Why Personalization is the Next Big Opportunity in Social Media Marketing

Social media marketers are always looking to uncover the “next big thing”, and as we head into 2019 personalized social media engagement is becoming the latest must-have strategy for businesses of all sizes.

According to recent Epsilon research, 80 percent of consumers are more likely to do business with a company if it offers a personalized experience.

And this applies to social media too. Today’s social media users want to interact with brands on a personal level and be treated as individuals.

But how exactly do you go about creating personalized social media experiences?

Look no further than Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants. Kimpton truly understands the importance of personalization on social media and has built a team that’s focused on delivering “ridiculously personal experiences” to customers both online and offline.

How Kimpton provides personalized social media experiences for customers

Director of Social Media at Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, Whitney Reynolds has spearheaded its shift towards a more personalized social media strategy and Kimpton now uses social media as a way to provide surprise and delight to everyone the business interacts with.

“At Kimpton, we believe that heartfelt, human connections make people’s lives better. That’s why we go out of our way to create what we call ‘ridiculously personal experiences’ both on property and online.”– Whitney Reynolds, Director of Social Media, Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants

For example, when one customer tweeted about the great in-person experience they’d received at a Kimpton hotel in Nashville, its social team continued that experience by sharing an additional recommendation to enhance the customer’s stay:

The Kimpton social media team is also keen to ensure that these one-off, in-the-moment interactions aren’t lost:

“We ask a lot of conversational questions so that we get to know more about each guest every time [we interact on social media], and we use a social CRM to make note of the interesting things that we want to remember about you.”

So if you were to share that you love pugs, have four kids, or fundraise for a particular nonprofit, Kimpton will make a note of it ready for your next conversation.

“We treasure this information,” Whitney said. “It means we don’t have to start from scratch with every conversation on social. We’re picking up with our followers where we left off.”

The importance of human-to-human interactions

While technology plays a part behind-the-scenes, Kimpton’s social media personalization strategy is powered by humans — and Whitney sees the team as the most important part of this strategy.

Kimpton’s social media engagement is handled by its Social Listening Desk, a team that responds to social chatter 24/7/365 across all its social channels.

“We hire for heart. Technical writing skills and knowledge of social platforms are important, but the most essential qualities we look for in a Social Listening Desk team member are empathy, heart and a sense of humor.”

“For our social media team, it’s really about finding the right people from the start – the ones who innately go out of their way to connect with each person, and get a real kick out of doing it.”

The Social Listening Desk team are also encouraged to go out of their way to make people feel special in each message:

“If there’s an opportunity to make someone’s day by really personalizing an interaction, our Listening Desk is empowered to act on it. We even have a mechanism for surprising and delighting our followers that anyone on our social team can activate as they see fit.”

How user-generated content can enhance the personalized experience

As a business that puts so much focus on its customers, user-generated content also has a huge role to play in Kimpton’s strategy — both across social media and its website.

“We’re fortunate to have hundreds of beautiful guest photos coming in via hashtags, geo-tags, and mentions each day from our 148 hotels and restaurants,” Whitney explained.  “We love that, often, a guest’s first instinct is to pull out their camera phone and post a picture of their experience to Instagram or Twitter, and we don’t take it for granted.”

To encourage more sharing, and reward those customers who do share their Kimpton experiences on social media, the Social Listening Desk team will ‘Like’ posts featuring their hotels and restaurants.

But to take things a step further, Whitney encourages the team to comment on guests’ photos to thank them for posting, often calling out a specific detail of the photo that they loved. And sometimes, they’ll ask to repost their favorite content:

Kimpton also features social content and guest photos on hotel and restaurant websites as well as having dedication pages for user-generated social media content on KimptonHotels.com:

“We know that our followers would rather see real photos from real guests, especially during the research phase of the booking process, so we rely heavily on user-generated content for telling our brand story and the stories of our hotels,” Whitney explained.

How you can harness the power of social media personalization

Reaching your audience with personalized messages and experiences can work wonders for your business. But if I could pick out one key takeaway that you can use for your business right away it would be this:

Social media personalization isn’t really about your content — or how big your budget is — what really matters is the way you communicate with your audience.

People on social media want to be seen as individuals with their own likes, habits, and personalities. If you can tap into this, and deliver each message with care, your audience will respond in-kind.

And what’s even more exciting is that social media personalization is still an under-the-radar strategy, so there’s a huge opportunity to get ahead of the curve.

Whitney Reynolds will be sharing more about the power of personalization during her talk at the Social Fresh conference. Social Fresh 2018 will be taking place on December 5-7, 2018 at Full Sail University, Winter Park, FL. Click here for more information or to book your ticket.

Thank Why Personalization is the Next Big Opportunity in Social Media Marketing for first publishing this post.

How Instagram Helps Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit to Serve Over 250,000 Customers Per Year

Snap, filter, post, then eat. If you’re a millennial, Instagramming your meals is probably a guilty pleasure, and an occasional part of your mealtime routine.

An incredible 69 percent of millennials take a photo (or a video) of their food before eating. But social media isn’t just a place for us to share our posts about favorite foods, and scroll through endless images of beautiful, mouth-watering meals, snacks and treats. It’s completely changed the way we decide what and where we eat too. It’s even begun to adjust the way restaurants are designed, and meals are prepared.

Thanks to platforms like Instagram, we’re able to browse and discover cool restaurants, bars, and foods via social media.

And according to research by Zizzi, 18-35-year-olds spend five whole days a year browsing food images on Instagram, and 30 percent would avoid a restaurant if their Instagram presence was weak.

Many businesses in the catering and restaurant industries have started to catch on to the power of social media to not only build a following online, but to drive people in-store to buy, consume, and share experiences.

Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit is one of those businesses.

Callie’s now serves more than a quarter-of-a-million people at its events and eateries each year, and social media plays a big part in its growth.

