For the past 30 days, we have been tracking Social Engagement across the most important Social Media and content channels. This has included Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We want to share the results & changes for all the main parties, and their respective leaders.
With each channel, we will provide Exit Poll predictions on winners vs losers in the #SocialSphere - and rank them.
How much has Social Media impacted this election? You decide!
For the past 30 days, we have been tracking Social Engagement across the most important Social Media and content channels. This has included Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. We want to share the results & changes for all the main parties, and their respective leaders.
With each channel, we will provide Exit Poll predictions on winners vs losers in the #SocialSphere - and rank them.
How much has Social Media impacted this election? You decide!
YOUTUBE
On the face of it, you would expect the BIG TWO to come out on top, more donations, more MP’s - but video has really catapulted the smaller parties to be creative and stand out. Here is a quick summary.
With the General Election firmly upon us, we are exploring how each party/leader is using social media to increase their influence.
We’re also looking at how schools are taking this opportunity to have a voice.
Which channels are the politicians and parties using?
Twitter
Leaders
All leaders and parties are on Twitter and regularly tweeting (particularly now that it is election time!).
Leanne Wood (@LeanneWood) is a Twitter veteran having signed up in April 2008.
David Cameron (@David_Cameron) is the newcomer to Twitter having only signed up in 2010. However, he trumps all leaders when it comes to followers. His 962,000 followers by far the highest number of all party leaders.
Natalie Bennett and Leanne Wood have the lowest number of followers, but the highest number of tweets.
Parties
@UKLabour have the most followers by a large margin. This stands out because
@Ed_Miliband does not have a huge following, nor do they tweet often.
They also don’t own @Labour. Nope, that’s owned by the Irish Labour Party. This will, no doubt, lead to confusion and mis-tweeting / following.
Conservatives have the highest number of likes on Facebook, closely followed by UKIP.
This is completely inconsistent with the parties following counts on Twitter, where Labour are the most followed party.
YouTube
Ed Miliband is the only verified leader on Instagram but only has a low 5,594 follower count - that’s nothing to shout about.
He’s got a nice mixture of photos and has even been playing with the filters.
Nick Clegg has also been dabbling in Instagram but just doesn’t understand it. He takes ready-made photos and uploads them to Instagram - that’s not how it’s done, Nick. Just look at those white lines!!
Instagram is all about that square crop.
Conversation on Twitter using #GE2015 is steadily rising. It hits a peak whenever there are TV debates - which shows that there is still huge power in using mass broadcasting.
Parties
@UKLabour,
@TheSNP, and
@UKIP are the three most mentioned parties on Twitter. Again, you can see how their mentions peak on key events such as TV debates and manifesto launches.
Manifesto
It’s interesting to look at the discussions around the word ‘manifesto’ on Twitter.
Not much movement until we hit the 12th April when the manifestos started launching.
#milifandom vs #cameronettes
Heard of Directioners and Beliebers, right? They’re the fandoms of One Direction and Justin Beiber.
Well, there’s now a fandom for teenagers who like Ed Milliband. And since #milifandom trended on Twitter, out came #cameronettes - but it’s just not as popular.
Sounds like a joke, but #milifandom was set up by a teenager studying for her AS Levels (and has had to turn down interviews as she’s studying) who wants to correct the ‘distorted presentation of Ed’.
@Ed_Miliband too.
#milifandom has gone viral and been covered by multiple publications.
#milifandom was tweeted over 25,000 times. Apart from the SNP (with just under 30,000 mentions on 2nd April), none of the parties, or leaders have been mentioned that many times in one day. Not even Labour themselves. This is the power of social.
What we’re doing
We’ve launched our own campaign and manifesto - yep, why not!?
Let’s just say - they weren’t as expensive as we had first thought ;-)
What’s your school doing?
There’s an opportunity for your school to have its voice heard. Get out and get involved with the conversation on Twitter.
Do your pupils study politics at all? Get some of them to write a blog post, have a debate on YouTube, create a podcast on Soundcloud, do a Q&A on Twitter.
Why not launch your own manifesto? Seriously. Share your 5 ‘key points’ on Twitter. Create a 60 second video. Do an interview. Explain why someone should vote for your school.
What’s your school’s manifesto? How are you looking to improve your school over the next 5 years? Are you going to increase grades, build a new science department, invest in new technology? Put this in a manifesto.
We’re marketers - we look for opportunities. And this is one BIG opportunity.
Share your school’s manifesto with us, @intSchools. We’ll put the best ones on Twitter and in our blog (free link to your school website!).
Facebook’s call-to-action button helps drive traffic to your school website. But not many people know about it or how it can drive people to contact you, to download your app, to watch your video.
The button sits at the top of your Facebook Page and offers visitors an action to take.
Page admins can select from a group of CTA buttons — like Shop Now or Sign Up — to add to the top of their Page.
The seven calls to action available are:
Book Now
Contact Us
Use App
Play Game
Shop Now
Sign Up
Watch Video
A few are not relevant for schools - Play Game, Shop Now. And the clearest CTA that works for schools is ‘Contact Us’.
