Social Media Insights: How Search Marketers Engage on Twi8er

Transcription

1 Social Insights for Decision Social Media Insights: How Search Marketers Engage on Twi8er A special report from Leadtail July 2014

2 Introduc?on Search engine marketing is a key pillar of almost every online marketing budget. This means search marketers are now responsible for managing tens of billions of annual spending on the placement and optimization of keyword-based advertising programs. To compete effectively, these paid search strategists must keep up with the ever changing intricacies and best practices of search marketing, while also taking into account the increasing convergence of search marketing and social media. With that in mind, we developed this report: How Search Marketers Engage on Twitter, using Leadtail s Social Insights Technology to analyze data from Twitter. The goal of this special report is to help you answer questions such as: } } } } How do search marketers describe themselves on the Social Web? What topics are they talking about? Which content sources are these search practitioners consuming and sharing? Who are the most influential publications and people with search marketers? Armed with these social media insights, you can now take a more informed look at your strategy for reaching and engaging search marketing professionals, and influencing them to take the actions you care about most. 2!

3 Methodology and Data Set The methodology the Leadtail team used to create this report: 1. Identify search marketers active on social media based on criteria such as job title, type of company, location etc., to create the target audience data set. 2. Use the Leadtail Social Insights Technology to extract insights around key social media activities, such as what links are shared, who is mentioned and retweeted, popular hashtags, popular platforms used to share content, etc. 3. Review, analyze, and package these insights into this report. The specific data set analyzed for this report is comprised of: } } } 521 North American search marketers active on Twitter during the report period Focused on individual SEM practitioner accounts vs. brand, agency, or company handles Total of 105,121 tweets, and 55,615 shared links } Total follower reach: 1,135,439; median # of followers per marketer: 481 } Tweets published between Mar 1, 2014 May 31, !

4 Key Takeaways } } } } } Search engine marketers are highly-skilled practitioners focused on curating a social media presence that showcases their skills, expertise, and affiliations. Digital marketing, search marketing (both PPC and SEO), and analytics are all active conversations for search engine marketers. These topics, and their related sub-topics, should anchor the content strategy of those wanting to reach and engage SEMs. Search engine marketers consume and rely on industry media to educate themselves and inform how they do their jobs. This makes industry media a key channel for influencing SEMs. Search engine marketers also engage heavily with content created and curated by an elite group of vendors, creating both opportunity and challenges for other vendors that want to compete for the attention of these marketers. Certain publications, vendors, and people are highly influential with search marketers these are good starting points for building brand awareness and driving social amplification. 4!

5 Who Are These Search Marketers? 5!

6 Where Are They Located? While most search marketers are located in the major media hubs, many have set up shop and are hard at work in smaller markets across North America. 6! Based on the location provided in the Twitter profile.!

7 How Do They Describe Themselves? The way search marketing professionals describe themselves reveals keywords that can help you reach and engage them across the Social Web. 7! Based on keywords used in the Twitter profile.

8 What Do They Talk About? Hashtags reveal the topics and events, big and small, global and local, that captured the attention of search marketing professionals during the report period. 8!

9 How Do Search Marketers Engage with Content on Twi8er? 9!

10 What Apps + PlaJorms Drive Twi8er Sharing? Twitter.com Website 80% Tweet Button 67% Twitter for iphone 45% Twitter for Android TweetDeck Instagram HootSuite LinkedIn ios Twitter for ipad Twitter Web Client Buffer foursquare Twitter for Websites Widget Post with Klout 22% 18% 18% 18% 18% 17% 14% 13% 10% 9% 8% 6% When it comes to engaging on social media, SEMs appear to be holding on to their favorite desktop tools even as other business and consumer audiences move rapidly toward mobile apps and mobile websites. Desktop Mobile % of Search Marketers that published at least 1 tweet from this platform during the report period. 10!

11 What Types of Content Do They Share? By a clear majority, industry media sites are the most common type of content shared by search engine marketers. It plays an important role in defining the conversations SEMs have with each other, their internal teams, and ultimately clients and customers. Many of these publications feature submissions from marketing thought leaders and experts, and have robust and social media distribution (plus, great SEO!) that keeps their content in front of their target audience every day. Mainstream media content is the second largest type of content shared by SEMs, and tends to be driven by the broader news cycles of business, finance, and technology, with a smaller contribution coming in the form of in-depth editorial content. Mainstream Media 29% Social Media 11% Other 2% Industry Media 58% The social media content shared by search marketers includes everything from slideshows on content marketing, to Instagram photos of dogs, awards, and office happenings and lots of cheering on our favorite sports teams! % of 100 Most Popular Shared Content Sources 11!

12 What Are the Most Shared Mainstream Sources? Following are the Top 25 Mainstream Media Content Sources shared by search marketers during the report period, based on the number of unique marketers that shared each source. 1. Forbes 2. New York Times 3. The Wall Street Journal 4. Inc. 5. Huffington Post 6. Entrepreneur 7. Fast Company 8. BuzzFeed 9. Medium 10. Quartz 11. WSJ Blogs 12. CNET 13. Time 14. Google 15. HBR Blogs 16. WIRED 17. Washington Post 18. Slate 19. Gizmodo 20. CNN 21. The Guardian 22. Fast Company Co.Design 23. The Atlantic 24. Engadget 25. CNN Money 12!