Here’s how…

Embracing social media

“We had a business, so we needed an Instagram page,” Tarah Boyleston, Callie’s marketing and design lead explained to us.

And though Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit started out on social media through necessity, it’s now seeing the rewards of its social media strategy play out, with customers frequently heading to its events and eateries after seeing its biscuits on social media.

“Locals have come into the eatery just to get the special biscuit they saw on Instagram and vacationers tell us they’ve been waiting months to try our biscuits after seeing a video on Facebook,” explained Tarah.

“It’s a great feeling knowing you can connect to so many people with something as simple as biscuits.”

Focusing on high-quality content

Callie’s really started to go all-in on social media marketing at the beginning of 2018 as the team started to focus more on the quality of its content. Tarah especially focused on:

• Sharing high-quality images
• Writing fun, detailed captions
• Using relevant hashtags on every post

“After making these changes, we watched our @callieshotlittlebiscuit account organically grow by the thousands per month,” Tarah told us.

And you can’t argue with the data over the course of 2018, Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit’s main Instagram account has grown to more than 31,000 followers, and is adding around 2,700 new followers per month.

“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have if you can’t get people in your doors. We encourage our millennial following to join the hot little party with mouth-watering images, easily accessible Facebook events, and most of all, keeping things fun!”

Tarah Boyleston
Marketing & Design, Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit

Spreading its message locally, and nationally

Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit has three eateries: two in Charleston, South Carolina, and one in Atlanta, Georgia. But that doesn’t stop Tarah from using social media to share the brand’s message and voice far and wide.

“Our social channels are truly the voice of our brand,” Tarah explained.

“We are lucky to have our first location in a vacation destination like Charleston, and even though our followers are mostly local, we are able to get our voice out to the entire country. Non-local growth is just as important [as local].”

By thinking outside of the local areas in which it operates, Callie’s has been able to grow a brand that’s recognized by biscuit-lovers across the U.S. (and even further afield).

This approach has lead to new opportunities for Callie’s to run events, and generate sales, outside of Charleston and Atlanta. For example, Callie’s recently teamed up with Packed Party, a Texas-based online boutique, to promote National Biscuit Month, and this partnership was so successful on social media that it led to Callie’s running an event in Texas. As Tarah told us:

“Even though we were states apart, we used both voices to drive traffic to our stores and increase brand awareness in Texas. Our Texas following increased so much that we ended the month with a pop up in Austin.”

Working with partners and influencers

The event in Texas isn’t the only time Callie’s has worked with partners and influencers. In fact, it’s a staple part of their social media strategy.

“We love partnering with brands that share our values because it allows our followers to learn about amazing artisans and it brings new followers to us,” Tarah explained.

“Our largest events have been in partnership with amazing groups such as Create and Cultivate (500+ person event) and a seated dinner for 100 during Charleston Wine + Food week.”

These kinds of events are marketed heavily through social media, email marketing, and local press outlets. Callie’s likes to give away tickets on its social channels to increase awareness and build its audience. During these events, Callie’s also takes followers who are unable to attend behind-the-scenes using Instagram Stories.

And when it comes to launching new eateries, partnerships and influencer campaigns play a big role in establishing a new, local audience:

“This summer, we made a large effort to partner with more brands and influencers to grow our Atlanta account. This is an account that was on a slow-and-steady growth pace and partnering with big voices in town instantly made a difference,” Tarah shared.

Pro tip: Run small, exclusive events for followers

“Our locations are fairly small, so we keep events to a limited amount of people. Advertising a certain amount of tickets gives the allure of exclusivity, and Instagrammers love being ‘in the know’. Our email and social channels are our largest platforms for our voice, so posting event details to increase ticket sales is just logical for us.”

Tarah Boyleston
Marketing & Design, Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit

How your business can use social media to drive offline sales

Tarah also shared four pro-tips for businesses that are looking to use social media to drive footfall and sales offline:

1. Be consistent

“Have a consistent online presence. The more followers see you, the more you will be on their minds when they’re looking for something to do on the weekend.”

2. Share information often.

“In a world of constant scrolling and swiping, you want to make things effortless for your followers,” Tarah shared.

“Give them any and all information necessary to get to your event. Instagram stories are a great tool for event information because you can use multiple slides to get the point across. I always include swipe up feature with a link to the Facebook event.”

3. Boost with ads

“For non-local events, we often use Facebook and Instagram ads to reach a targeted location. We boosted our ticket sales in Texas by targeting the neighborhood where the event was located and using key terms to attract our audience.”

4. Go behind-the-scenes

“Lastly, give your customers and followers a piece of your personal life,” Tarah recommended.

“No one wants to follow a brand that is only trying to sell them something. We share personal stories, family recipes, and behind the scenes imagery of our lives at the bakery. These glimpses into the ‘life of a biscuiteer’ are free!”

If you’re looking to learn more about how to grow your business using email, social media, and more, check out our new series: The 5-Part Small Business Marketing Playbook.

Over the course of five days, you’ll receive top tips, strategies, and best practices around making the most out of your small business marketing and social media campaigns. Proudly brought to you by the folks at Mailchimp, Square, WooCommerce, and Buffer.

Thank How Instagram Helps Callie’s Hot Little Biscuit to Serve Over 250,000 Customers Per Year for first publishing this post.

Your Go-To Small Business Marketing Guide for 2019 (New Tips and Ideas)

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, an incredible two-thirds of small business owners and entrepreneurs (66%) are personally responsible for three or more areas of their business, including marketing.

From email and social media campaigns to pricing, branding, and strategy, it can be a challenge for many small business owners to excel at marketing while also focusing on growing their business.

That’s where we hope to help!

That’s why we teamed up with Mailchimp, Square, and WooCommerce to bring you a brand-new small business marketing playbook. In this five-part email series, you’ll receive specific and actionable marketing strategies that you can use in the remainder of 2018 and throughout 2019 to grow your business in meaningful ways.