Book Now - book an open morning, or visit to the school
Contact Us - contact the school
Use App - download the school app (if there is one!?)
Sign Up - sign up to an open morning, or a newsletter
Watch Video - watch a marketing video
There are many uses for most of the available CTAs. However, with any CTAs, it has to attract the end person.
Book Now, Use App, Sign Up may not be clear to people. They may not understand what will happen if they click on the link. What am I booking? What app will I be using? Signing up for what?
The following examples will use Contact Us as the chosen CTA.
Step 1: When you’ve logged into your Page, as an admin, you will notice the ‘Create Call-to-action’ button. Click this to start.
Short form video has exploded recently. With faster 4G speeds, better cameras, and more storage on smartphones, videos have become popular on social media.
A modern parent expects visual storytelling from their school.
Visuals started to be included in posts to make them stand out. But now, everybody does it. Short video has almost become the new photo. Want to stand out? Try posting short videos.
As you can see, there are a lot of places you can distribute your short video. So look at the benefits of uploading video to each channel and use this mini-guide to help inform your decision.
YouTube
Second largest search engine in the world. Biggest reach when it comes to video. Short-form video is not native to YouTube - it was designed, and is being used, for longer form.
Share to YouTube if your video is over 1 minute.
Vine
Vine is designed for creating 6-second videos on mobile. So it is native for distributing short video.
The restrictive nature of Vine forces you to be creative with your posts. Which has led Vine to be popular with people who want quick entertainment.
Posts can easily be embedded into tweets, and websites to increase your reach.
Instagram
Instagram has a huge audience of over 300 million people. It is a mobile-first platform, meaning it is designed to capture events through your smartphone.
There is a 15 second limit on videos.
Share artsy and indie photos to engage the Instagram crowd. Don’t put adverts, or text based content up.
A video posted by bablakeofficial (@bablakeofficial) on
Facebook
Facebook has the largest audience, second only to YouTube. But, it is not a video specific channel.
Facebook autoplays videos in a person’s feed. Though this is great for grabbing attention, it also inflates the number of views a video has had in Facebook Insights.
Facebook videos are for short-medium form video. No real purpose for Facebook videos - other than to be more of a competitor to YouTube.
Sharing videos on Facebook, from YouTube, creates a link post. This pulls through meta data from YouTube, and isn’t as effective or attention-grabbing as native Facebook video. Also means it requires more clicks to play the video.
Videos can be uploaded once they have already been taken. This allows you to capture moments and share them at the end of the day.
If you have time to upload videos to Facebook, then go for it. If not, share it to YouTube.
Mobile video is native to Snapchat. It allows you to capture a moment, as it is happening, and share it to your ‘story’. Your story is a collection of photos and videos capture with Snapchat in the past 24 hours.
There is a 10 second limit for each video but you can piece them together in your story.
Snapchat is more like the front of a postcard, where Twitter is the back.
Meerkat (NEW)
Meerkat is a live broadcasting platform that allows you to stream video through Twitter. It literally went live 6 days ago (that’s how quickly we react for you guys!).
The platform is all about sharing live stories. How can you get more real-time than that?!
Take a look at it and explore it. What do you think?
There are clear pros and cons for distributing short videos on particular channels. You can repurpose videos to work for each channel - but only if they work with the style of each channel.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: If you could only upload your latest video to ONE channel, which would you choose and why? TWEET US: @intSchools
Social Media Training Day #SMTD15
We’re offering a social media day for school marketers to learn more about social media marketing. Come and join us on 28th April 2015 at Whittlebury Hall, Northamptonshire.
Learn about reach, social influence and the importance of your digital brand.
We often get asked “how do we improve our social media marketing?”. And it isn’t so simple to reply! There are lot’s of ways you can make improvements, and a lot will be specific to your school.
However, here are 6 things that you might not have thought to do yet.
1. Create a dedicated interest-based account?
There will be lots of stories happening at your school. And these will be happening in different areas of the school. Unfortunately, you can’t be everywhere!
For example, there will not be a lack of sports stories to share. A dedicated sports account will your community to follow this account, should they be interested in sport at the school. This will be an account with real focus.
This will also help feed into the main school Twitter feed - you will simply retweet the most newsworthy tweets.
These ‘interest based’ sub-accounts work tremendously well for schools. People will enjoy following a dedicated account that they are interested in, and it will take pressure off the person running the main account, as the teachers will be capturing and sharing stories!
Some ideas:
Sports
Art
Boarding
Music
Trips
English
Science
2. Reserve your brand name across all social channels?
Your social name is like your new www. domain name. It is essential that it is reserved across all social channels. Even if you do not plan on using it yet, reserve it!
Read our blog post on naming your social media channels:
3. Use Vine to share short 6 second clips of ‘Life At The School’?
Vine can be used to show a snapshot of life at the school - in 6 seconds! The videos are natively embedded into tweets, and can be embedded into your news articles.
Stop-motion animation can be achieved through the use of Vine. This can bring up some creative videos.
4. Use Instagram to share glimpses of life at the school?
Instagram is currently one of the most popular social media channels, at the moment. It has more users than Twitter, and should not be overlooked.
