criteria that will be rolled out for everyone to potentially have access to the Link feature. It works slightly differently, but effectively, it's the same sort of idea with Facebook stories with the instagrams of stories is you have to have either you're verified profile or your A converted to a business profile that I think you have over 10,000 followers before you can actually use swipe up. I need to just check that. I'm pretty sure it is 10,000 for business accounts only.

spk_0:   9:05
Yeah, no, I'm of the same understanding based on I'm just curious. Based on campaigns, I have a personal account, by the way. That's not verified. And I get the shift to a business account for various reasons. So I do not have access. That's why, but feature. But based on you know, brands that you've worked with, have you seen really, really positive numbers in terms off percentage of fans or of impressions that actually swiped up and went and did an action?

spk_1:   9:31
Yeah, I think you know, if you're trying to generate instagram stories as a traffic driver. And four publishers are notoriously desperate to kind of pull people back to their sites for for ad revenue from content they've created on. From that point of view, it's two grams stories and stories. Format isn't really geared towards publisher traffic, but in terms of brands and creating an action off of the back of whether it's selling sneakers or whether it's getting them to view other pieces of content you've done. It's as successful, if not more so, than many other formats that you can use. It all comes down ultimately to how creative you've been in kind of steering people towards swipe up, also giving them a reason in a motivation of desire, to want to see what it is that you needed to do to take that next action. So it's really is the classic stuff back to you. To marketing is creating the desire, making it easy to do, giving them something that he can get somewhere else, all of that stuff and making the call to action, you know, really enticing. But, yeah, many of the brands I've worked with many case studies you can easily find if you look up online, where swipe up is very effective. And I think one of the things we're talking about with things happening next year that will might change. How people use wipe up is that fake? No. Instagram is building in the e commerce. Can shopping functionality within the product within the app more natively. So a lot of the time in the moment it's wipe up to view the product elsewhere and buy something whatever. Now it's gonna be much more within the platform within the product of Instagram's app itself. And I think that's gonna make a significant positive impact for many brands.

spk_0:   11:03
Indeed, indeed. So let's now shift to 2019. And obviously this trend of stories and of shifting away from the traditional you know, Facebook page posts because of the lack of visibility, I'm sure, is only gonna continuing and accelerate. Let's start from the opposite. So obviously we've all pulled the plug on Google Plus. And if you were smart, you would have pulled the plug, probably a year or two ago, because it really didn't have that. That that you know, that community that it had in 30 days. What's your take up interest? I'm curious because obviously, Pinterest is trying to make itself more relevant. They've opened up there a piano influence or marketing platforms. Do you see that going anywhere in 2019? Or is it still platform that you stay away from? To

spk_1:   11:46
be fair and I'm completely honest, it's a platform that I do very little with, both personally and professionally full for clients. And that's most probably linked, partly because my clients tend to be media publishers with some of the smaller startups that I worked with us. Well, I know from speaking to a fellow freelances and digital experts who worked with many other brands that Pinterest and can be extremely powerful, Bond very useful in terms of their particular products. You know, if they've got quite a lot of inventory, would have got a lot of things. They can show what they've got. Great content, which they can all put together because, you know, interest Main selling point is that ability to create in themed boards around topics or products or or interests in things on. There isn't many sort of platforms that have such a similar functionality. I think Facebook is so taken away, some of the best bits of it and integrated into some of it saps, but it does have its place to pay. But in all honesty, from from my experience, I haven't got a huge amount of people asking me about it

spk_0:   12:40
yet, and I'm not surprised. I think the other thing for those of you couldn't figure it out. Obviously, Mad is based in the UK You should have known that the accent and Pinterest is one of these social networks that really is still America centric. It really has not gained the popularity outside of the United States like other social networking app. So I think that's another difference that we see. So, yeah, I mean, Pinterest is not top of mind for most social media. Market is here in the United States as well. It's just interesting. They're they're recent push to try to make themselves more relevant. But I guess if you're listening, you'll have to experiment. Find what's what's right for your brand. I know that at times Pinterest, I mean still generates traffic for my media site Max of my social business. So it's always sort of out there as you know something. I should be investing more time, less time. And I'm sure a lot of our listeners are thinking, but no clear answer there. You'll have to you have to keep experimenting, see how it changes. But let's let's move on to the the major networks. Obviously, looking ahead to 2019 what are some of the you know, two or three leading friends that you see that brand should be focusing on now for the next year? Well, things