We’ve also put together a special Buffer Podcast episode as a bonus to our the new email series. Whether you’re looking for fresh approach to your marketing strategy or just a few new ideas to try, this episode will help you get where you want to go in 2019.

Let’s dive in!

Your go-to small business marketing guide for 2019 (Podcast)

What follows is a lightly-edited transcript of the Buffer Podcast for your reading pleasure.

Table of Contents

• Part I: High-level small business marketing strategies
• Part II: Social media strategies for small businesses
• Part III: Email marketing strategies for small businesses
• Part IV: Final thoughts for small businesses owners and marketers

Hailley: Hi everyone! I’m Hailley Griffis and this is The Science of Social Media, a podcast by Buffer. Your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and learning.

Brian: Welcome to episode #120, I’m Brian Peters and this week we have a very special episode lined up for you. 2019 is almost here which can only mean one thing… It’s time for small businesses to shine. Whether you’re looking for fresh approach to your marketing strategy or just a few new ideas to try, today’s guide should help you get where you want to go.

Hailley: We’ve heard from so many folks how challenging it can be to keep up with the latest small business marketing strategies and tactics. So this episode is for you all. Hopefully it’ll bring you a ton of success in the new year.

Brian: We are incredibly excited to launch this new campaign.

Working with Mailchimp and Square has been really insightful because they work with small businesses every single day and so everything we talk about in that email series is brand new and highly relevant.

Part I: High-level small business marketing strategies

Hailley: Let’s start high-level and then dive into some more specific marketing strategies.

We’ve dwindled down small business marketing to three essential, high-level strategies. By practicing these 3 things, you’re setting yourself up for long-term success rather than aimlessly trying new tactics for short-term gains.

• Make a commitment to marketing

One of the biggest hurdles for small businesses looking to improve their marketing efforts is simply making a commitment to good marketing. Without that commitment, it’s bound to not meet your expectations.

Brian: In order to make a commitment, we suggest doing the following.

One is to set time aside. Brands like AJ&Smart, for example, that we talked about episode 113, set several hours aside each week to plan out their social media and email schedule for the week. Then, they carve out 3-5 hours for pure content creation so that they can get back to running their business.

Two is to set clear goals. Research shows that you’re 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams, simply by writing them down on a regular basis. Write down specific marketing goals that you would like to achieve over the coming month(s) and year.

Hailley: Three, of course, is to stay patient: All good things take time. Try not to fall into the trap of thinking good marketing happens overnight.

Small businesses that play the long game by creating consistently great content are the ones that eventually reap the rewards.

Brian: The next high-level strategy is to:

• Focus your efforts on a few core channels

If you try to do everything with your marketing strategy you end up doing next to nothing. Focus is key when developing new marketing ideas, and exploring opportunities.

Hailley: This goes back to setting time aside, right? If you only have a few hours each week for marketing, you have to be super focused on doing things that will have a big impact.

The key is to experiment often until you find one or two channels that show really good traction and double down on those small business marketing channels until they become ineffective.

Brian: Finally, as a small business, it’s important to:

• Share your authentic story

Creating great marketing content for your small business isn’t only about showing the value of your product or your services to customers. It’s also an incredible way to help people get to know you and your business.

Hailley: Many top brands today thrive by creating and cultivating a personality. They each have an opinion, they stand for something, they’re relatable. In other words, they’re human.

Brian: One of my favorite brands is an outdoor clothing and gear retailer called Huckberry and from the very first welcome email, they use a sort of brand storytelling approach that’s woven into even the smallest of details.

Every word perfectly place to give their readers a sense of what they stand for.

Hailley: We’re good to go on high-level thinking.

Now we’re ready to get into some specific tactics.

Part II: Social media strategies for small businesses

• Embrace Video

First up with social media is to embrace video. Video is absolutely the most effective way to engage with your audience across all social media channels.

Brian: There are stats to prove it, too. Did you know that 4x as many people would prefer to watch a video about a product rather than read about it or that, when making a purchase decision, 4 in 5 millennials look for video content as a form of research.

Whether it’s time or resources, small businesses just aren’t creating a lot of video for social media and other small business marketing channels.

That being said, we’ve got some quick how-tos for easily creating great videos.

Hailley: First, start with what works. Sort your blog or website content in order of most traffic and create videos around those topics using a video creation product like Animoto.

Or, try following your peers and/or competitors with Facebook Pages to Watch and create content based on popular topics.

Or, you might embrace exciting trends such as the emergence of Instagram Stories by creating fun, relatable Stories content that’s easy to put together.

Brian: As for what makes for a great video. Believe it or not there are some scientific factors that people are more likely to interact with.

• Keep your videos between 20-90 seconds for highest engagement.
• Get right to the point. The first 3-5 seconds of a video is key in keeping people watching.

That’s it.

• Boost your top performing content

Hailley: The next takeaway for social media is that we highly recommend jumping on the advertising trend and boost your top performing content.

What’s great about social media for small businesses is that you don’t have to spend a ton of time creating variations of ads to see success with advertising. Your audience is already telling you what they like in the form of organic engagement numbers.

Brian: The way we like to think about it is that organic social media posting (traditional posting) is the perfect testing ground for effective Facebook and Instagram ads. In other words, you’re using organic reach to determine what posts you should put money behind.

Hailley: At Buffer, we’re seen incredible results with video ads on Instagram Stories, for example. One ad, in particular, has driven more than 5,000 clicks to our website for less than $0.10 per click.

All we did was look at our top performing posts, identify that this post was performing abnormally well, and put some ad dollars behind it.

• Understand the science behind great content

Brian: Lastly, when it comes to social media, it all comes down to your content.

At the end of the day, a majority of social media success comes down to your content.

You can have the best product in the world as a small business, but if no one sees or cares about your content, it’s going to be difficult to generate engagement and results on social media.

Hailley: We like to think that quality content is at the intersection of entertaining and educational.

