SOCi,
the leader in social media and reputation management for multi-location
brands, today released its Q1 State of the Market Report, Localized
Social Marketing: The Value of Organic AND Paid Social Content which
showcases key trends in social content distribution and engagement
between Q4 2018 and Q1 2019. The report also explores how brands are
using social marketing to grow as well as best practices for executing a
localized social strategy.
Now more than ever, localized social marketing has a major impact on
driving consumer behavior– according to Social
Media Today, 78% of purchase decisions are influenced by social
content and over 75% of the brand engagement on social is happening at
the local page level. As a result, a locally focused social media
strategy is key in expanding the reach of a brand and creating genuine
connections to an engaged base of local consumers.
According to the report, local ratings & reviews have become essential
components of localized social marketing impacting search results and a
business’ digital visibility and presence. In fact, ratings and reviews
are now a major factor in the consumer purchase decision. Consumers
continue to review businesses on platforms like Yelp and Google My
Business (GMB), but are increasingly posting recommendations and reviews
on social networks like Facebook — blurring the lines between
traditional review sites and social media platforms.
“While Google My Business (GMB) and Facebook are still the top platforms
in terms of the total volume of reviews, other review sites like Yelp,
OpenTable, TripAdvisor, and Expedia have made significant jumps from Q4
to Q1,” said Monica Ho, CMO, SOCi. “The growth in these networks in just
the last quarter emphasizes the need for multi-location marketers to not
only be aware of but actively managing any and all review platforms
where consumers are actively engaging.”
Outside of the growth in the sheer volume of reviews, the report
findings also highlight a decline in brands average star ratings as well
as the time it takes for brands to respond to reviews. From Q4 to Q1 the
overall average star rating across top review sites dropped 0.19 points,
from 3.98 to 3.79 – however, should be noted that brands on average are
still maintaining a score above the minimum expected star rating of 3.5.
In the same timeframe, multi-location brands have gotten better at
engaging with customers in a timely manner but still falling short of
the desired
24-hour response time. The overall response time across all
platforms decreased from 11.72 days in Q4 2018 to just 8.61 days in Q1
2019.
In terms of social engagements, the report found that Facebook is still
king with 14x more activity than all other networks combined. In fact,
in the last quarter, alone marketers have made a shift towards focusing
on high-value engagements, such as comments, shares and direct messages,
instead of low-value engagements, such as likes and other reactions. Why
should marketers take note of this? An analysis conducted by SOCi shows
that an increase in high-value engagements with your local community
leads to an increase in reach for your organic posts. The report found
that organic reach can be as low as < 1% of page followers, but as high
as 10% if posts get high-value engagement from followers. The report
shows a 214% increase in high-value engagements from Q4 2018 to Q1 2019,
showing the power of creating highly relevant local content to engage
with consumers in a meaningful way.
For those marketers who are effective at creating meaningful content for
their communities but are looking for increased reach and engagement ,
the report highlights social boosting as one of the most efficient and
effective ways to get more out of the social content that is already
created for just pennies on the dollar driving over 2000%+ lift in
impressions, 600% lift in post shares and over 500% lift in post
comments vs. just your organic post reach alone.
Overall the latest report findings showcase the ever-evolving state of
localized social marketing and the need for marketers to keep abreast of
the trends in order to stay competitive.
To learn more about how multi-location businesses can leverage Localized
Social Marketing to make a greater impact with today’s locally-minded
audiences, click here
to download a copy of SOCi’s Q1 State of the Market Report,
Localized Social Marketing: The value of Organic AND Paid Social Content.
About SOCi
#60 on the 2018 Inc.
5000 list of the fastest growing companies in America, SOCi is the
leading social media and reputation management platform built to address
the complex needs of highly visible Multi-Location businesses. An
award-winning leader in the industry, SOCi has pioneered more than a
dozen unique marketing tools to help multi-location brands oversee,
maintain, and protect their brand at the national level, while
simultaneously scaling presence across hundreds, sometimes thousands, of
local pages. For more information on how SOCi can fuel the success of
your social media channels while protecting what matters most–your
online reputation–visit www.meetsoci.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190530005184/en/