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Why Marketers Love Instagram, Pinterest and Other Visual Social Networks

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A new 2014 report released by Social Media Examiner has found that marketers value social media marketing – and visual marketing in particular – more highly than ever before.

What specifically interesting, however, are these six findings of the report that confirm what marketers have known for a while: the future is visual.

1. Interest in visual marketing rises with experience

One of the data points that quite surprised me was that marketers with longer experience in the industry rate the importance of visual networks, such as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram, higher than their less experienced colleagues.

According to the report, marketers with less than 12 months’ experience with social media marketing select Facebook as their number-one choice of the platforms they use, followed by Twitter and LinkedIn.

For marketers who have been employing social media marketing for 1 to 2 years, Facebook and Twitter remain the top two choices. However, the use of YouTube rises from 37% to 63%, Pinterest rises from32% to 46%, and Instagram from 15% to 26%.

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When you start looking at the platforms used by marketers with more than 5 years experience, the move towards more visual platforms is even more marked. YouTube is now the fourth most popular platform with 74% of marketers active on it, while Pinterest is used by 66% of marketers and Instagram by 47%.

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This suggests that younger marketers initially turn to the more obvious choices like Facebook and Twitter, but over time are discovering value in a wider range of social networks, with a distinct move toward more visually-focused platforms.

2. The more time marketers invest in social media, the more they are turning to visual platforms

The following chart shows where two groups of marketers – those who spend less than 6 hours and those who spend more than 40 hours on social media – focus their time. As you can see, marketers who invest more than 40 hours per week are much more focused on Instagram (46% more), YouTube (38% more), and Pinterest (37% more) than those investing 6 or fewer hours a week with social media.

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You can see the clear shift towards visual platforms, particularly Instagram and Pinterest, with greater time invested on social media.

3. B2C marketers are more visually-focused than their B2B counterparts

The report also found that B2C marketers are more likely to invest time in visual networks, particularly Pinterest and Instagram, than their B2B colleagues, who favor LinkedIn, Google+ and blogging.

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4. Marketers want to increase their visual marketing in the future

Looking into the future, the report highlights marketers’ interest in visual channels. It found that 67%of marketers plan on increasing their YouTube marketing, while half of marketers plan to increase their use of Pinterest. 42% of marketers plan to increase their use of Instagram (up from 38% in 2013). B2C marketers are significantly more likely (49%) to increase activities than B2B marketers (32%).More than a third of marketers (35%) plan on increasing their use of short-form video services like Vine in the marketing, and the report states that, “considering how new short-form video is, this finding is significant.”

5. Videos and original visuals are a growth area for marketers

Video is a large area of focus for marketers. Nearly 3 in 4 plan on increasing their use of original videos. The use of original visuals (like infographics and memes) is a key part of most marketers’ plans in 2014, with 70% planning on increasing their use of visual images.

6. Marketers want to learn more about creating visual assets

The report asked marketers which forms of content they most want to learn more about. Creating original visual assets took first place as the area marketers most want to learn about (68%), followed by producing original videos (60%).

This corrolates with the increased interest in Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram as platforms over recent years, as well as the ongoing trend for moving towards visual posts we have seen within established platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

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The future is visual

The Social Media Examiner report shows beyond a doubt that social media is an increasingly essential tool, with 92% of marketers indicating that it is important for their business, up from 86% in 2013. Within this, we can see a growing trend towards using (or planning to use) visual content on more traditional platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and an uptake in using visually-based platforms such as Pinterest, YouTube and Instagram. We’re going to see an increase in creating original visuals and videos over the next year to engage audiences, particularly in the B2C market. There’s no question that the future is visual and marketers need to think about shifting their content strategy that way.

Originally posted in Fast Company


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