Think about how people use and consume content on social media today. Many times they are on social media to connect with friends and family and watch the occasional brand video. But there’s more content on social platforms than people can consume, so if a post doesn’t look interesting or useful, people simply scroll past it.

Listen to your customers. Keep a close eye on the trends in your industry. Invest in the creative aspect of content such as video and visuals.

Part III: Email marketing strategies for small businesses

Brian: Moving onto something we don’t talk about too much on this show and that’s email marketing.

However, as a small business, email is one of the few remaining marketing channels that you actually own as a small business (meaning you’re not relying on a third party like Facebook to show your content to your audience), making it a critical piece of any marketing strategy.

Hailley: An engaged email list will allow you to share your story, promote your business, and showcase your products, all while turning subscribers into paying customers.

• Grow your email list

With that, we’ll start with growing your email list.

In order to turn visitors to your website into paying customers, you first must have subscribers. To do so, we recommend using branded pop-ups and email signup forms on your website.

Brian: According to research, Mailchimp users have seen their list growth rate increase by an average of 50.8% after adding a pop-up form to their site.

Pop-up pro tip: Set the form to appear immediately – or with a 5 second delay. That’ll help capture the attention of your audiences immediately.

Pop-ups were one of the main reasons we were able to double our email list size in just 30 days.

• Automate your email flows

Hailley: Next, you gotta’ automate those email flows.

As many small businesses owners have experienced first-hand, automating important marketing tasks (such as email and social media) can save several hours per week – and lots of headaches in the process.

Brian: When it comes to automation, we highly recommend focusing on four key email flows:

1. Welcome new subscribers
2. Abandoned cart emails (ecommerce)
3. First-time customers
4. Re-engagement emails

First is to welcome new customers.

This one is key for welcoming folks to your family. Welcome emails are a great way to share fun resources, discounts, top selling products and more.

Then you have your abandoned cart emails for all of the ecommerce businesses out there.

These are important for people who might have left your website early for a variety of reasons.

Hailley: Then, of course, you have your special first-time customers.

You can send them a special thank you and even offer them future discounts or deals on your other line of products.

And finally, customer re-engagement emails.

If it’s been a while since they’ve opened an email or taken a specific action, you can send them one last goodbye to try and re-engage them with your business.

Part IV: Final thoughts for small business owners and marketers

Brian: There you have it. A small business social media and email combination that we are sure will help boost your marketing results.

But before we go, we wanted to leave you with a final thought.

Hailley: We know how hard it can be to run a small business. There’s a never-ending list of things to do and marketing, understandably, tends to get put off for more important tasks.

You’re not alone.

The team here at Buffer is cheering you on this holiday season and into 2019. Remember, focusing on one or two channels like email, Instagram, Facebook, or Google will allows you to see much better results than trying everything at one.

Brian: If I had to choose two marketing channels right now, I’d bet on email and Instagram.

And we’re a social media company so that’s saying a lot!

Email is such an important part of the customer journey and Instagram (including Instagram Stories) is the fastest growing social media channel on the planet.

There really is an incredible amount of potential in both channels.

Hailley: Thank you so much for tuning in to the Science of Social Media today. The show notes for this episode are now available on the Buffer Blog at blog.buffer.com with a complete transcript.

And don’t forget, if you want to signup for our brand new, five-part email series. You’re going to love it!

How to say hello to us

We would all love to say hello to you on social media – especially Twitter!

• Hailley on Twitter and Hailley’s Website
• Brian on Twitter and Brian’s Website

Thanks for listening! Feel free to connect with our team at Buffer on Twitter, Buffer on Facebook, our Podcast homepage, or with the hashtag #bufferpodcast.

Enjoy the show? It’d mean the world to us if you’d be up for giving us a rating and review on iTunes!

—

About The Science of Social Media podcast

The Science of Social Media is your weekly sandbox for social media stories, insights, experimentation, and inspiration. Every Monday (and sometimes more) we share the most cutting-edge social media marketing tactics from brands and influencers in every industry. If you’re a social media team of one, business owner, marketer, or someone simply interested in social media marketing, you’re sure to find something useful in each and every episode.  It’s our hope that you’ll join our 18,000+ weekly iTunes listeners and rock your social media channels as a result!

The Science of Social Media is proudly made by the Buffer team. Feel free to get in touch with us for any thoughts, ideas, or feedback.

Thank Your Go-To Small Business Marketing Guide for 2019 (New Tips and Ideas) for first publishing this post.

We Analyzed 15,000 Instagram Stories from 200 of the World’s Top Brands (New Stories Research)

An incredible 400 million people around the world use Instagram Stories on a daily basis (with that number rapidly growing by the minute).

Besides being an interesting and fun way to connect with friends and family, stories offer businesses a unique opportunity to capture the direct attention of audiences and potential customers.

But where do you start? And what makes for great stories content? We partnered with Delmondo to answer these questions, and more!

Together we analyzed more than 15,000 Instagram Stories from 200 of the world’s top brands in one of the largest Instagram Stories research studies to date.

Today, we’re excited to share this brand new research with you (spoiler alert: Instagram Stories content is incredibly engaging) as well as proven best-practices on how your business can create content for Instagram Stories that both engages, and converts.

Let’s dive in!

Table of contents

• Key findings from analyzing 15,000 Instagram Stories
  • One to seven stories is the optimal posting length
  • The best time to post to Instagram Stories is outside of work hours
  • More content leads to greater median reach and impressions
• Instagram Stories research benchmarks for specific verticals
  • Average completion rate and stories length
  • Average reach and impressions
  • Average posting frequency per month
• Best practices for posting to Instagram Stories
  • Post your best stories content first
  • Post consistently to stories
  • Calculate your own data

Key findings from analyzing 15,000 Instagram Stories

Delmondo is a Facebook and Instagram Media Solutions Partner and was the first to launch Instagram Stories analytics in the summer of 2017. In doing so, they now have access to some of the most robust Instagram Stories data on the planet, which powers a ton of incredible research studies like this one where they shared findings from more than 5,000 Instagram Stories.