spk_1:   13:44
that are improving that I've been waiting to see get better, and they make it easier for brands to play around with these things through messaging on one of the big shifts in how people are using social media in the last 18 months and I think it's gonna be accelerated in the next year or two is the use of private sharing and groups. And so what we're noticing with Facebook, particularly being the dominant player in the market, is that they're really trying to focus people's attentions thio their messaging app solutions. Why you may have noticed that products to do with what's happened and messenger had a lot more functionality added on. There's been a redesign of messenger recently, and they've opened up and added functionality around its messaging capability for businesses for both. What's up for business on the messenger with business functionality as well? On the reason the party's changes going on that I should explain his context, really, is that people have come up to the point now where they want shift. They're sharing of public stuff to somewhere where it's more private secure. So part of the reason why social media sharing behaviors are changing is that I think people are more aware and conscious off the implications off they're sharing and who's seeing and privacy concerns on Also, I don't think that people feel the need anymore to share so much in their lives. I think the novelty of that from the early parts off when social Media came on is disappeared, so we're seeing huge growth in those things. But it provides a very unique challenge to businesses and brands, because if people not sharing out some of the stuff you're doing in a public place where they can analyze what people are interested in, or how much of their content is being discussed and used, then it makes putting into private groups. Then you have a really big challenge of, like dark socialists. What are people doing and how they using and how successful is your campaign been? And then you need to start thinking about how you going to create brand ambassadors or evangelist for your brand that you may not see at work. But these influential, sometimes micro influential people are going into these private groups and sharing content into them on, so I think we'll start seeing a lot more next year around the messaging gaps and and a lot more of a shift away to worrying about pages and Facebook pages.

spk_0:   15:50
So this is a classic example of there's really no business product available. I mean limited business box available when I compare a Facebook messenger. What's up with a wee chat in China or lion in Japan? I know that that's not your your focus of expertise, but I agree 100% that that we see the user shift, obviously. But I think that we're going to see more, more business, functionality added, because I think that Facebook is very aware of what's happening. These Asian APS that really have brought messenger on everything all together and are offering businesses various service is to be able to engage with people through those those private messaging app. So I think it's gonna be an exciting year. But yeah, just understanding that paradigm shift is important for brands, and it's, I know, very frustrating right when people are spending less and less time in the public areas and more more private messaging brands or sort of you know, that they're outside that very, very hard to get involved. So that's gonna continue to be a challenge. I love your idea of using ambassadors, and I'm a big fan of influence of market per se, but trying to use other people thio help influence those groups. So messaging, What else do you see on the horizon for brands? I think also,

spk_1:   17:03
we've seen this big rise in the last 12 months, particularly this year. Invoice assistance that Google assistant on Alexa. And and that's got kind of unknown quantity of potential, I guess, for brands and businesses and publishers, because there is a very unique and specific medium being voice and also the smart element, you have to start to think much more creatively again around. How can you use that as a as a brand as a business? Because it's not something where people can kind of their our website and the naked click through and read something. So I think it'd be interesting to see how it plays out in terms off how brands will integrate on any form of advertising or social outreach using products like Google assistant Andi, whether there's any way for them to monetize it, cause I know that publishers are now trying to put ad breaks within, like, audio podcast kind of material on assistance and making it easier for you to subscribe to get information. Things that I could imagine going on You could see Brand say, I don't know walmart or something where if you're a WalMart customer, new kind of sync up to some of your smart devices in the low on certain products, we've got a shopping list you've created and you've said, Hey, Google, you remind me to get milk, whatever that it will connect through to your Wal Mart account. And then you can say I need to get some and it'll maybe when you walk in from from work one day Hey, you need this, you need that. Do you want to order it? Yes, please Google that great and it orders the product and how those integrations with those brands, both big and small will will play out in the next 12 to 18 months.

spk_0:   18:29
So if you're a brand listening his podcast and you want to get obviously this is something that that that is still talk still being developed. But without a doubt, I agree that that's sort of the next frontier of advertising. How do you get involved? Is it a matter of contacting people? Google contacting people in Amazon contacted people at Apple. I mean, are there companies that specialize in? Not what is your advice for? For companies that want to sort of, you know, start creating a strategy around those changes in the future?

