Day 2 at Social Media Marketing World 2017: Social media takes teamwork

ICYMI: Here’s a glimpse we shared about how this event came to be, and here’s our Day 1 recap.

On the surface, the agenda for Day 2 here at Social Media Marketing World 2017 shimmered with the individual rockstars of social media marketing.

Just take a look at the following three speakers, and then consider that their sessions all took place on the same day:

• Mike Stelzner, who founded Social Media Examiner and is the mastermind behind why this event exists in the first place;
• Mari Smith, deemed the “Queen of Facebook,” who is the source when it comes to all things Facebook;
• and Jay Baer, the industry’s leading consultant and speaker on the intersection of social media and customer service.

But teamwork was a common theme that ran through all of their sessions—teamwork helped them rise to industry superstardom and, as they all made clear, it is teamwork that fuels social media marketing success.

Here are the key takeaways from their sessions:

Social Media Marketing in 2017: What the Newest Research Reveals

Mike Stelzner entered to applause fitting for the founder of this incredible event, and then delivered an inspiring, no-punches-pulled look into the future of social media.

Made clear by Stelzner, and the research he cited, Facebook is still the king of social media and is doing plenty to ensure it maintains this status for years to come. Facebook Live is on fire, and is suffocating any potential competitors, while Instagram (owned by Facebook) continues to grow and is now the 2nd most widely used social media platform in the world.

Alongside this, however, Stelzner addressed every digital marketer’s pain point with Facebook: engagement has plummeted in the last two years. The reason? Because Facebook changed its algorithm and:

There was a time when what you posted on your page was actually seen by people who liked your page. This isn’t the case anymore, and Stelzner highlighted his point by showing Social Media Examiner’s own data:

There were many takeaways, but here’s what stood out to me:

• Facebook Live and Facebook Messenger are the future and, in some ways, the former is a throwback to those days when your fans actually saw your posts.
• “Instagram is on fire” and Instagram Stories is significantly driving its massive success.
• Only 7% of businesses with a Facebook Page (there are 60 million) are advertising on Facebook. This is likely to rise.

How to Improve Your Facebook Marketing ROI

From what I’ve watched in interviews and in her Facebook Live videos, Mari Smith has one of those electric personalities capable of engaging an audience on just about anything. Today, as I watched from the front row, I realized this personality is magnified tenfold when seeing her in person.

In addition to many other topics, Mari had the audience most engaged when she talked about what few people in the room knew existed—this ability on Facebook Live to be watching a video, click on something in the video, and make the purchase of the product (selecting your size, the color, etc.) all while still watching the video.

Mari stays at the forefront of the industry by, as the example above, knowing what’s happening now and what’s next, actually using it for her audience, and wrapping all of this into a kind of heart-based marketing. So while the wonky-sounding session title may have had some in attendance prepared for a purely deep-dive into analytics—I can’t imagine a better glimpse into both ROI and the basics of how to be engaging on Facebook.

The information in this slide certainly fused a bit of both:

Here are a few of Mari’s key points on Facebook marketing ROI:

• Start using Facebook Live
• Create “thumb-stopping” square content that consistently engages your niche.
• Radically care about and work to engage with all of your customers and potential customers.

How to Staff Your Social Media Team in a Changing Marketplace

With Jay Baer serving as moderator, this panel—consisting of (from left to right) Alison J. Herzog, Director of Global Social Business at Dell; Beverly Jackson, Vice President of Social Media and Content Strategy at MGM Resorts International; and Erica Campbell Byrum, Director of Social Media at ForRent.com—was a practical look into how to find the right talent and how to build out an entire social media team from scratch.

Here are a few of their collective points:

• When building a social media team, map out the entire architectural structure of needs and what kind of talent you’ll need to fill each role;
• Just because everyone is on social, doesn’t mean they “get social.” The best social media hires are those that know how social media impacts the business, and know the importance of being able to respond under the worst of circumstances;
• Think about starting a social media training program in your company, so that new hires to the team can quickly get caught up on what they need to know and why;
• Hire people who have intellectual curiosity, an understanding of human psychology, and hunger to succeed—rather than just those who understand certain social media platforms.

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That’s a wrap! Stay tuned for our thoughts on Day 3, the final day of Social Media Marketing World 2017.