Earlier this month, we approached their team with one (not-so-simple) question:

How are Instagram Stories performing for brands and businesses heading into 2019?

Here’s what we learned…

1. One to seven stories is the optimal posting length

It’s long been debated whether or not posting more leads to better results on social media. Many brands report a positive increase in results when they post more, while others experience the opposite.

Which is exactly why we wanted to know what top brands are experiencing when it comes to optimal posting length. I.e., how many individual stories produce the highest completion rate.

Completion rate is determined by calculating the number of times your stories were watched from the first story frame all the way to the last story frame within the given 24-hour time period.

What we found is that one to seven stories is the optimal posting length:

After seven stories, completion rate drops to below 70 percent.

However, it’s important to note here that this is more of a guide than a hard limit on the best time to post to Instagram Stories. It’s crucial to experiment with various story lengths and use your own data to determine what works for you.

Even if your brand or business posts a longer story length, say 12 to 20 story frames, the results are still phenomenal. There is very little difference in completion rate between 12 and 20 frames as there is between one and seven.

Perhaps more incredibly, top accounts that post 20 or more stories still see a 55 percent or greater completion rate, proving just how engaging stories content can be at any length.

2. The best time to post to Instagram Stories is outside of work hours

One of the most interesting takeaways from our research with Delmondo is around the best time(s) to post to stories. Given the ephemeral nature of stories, brands that work hard to create great Stories content will want to maximize the reach of that content.

And while there are hundreds of different factors that go into the Instagram Stories algorithm, post timing arguably still plays a key role in the success of your content.

We found that there are four distinct spikes in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. In other words, outside of normal U.S. working hours (all times are Eastern):

Based on the data above, the best times to post to Instagram Stories are:

• 4am – 6am Eastern Time
• 8am – 10am Eastern Time
• 12pm – 2pm Eastern Time
• 8pm – 10pm Eastern Time

One hypothesis for this finding is that people have more time to watch Instagram Stories before work, during their lunch break, and in the evenings after work. Posting during these prime hours will give your stories the extra boost they need.

3. More content leads to greater median reach and impressions

Another reason that Instagram Stories are such a powerful channel for brands and businesses is that the threshold for content consumption appears to be higher.

There is only so much space in the news feed. The more content that people and brands post, the less space there is for everyone else. Because stories disappear after 24 hours, that makes more room, so to speak, for fresh new content to be shown.

The data from our research shows that the more stories top Instagram accounts post, the more median reach and impressions they get. We can definitively say that stories posting length has a positive correlation with reach and impressions metrics.

Correlation between stories length and median reach:

Correlation between stories length and median impressions:

We’re not necessarily suggesting that brands and businesses start to post a ton of stories content just for the sake of posting, but the data shows that you can increases both median reach and median impressions by posting more content on Instagram Stories.

Instagram Stories research benchmarks for specific verticals

In an effort to make this research even more interesting and valuable, we looked at four unique verticals to compare a variety of data points such as completion rates, posting frequency, and more. Those four verticals are, brand accounts, entertainment accounts, media accounts, and sports accounts.

We defined the industry verticals using the following criteria:

• Brand: Consumer related products or service brand
• Entertainment: TV/Movie networks, TV shows, movies, and similar
• Media: Newspapers, news organizations, news websites, publishers
• Sports: Sports or eSports teams, leagues and events

Hopefully the following Instagram Stories research will help shed some light into what the world’s top brands are experiencing in terms of results.

Average completion rate and stories length

First, we looked at how Instagram Stories performed for these four verticals in 2017 vs. 2018:

What’s incredible is that completion rate has risen by 12% for brands and businesses in just over one year. Meanwhile, accounts are posting slightly less stories content on average.

It’s worth reiterating here that all four verticals are seeing a 65% or greater average completion rate with Instagram Stories. Meaning that audiences are sticking around to watch this content at fairly high rates.

Average reach and impressions

Next, we wanted to know how Instagram Stories are performing for these verticals when it comes to reach and impressions (based on overall average follower size):

It’s interesting to note that although average reach rate is 5.82 percent for all verticals, there is a huge swing between sports accounts and media accounts.

Still, in a social media world where average organic reach within the news feed is often less than four percent, a five percent (or greater) average reach rate is welcomed with open arms by many businesses.

Average posting frequency per month

Last, but not least, in addition to understanding how many individual frames per story (story length) are being posted by the world’s top brands on Instagram, we also wanted to know how often they are posting per month.

For this data point, we looked at how many individual days during the month, on average, these verticals posted to Instagram Stories.

Here’s what we found:

Sports accounts are posting the most days per month (13.7), whereas brand accounts are posting the least amount of days per month (8.7).

Overall, we’re not at a point where brands are posting daily to Instagram Stories. However, as the popularity of Instagram Stories grows and businesses continue to see success with the channel, we predict that daily posting will become more of a common thread throughout different verticals.

Best practices for posting to Instagram Stories

Now that we’ve shared the data from more than 15,000 Instagram Stories, we thought it would be useful to provide a few actionable steps on what to do with all of this research.

Here are three key takeaways that your brand or business can get started with today.

1. Post your best stories content first

In their 2018 benchmark study, Delmondo found that, on average, more people exit on the first and last story frame than any other part of your stories.

Meaning, if your first story frame does not immediately capture the attention of your audience, they will quickly exit your stories content in search of something else.

Whether you’re promoting your product, giving your audience a behind-the-scenes look at your business, or simply posting entertaining content, make sure that it hooks your audience in right from the beginning.

Airbnb, for example, slowly reveals content throughout their Instagram Stories in order to encourage users to move onto the next story frame – only revealing the answer on the very last story frame.

Bonus tip: You’ll notice in the graph above that average exits decrease as users move through the story frames. For loyal users that make it all the way to the last story frame, we recommend including some kind of CTA to provide them with a “next step.”