spk_1:   18:57
Well, here is some of it's pretty obvious stuff, you know. It's really what wide reading around the the industry press. You know, I'm a big follower of DJ Day. You know, I read things like Tech, tech crunch right the way through to kind of the tech in parts of mainstream newspapers as well. So that's always a good place to keep on top of what other people are doing. And also advertising and marketing. Trade press is pretty interesting to see because you'll see Brand's doing Things are the cutting edge of tech. So that's one thing in terms of, ah, using it, the products. That also helps because some of the things that I just realized I only realized because I'm using them every day, not because I'm getting tipped off or got a special sources. I'll be suddenly listening to something in them that I didn't realize that could do that, or people are allowed to do that on that platform. So that's another part of it. On then. Also exploring different site product sites and assumes you start digging into the world of kind of Google Onda products like forums and communities that they have and test the group's. You're suddenly quite quickly discover the various pieces of locations on their sites where you can sign up to test things. Or you can get involved with partnership management, with the different companies making the public's view to then use them yourselves for you, for your brand.

spk_0:   20:11
Interesting. That's great advice, Thank you very much. We'll match for listeners. You know that. I like to try to keep these podcasts short and sweet, although, like in Copenhagen Mountain, I could probably talk about the future of social media. We could spend hours, but we do want to keep this short and sweet Matt any any final thought or theme that you want to touch upon that we haven't shouted about yet that you want to make sure our listeners are are aware of the next world mass. There anything

spk_1:   20:35
that really excites me, and I think maybe with next year's too far away, this will make for interesting Looking back on in two years time if anyone listens, this broadcast is really where they are and V are going. And I think it's for a long time people have hoped or thought that v. R. Was gonna be the big thing. And it was gonna be a big game change of for both how people interact with each other but also how brands communicate with with the potential customers and things on. What we've seen so far is that V are still seems to be the preserve off the ultra geeky type of people like me. I guess Andi costs of pretty inhibited the content created. The room's quite so small, but they are really is the place where it's getting more interesting and exciting. Now we've we've already seen APS wary. They've actually started become useful where your phone can actually measure something for years. The measuring table. You can use Google maps, and it'll overlay a directional arrow in front of the kind of place where you're walking on top of the actual video footage using the camera of your of your device. And so I think for the next year a R is something that'll grow in interest in use a particular Facebook who have a our ads, which are now available to some brands. It's a question of whether that's the stepping stone to V L. I think maybe next year be too early for veal to to go places yet

spk_0:   21:48
Interesting. Always a buzzword s o. Thanks for Chai Ming in. And Matt, Um, thank you so much for, you know, investing 20 minutes of your time in this podcast. I know that our listeners are very appreciative of it. Finally, how can artist layers you find you find out more about you?

spk_1:   22:04
Best place to find me is where I hang out most of the time and that is on Twitter. So I'm at Matt Navarro on Twitter. Or if you go on Facebook and you search for the social media geek out, you'll find a Facebook group called the Social Media geek out. And that's where I have ah gang of people just like me. If this is your thing

spk_0:   22:20
awesome. Yeah, I need to remind myself to get back into your group. So thanks for that reminder. Matt, Thanks again. I hope you all enjoy this podcast. You know, we're at the end of the year. We look for the next year, and Matt is one of these few people that's really at really has his finger on the poles of the cutting edge. Not just a social, but of of marketing, of technology, of business. So I do hope that you will seek him out and, you know, listen to listen to what he says and and follow his advice as I do as well. So, everybody. It's been a great 2018. I looked for more great podcasts next year. I don't know if that's gonna be my last one for this year, but I'm sort of in the end of the year mood. But there you have it. Let's start planning for next year. Let's do some great things next year in social, media and marketing business, and thank you again for listening. Final notes where we are in the world. Make it a great social day. Bye bye, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Maximize our social podcast. Make sure kids don't forget to subscribe. Rate the show on iTunes so others can enjoy it to somebody to continue the conversation and empower your business, Your social media. Visit meals safer dot com right now. Have a great week. Let's go. We'll see you on the next episode.