13 What Are the Most Shared Industry Sources? Following are the Top 25 Industry Media Content Sources shared by search marketers during the report period, based on the number of unique marketers that shared each source. 1. Search Engine Land 2. Search Engine Watch 3. Marketing Land 4. Mashable 5. PPC Hero 6. Search Engine Journal 7. Moz 8. WordStream 9. TechCrunch 10. Business Insider 11. SEO Roundtable 12. Ad Age 13. KISSMetrics Blog 14. Buffer Blog 15. ClickZ 16. Econsultancy 17. HubSpot Blog 18. Adweek 19. AdWords Blog 20. Bing Ads 21. Social Media Examiner 22. VentureBeat 23. The Verge 24. Unbounce 25. Social Media Today 13!

14 What Are the Most Shared Social Sources? Following are the Top 15 Social Media Content Sources shared by search marketers during the report period, based on the number of unique marketers that shared each source. 1. YouTube 2. SlideShare 3. Instagram 4. LinkedIn 5. Facebook 6. Google+ 7. Foursquare 8. Pinterest 9. Reddit 10. Vine 11. Spotify 12. Vimeo 13. Kickstarter 14. SoundCloud 15. Flickr 14!

15 Which Publishers, Vendors and People Are Most Influen?al with Search Marketers? 15!

16 Which Publishers Do Search Marketers Retweet the Most? As social media continues to reshape how information is consumed and shared, creating high-quality digital content is the minimum bar for online publishers. Raising the bar further, vendors are now expected to pump out content on par with professional publishers to engage their prospects and customers before, during, and after the sale. But producing the content is only half the battle. Successful publishers and vendors must also develop high-quality social channels, and get their content in front of their most important audiences on a regular basis. (After all, you have to tweet to get retweeted!) The word cloud to the right reflects the publishers and vendors who are doing the best job creating content that appeals to, and is reaching, search engine marketers in a way that drives amplification via retweets. 16!

17 Top 50 Publishers/Vendors Most Retweeted by Search Marketers * Based on unique # of search marketers in the sample that retweeted the person. Ties broken using Klout score followed by # of followers. 17!

18 Who Do Search Marketers Retweet the Most? When it comes to the people search marketers are retweeting the most, the same rule of great content prevails only here, tweets may be amplified because they re timely, topical, provocative, or insightful all without regard to whether the content was originally created by the tweet author. Original thought leadership is definitely well represented, but so too is meaningful curation and clever commentary. The word cloud to the right reflects the people who are doing the best job building a personal brand around the type and quality of content they create, curate, and comment upon, resulting in retweets from other SEMs. 18!

19 Top 50 People Most Retweeted by Search Marketers * Based on unique # of search marketers in the sample that retweeted the person. Ties broken using Klout score followed by # of followers. 19!

20 Which Publishers/Vendors Do Search Marketers Men?on Most? The publishers search marketers mention on Twitter can give us yet another perspective on the forces that shape their views on products, services, and industry trends. Mentioning a publication or vendor can be a reference to an experience, a thank you (or no thanks), a question or even one of those highly-coveted social recommendations. That means mentions can often represent a deeper level of engagement than a retweet. In any case, the publications and vendors in the word cloud to the right have captured valuable mindshare with the search engine marketers that they re trying to engage. 20!

21 Top 50 Publishers/Vendors Most Men?oned by Search Marketers * Based on unique # of search marketers in the sample that retweeted the person. Ties broken using Klout score followed by # of followers. 21!

22 Who Do Search Marketers Men?on Most? Mentioning a person by name can mean a few different things in social media: giving credit to someone for an idea or piece of content being shared, engaging someone directly in conversation, or giving a shoutout to a person you ve recently met. In any context, being mentioned is a sign that a person is an active part of the social conversation, and those mentioned most are the people you ll find at the center of engaging conversations between search engine marketers. This word cloud shows the people mentioned most by search marketers during the report period. 22!

23 Top 50 People Most Men?oned by Search Marketers * Based on unique # of search marketers in the sample that retweeted the person. Ties broken using Klout score followed by # of followers. 23!

24 Conclusion 24!

25 Conclusion Imagine if you could listen to the daily conversations of search engine marketers. How would you use that information to better reach, engage, and influence these marketing professionals to take the actions you care most about? For example, would it provide you insights into where to advertise, what content to create, whom to build relationships with, and how best to develop and implement your social media strategy? Sure it would. We created this special report to provide you with social media insights to help you make more informed decisions about how to reach, engage, and influence search engine marketers. And since the topics, content sources, and influencers are constantly changing so, too, are the social media insights. Sign up to get future social insights reports delivered to your inbox: 25!

26 About Leadtail Leadtail works with innovative companies to develop social media strategies and to leverage social insights research. The Leadtail team has developed and implemented social media programs for leading business brands and venture backed startups including: WageWorks, Trend Micro, Adaptive Insights, DNN, NetBase, and PunchTab. Our social media insights reports have been referenced in major publications including: The Wall St. Journal, Forbes, Search Engine Watch, Adweek, MarketingProfs, and Econsultancy. Interested in collaborating on a future social insights report? us: advertise@leadtail.com 26!