2. Post consistently to stories

Today, Instagram Stories is one of the most engaging social media channels available. Completion rates are well-above 50 percent and more and more users are consuming stories content on a daily basis.

Now is the perfect time for your brand to experiment with Instagram Stories content.

The best part is, your stories don’t have to be complicated.

The Guardian found that for their Instagram Stories, simple static graphics and quick explainer videos outperformed their professionally-produced videos.

The North Face, for example, uses simple photos and text overlays to reinforce their brand using Instagram Stories:

Simplicity means:

1. Using a background image to quickly tell a story
2. Adding short copy to convey your message
3. Decorating with minimal graphics and logos

And you’re done!

3. Calculate your own data

Of course, the research above is only the beginning for brands and businesses looking to improve their Instagram Stories content going into 2019.

In order to make the most out of this channel, it’s important that you accurately calculate your own stories data on a regular basis. Keeping a close eye on the following data points will ensure that you’re continually improving:

• Completion rate
• Reach and impressions
• Exit rates according to story frame
• Stories post timing
• Stories length
• And more!

One example of calculating data in action is when we began to experiment with Instagram Stories ads here at Buffer. Instagram Stories, compared to ads in the Facebook and Instagram news feed, have helped decrease our cost per click (CPC) to the Buffer Podcast landing page by more than 50 percent in some cases.

Other brands like Warby Parker are using Instagram Stories to promote their products in fun and interesting ways and comparing those results to traditional marketing channels such as email and content:

Before we go, a huge shoutout to Delmondo for helping us put together one of the largest Instagram Stories studies to date. If you’d like to learn more about all of the in-depth stories analytics and insights their platform provides, check them out at www.delmondo.co.

Tell them Brian sent you!

Over to you

I’d love to hear from you!

How are you feeling about your Instagram Stories strategy moving forward? Are you excited for the future of stories in general? What experiments do you plan on trying first?

Feel free to drop me a comment or question below about the data in this study or just to say “hello.”

I’m looking forward to chatting about this Instagram Stories research so that we can all learn from each other!

Thank We Analyzed 15,000 Instagram Stories from 200 of the World’s Top Brands (New Stories Research) for first publishing this post.

7 Invaluable Marketing Skills That Help Teams Produce Consistently Great Content

In speaking with thousands of marketers and businesses over the past several years, we’ve learned that marketing has an incredible potential to impact people’s lives.

In fact, the American Marketing Association defines marketing as:

“The activity, set of institutions, skills, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

I love that. We as marketers are benefiting society at large!

But marketing skills and career growth don’t come easy in a field that moves at the speed of light. It seems like every week companies are demanding an evolved skill set out of their employees – giving rise to a new era of marketing roles such as the Full-Stack and T-Shaped Marketer.

Brands that can successfully bring a variety of people, marketing skills, and unique perspectives together have a huge advantage when it comes to providing value.

That’s why we’ve partnered with the incredible marketing team at Asana, a leading work management software, to break down the top 7 invaluable marketing skills that help some of the greatest brand teams on the planet produce consistently great content.

Let’s dive in!

How to listen: iTunes | Google Play | SoundCloud | Stitcher | RSS

7 invaluable marketing skills for teams

As Sujan Patel writes on his blog, “the modern marketer has to be familiar with a lot, good at many, and master of a few.”

Having a variety of skills and tools not only provides ultimate flexibility as a team to create a variety of successful marketing campaigns, but it also allows each marketer to shine as an individual.

These 7 high-level marketing skills will help to ensure your team has ultimate flexibility and individuality.

1. Storytelling

There seems to be a general belief that marketing has always been about storytelling – and that marketers have always identified as natural storytellers.

But that may not be the case.

LinkedIn found that just seven years ago the number of marketers listing “storytelling” on their profile as a skill was obsolete. It didn’t exist at all as a respected marketing discipline.

Today, however, between 7 and 8 percent of all marketers on LinkedIn worldwide identify themselves as storytellers based on their profile descriptions and list of skills.

As a marketer, storytelling doesn’t just mean telling your audience what your product or service does or what it has done. Effective storytelling involves a deep understanding of human emotions, motivations, and psychology in order to effectively communicate with them in an authentic and engaging way.

During the writing of this article, Asana CMO Dave King told me: “The best marketers are problem solvers and storytellers. Content creators should ask ‘what problem is this piece solving for my audience.’”

As marketers, there are endless ways to tell a story.

One of my favorite ways to develop a compelling story is to use “The Story Spine” formula created by professional playwright and improvisor Kenn Adams. Over the years, Pixar has won countless awards by using this formula, including 13 Academy Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 11 Grammys.

Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

I encourage you to practice this formula for your own own brand, products, or services.

Let’s give it a shot with a brand we might all know of: Nike.

• Once upon a time there was a passionate shoemaker that wanted to get his shoes into the hands of runners around the world.
• Every day, he worked on perfecting his shoes so that these runners could perform at an optimum level.
• But one day, this shoemaker realized that supplying shoes to thousands of runners around the world was no easy task.
• Because of that, he worked harder and harder to ensure that he had the supply of products needed to be successful despite what critics said.
• Because of that, his shoes continued to improve and more and more athletes started to wear them in prestigious competitions.
• Until finally, it wasn’t just about running anymore. It became about something bigger – finding your inner champion doing what you love in gear that makes you feel great.

As Ken describes, “The Story Spine is not the story, it’s the spine. It’s nothing but the bare-boned structure upon which the story is built. And, that’s what makes it such a powerful tool.”

It’s up to us as marketers to fill in all the little nuances of the story.

2. Prioritizing

As many marketers know all too well – there is always something to be done.

Being an effective prioritizer is one of those marketing skills that doesn’t get talked about enough, but plays a huge role in the success of your team and content.

Producing consistently great content means saying yes to a handful of awesome content ideas/opportunities and saying no to others.

The Asana marketing team uses a project labeled “Content Opportunities” to which anyone in the company is highly encouraged to contribute ideas. Then, when their marketing team is ready to take action on a piece of content or campaign, they add it to their Editorial Calendar project.

This management of ideas, projects, and initiatives is what allows them to be super focused and productive on a consistent basis.

So how can you develop prioritization as a marketing skill? And how can you prioritize content and campaigns that will perform at a high level?

That’s where the importance of goal-setting comes into play!

At Buffer, we’ve experimented with a variety of goal-setting frameworks such as OKRs, Locke and Latham’s 5 Principles of Goal-Setting, BHAGs, and lots more.

Today, our marketing team is using two types of goal-setting methods depending on the scope. For long-term planning and strategizing, we use a modified Warren Buffett Framework, and for short-term (experimental content), we use a framework called ICE.

The Modified Warren Buffett Framework

My colleague Hailley has long admired the original framework for setting goals from Warren Buffett – a method where you write down 25 things you want to accomplish in your career, and from that, pick the top five as the focus and put the other 20 on an “avoid at all costs” list.

We’ve since adopted a modified version of this goal-setting framework. Here’s a quick overview of how it works (with a real-life example goals from one of our 6-week cycles):

Step 1: Choose 10 goals

Brainstorm a list of 10 goals related to your work on the team that can be accomplished in a certain, predesignated timeframe.

Remember to focus on goals and not tasks. A good way to remember this is that tasks describe how you spend your time, whereas goals are your results.

Ex:

Step 2: Assign a “tag” to each goal

Next, go through and add a tag to each goal with the category that it falls into. The tagging system should be unique for each person.

Come up with your tags, and assign them to each of your 10 goals.

Ex:

Step 3: Pick three goals to focus on (P1s)

This is the most difficult portion of the exercise! Refining the list from 10 to the three that you will focus on during the specified time period.

Pick one goal for each tag that you have on your list.

Ex:

Then, add a P2 and a P3 to prioritize the rest of your goals within the list.

That doesn’t mean you have 10 goals all competing with each other at the same time.

It means that as soon as you complete a P1 in any one of the categories, you then (and only then) move onto your P2 and P3.

ICE Score Framework

“ICE” stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease.

Below is a description of each element directly from the creators of the ICE Score Framework at GrowthHackers:

• Impact: The possible impact the idea could have on the business if considered a “win
• Confidence: This relates to how confident you are in whether it’ll result in a wi
• Ease: This relates to how many resources, and what kind, are needed to implement the idea

For each idea, give each factor a score from one to ten. The overall score is determined by taking the average of the three scores. You should start with the idea that has the highest score.

For example, let’s say you wanted to run a content partnership experiment with a peer or influencer within your industry (similar to this one!) Your ICE score might look like this:

• Impact: 8
• Confidence: 7
• Ease: 7
• Total: 22

Comparing that to other ICE scores, you can quickly determine which ideas to tackle next and which ones to table for the time being. Over time, you’ll be able to score ideas quickly and efficiently.

3. Collaborating

Why is team collaboration necessary?

Part of the answer, according to research from strategy professor Benjamin Jones at the Kellogg School, is that our individual knowledge base is becoming more and more specialized.

Jones gives a great example of the Wright Brothers and building an airplane:

“In 1903, two people designed and flew an airplane. Today, a Boeing 787 has dozens of specialists working on the engines alone. Then there are the controls, the hydraulics, the airframe itself. There is an incredible range of specialized skills needed.”

There is an ever-growing need for collaboration among specialists (teams) within companies to get a product or service off of the ground.

In our experiences at Buffer and Asana, the most successful marketing teams coordinate on two important levels:

1. Messaging: Ensuring there’s consistency in what is being said across channels (blog, website, social, etc.
2. Distribution: Planning and sequencing content rollout for maximum impact across channels

By combining the right set of marketing skills in both messaging and distribution you are setting your campaigns up for a much higher rate of success.

Messaging

Whether you’re launching a full-on marketing campaign or simply posting a video to Facebook, creating a consistent message across channels is an important part of building your brand.

We’ve found that having effective collaboration tools in place makes all of the difference.

Here’s a quick example of some of the tools and workflows we use in order to help our teams create consistent messaging:

• Kick off a conversation in messaging app, Slack, about the proposed idea or campaign:

• Start a doc in Dropbox Paper with additional details, comments, copy, etc:

• Create a project within Asana and assign tasks to team members across the organization:

These three tools are invaluable for transparent and cross-functional collaboration and communication among teams within your organization. They’re especially important for us at Buffer as a fully remote company!

Distribution

Without a solid distribution plan in place, your messages may never reach their intended audiences. Having the skills to not only create the assets, but efficiently deliver those assets across multiple channels, is an important quality for any marketer.

Here’s a quick look at some of the tools and workflows we use to distribute consistent content:

• WordPress for hosting and creating blog content:

• Discourse for internal distribution, information, and announcements:

• Buffer for social media planning, scheduling, and analytics:

At the core of any great team collaboration is trust. Trust is the willingness and openness to intentionally communicate with teammates on your direct team and across the company.

It’s up to you to make space (physically or virtually) for people to meet and share ideas. Pixar is a perfect example of this in action – they designed their offices so that artists, designers, programmers, and marketers would purposely bump into each other.

4. Visualizing

Humans are, by nature, very visual beings.

In the brain itself, there are hundreds of millions of neurons devoted to visual processing, nearly 30 percent of the entire cortex, as compared with 8 percent for touch and just 3 percent for hearing.

In other words, the most successful marketing teams are not only able to communicate messages in written form, they’re also able to create stunning designs that aid in telling a compelling visual story.

We wrote an article in 2017 titled, “Why Every Marketer Needs to Be a (Part-Time) Designer” and the general theory still remains true, even more so, today in 2018.

The best part is there are tons of free resources our there to get started! Here are some of our favorites:

• Graphic Design Basics: Core Principles for Graphic Design (Skillshare)
• How to Create Better Graphic Design (Udemy)
• The Landing Page Conversion Course (Unbounce)
• Graphic Design 101 (Udemy)
• 11 Simple Design Tips to Enhance Your Social Media Images (Buffer)
• Designing Asana: A Day in the Life of a Product Designer (Asana)

Visual storytelling is one of those marketing skills that often goes overlooked, but plays a massive role in the success of every single piece of content.

5. Experimenting

Have you ever wondered how some marketing teams come up with so many great ideas?

Their secret…

Behind every one successful marketing idea or campaign, there were dozens (if not hundreds) of little failures along the way.

It reminds me a lot of what is known as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in product development. A MVP is a product that has the minimum amount of features required to validate if people want it or not.

The same theory holds true for marketing experimentation and testing.

A marketing team that is unafraid of failure and willing to run hundreds of different tests in order to quickly validate ideas will often succeed over a marketing team that puts their eggs (ideas) into one basket (channel/campaign).

The Information, for example, might have hundreds of potential story ideas in Asana at any one time — prioritizing experiments and ideas based on competition, importance, opportunity costs, and lots more.

Although there isn’t a true scientific way of running marketing experiments, this is the formula we’ve come up with at Buffer to systematically test ideas:

We start with setting clear goals and then work backwards from there.

Let’s say we wanted to increase Buffer blog traffic by 10% in one year (goal).

Our marketing team would start by getting together and brainstorming all of the different ways we could accomplish that – SEO, social media, affiliates, etc.

We’d then prioritize ideas based on impact (Warren Buffett Framework / ICE Scores) and begin testing.

Then, we’d constantly measure and analyze results along the way while making incremental improvements.

Approaching experimentation and testing with a growth mindset, similar to developing a product, is a marketing skill that will help take your team to the next level.

6. Analyzing

As marketers, we’re all somewhere on the analytics expertise scale (whether we know it or not!) From the analytics wizards to those of us just starting to dip our toes in data analysis, we all have a base layer to work from.

Our Director of Marketing at Buffer, Kevan Lee, puts it perfectly:

“The great thing about deepening your skills in analytics is that we all have a base layer to work from. We all know how to build intuition. And intuition is just an absorbed history of data. Add to that the ability to ask good questions, and you’re well on your way. (The tools themselves matter far less than you’d think.)”

Asking good questions, when it comes to data and marketing analytics, is an invaluable marketing skill to have on any team.

This graphic from Moz shows just how many BIG questions there are to ask:

At first, asking all of these questions can be a bit intimidating.

What if I don’t know the answers?

That’s okay!

One way we like to think about approaching analytics is this idea of “Crawl, Walk, Run” – It might look something like this if you’re just starting out:

• Crawling: Which channels get the most engagement?
• Walking: Which tactics and/or strategies are contributing to this engagement?
• Running: Which channels, tactics, and strategies should we implement to increase engagement?

Another great way of thinking of analytics is the “Hierarchy of Analytics” model made popular by data wizard Christopher S. Penn:

In the beginning, you might experiment with various analytics platforms and tools in order to get a feel for the basics of marketing analytics. Understanding what data is available, its limitations, and what you can report is a great start.

Then, as you become more skilled and confident with data, you might dive into things like understanding why something happened or what might happen in the future based on your findings.

There are some incredible data analysis tools out there from companies like Google, IBM, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft that can help you do just that!

7. Learning

I like to think that the path to becoming a great marketer is a lifelong journey and never truly complete.

Knowledge, passion, and expertise are intangible qualities that we usually don’t acquire overnight. These are often developed as result of years (even decades) of hard work, mistakes, self-reflection, and personal growth.

Even a virtuoso like Michelangelo was quoted as saying, “I am still learning” late into his career.

At Buffer and Asana, we aim to build our marketing teams around folks who are naturally curious, hungry to learn, passionate, and open to new ideas.

“A love of learning is one of primary skills we look for in marketers because it tells us a couple things: do they love what they do, and are they curious about the world?” explains Kevan Lee. “Those two factors alone can take you quite far!”

Just like food nourishes our bodies, information and continuous learning nourishes our minds.

But where do you start on your learning journey as a marketer?

We’ve found that having a framework in place allows us to identify opportunities for growth. We call it the T-Shaped Marketer Framework:

T-Shaped Marketing at Buffer. Feel free to grab a download of the Sketch file or Canva template we used to build this, if you’d like to customize it for your company.

I encourage you to create one of these templates for yourself. It’s an incredible, eye-opening activity that will provide you with a clear path forward.

Then, we suggest forming habits around the marketing disciplines you’re most excited about:

• If you want to get better at data analysis, try taking a course on Udemy or Skillshare to expand your skills
• If you want to dive into video marketing, experiment with creating a video in Animoto or take a free Adobe Premiere tutorial on YouTube.
• If social media is your passion, we’ve got a ton of great learning resources on our Social Blog, Skillshare, and the Buffer Podcast.
• If you want to improve your organization, workflow, or project management skills, Asana has created a ton of great resources and best practices for work management on their blog.

If you’re curious, inquisitive, genuine, and if your intent is sincere, there will always be people who will support you in your journey.

Experiment and try out new things – some of them might even scare you! Once you gain some momentum, keep it going. That will set you up for a lifetime of success in marketing.

Over to you

Thank you so much for checking out this post!

If you’re interested in learning more about career and marketing skills from some uber-talented professionals in the industry, feel free to check out the Asana blog. It’s packed with some incredible insights.

We’d also love to continue the conversation with you below!

What skills are we missing from this list? What has helped your team create consistently great content? What would you suggest to those looking to hire marketers?

Thank 7 Invaluable Marketing Skills That Help Teams Produce Consistently Great Content for first publishing this post.