In fact, it is very easy to use and create content for. Instagram does not need a constant stream of posts - just one photo a day is enough.
An option is to take 7 photos Monday morning, and this gives you a photo to share each day for a whole week.
Instagram is great for building awareness and loyalty
5. Embedding social into your news/website?
Social content can easily be embedded into news articles. Content such as tweets, YouTube videos, Vines, Instagram photos etc. can all be embedded into your website.
News would be a great place to show more content for a particular article. This will not only add more depth to your news article, but also encourage people to explore your social content.
6. Use your own branded bit.ly URLs for social links?
Using bit.ly allows you to share and track shortened URLs on social media, websites, and even offline. There is an option to create custom, branded bit.ly links that are more personalised.
Use domai.nr to search variants of your brand name, to get shortened versions. You can then use the service to register the domain.
Are you going to try out any of these tips? Do you already do any of them? Let us know on Twitter @intSchools.
To celebrate, we’ve put together this fun guide for you. Find your perfect #SocialValentine by following the flow diagram.
It is a basic guide to help you understand that social is all about telling stories in the right places. What is the right channel to share the piece of content that you have?
We thought it would be interesting (and kinda funny) to personify the social media channels into lonely hearts ads. Each of the main social media channels are going to try and sell themselves to your school.
They will introduce themselves, tell you what they can do for you, who already uses them, and how many users they have.
Let the #SocialDating begin…
Twitter
“Fast paced, and loves to chat. Keeps things short, but sweet. Interested in what’s happening at your school right now. (M, 25)”
I am your your channel to tell stories in real-time. It is your ‘what’s happening’ channel.
My demographic is slightly male-orientated, and has a medium age range.
I have 288 million users, and I am growing.
YouTube
“Perfect partner to watch TV and listen to music with. Often discovers the next big thing. Interested in videos of events and life at your school (M, 27)”
I’m your channel to post long-form videos to. Got a video that is over 1 minute long? Share it with me!
I want to see videos of events, and life at your school.
I am already being used by 1 billion people. I am the second largest search engine in the world.
Pinterest
“Spent too long planning dream wedding, dream house, first child’s outfit, holidays. Loves fashion, art, photography. Interested in your school’s creative work (F, 29)”
I’m your channel to share creative work, from your pupils. People use me to share fashion, art, photography, and other creative work.
I am a great tool for learning and inspiration.
I am being used by over 70 million people. I am small, but my community is strong.
Instagram
“Young and loves artsy photos. Self-proclaimed photographer. Loves food, and selfies. Interested in beautiful photos of your school (F, 23)”
I am your channel to share photos and short 15 second videos of life at your school. All you need is a smartphone. Take a photo, and I can help make it more beautiful.
My demographic is younger than most. And I am used by more females, than males.
I have over 300 million users. More than Twitter - can you believe that?
Tumblr
“Loves cats, quotes and a good GIF. Interested in trips, sports, art etc. at your school (F, 23)”
HIYA. I am the fun, quirky modern way of telling stories.
I am your place to share stories about interests and topics. I am particularly popular with other schools for trips, sports, art, boarding, year groups etc.
I like to see photos, videos, text, audio etc. I am kinda the ‘catch all’ channel.
I am particularly popular with the younger female audience.
420 million people are currently sharing with me.
Snapchat
“Young, trendy and hip. Loves posing and partying. Looking for somebody to take selfies with! Interested in snapshots of life at your school (F, 20)”
I am more than just selfies. I am being used to capture moments around the world. If you want to get people’s attention, and you want people to see your stories, then I am the channel for you.
People have to hold the screen to see your content. Which, means their eyes are on you!
Over 100 million people are using me, and I am valued at $10 billion. That’s how much people believe in me!
SoundCloud
“Bit of a quirky hipster. Not many people know me, but I am there! Interested in hearing music, podcasts, audio from your school. (M, 26)”
I am the channel to use for your audio content. I want to hear sounds from your concerts, music performances, podcasts, school radio etc.
I am a great learning tool too. Some schools use me to practise their modern foreign languages.
I have 250 million users. Pretty good going, huh?
Hopefully, this has given you some insight into where to share your stories (as well as made you laugh a little?!).
Social media will become more visual - CORRECT ;-)
Automated messages won’t be frowned upon - CORRECT ;-)
The fall of Facebook? - INCORRECT ;-(
But that’s 2014. That’s done. Let’s move on to 2015!
What do we think will turn up?
1. Filtered Twitter feed
Twitter has a problem with the amount of content being created. Surely the more content, the better? Yes and no. The issue for Twitter is that there is a lot of noise, and that is effecting its user experience.
When a new user signs up to Twitter, they have to find people to follow. Then, when they come back to their feed, they have a chronological feed that may be full of noise, or uninteresting content.
It is expected that Twitter will soon serve tweets based on algorithms - similar to Facebook.
In a way, they already do this with #Hashtags. If you search a #Hashtag, an algorithm will show the top tweets. All tweets can be viewed by clicking the respective tab.
2. There will be a battle for video
Hyperlapse in 2014 - an app that creates mobile hyperlapses. Will we be seeing more video apps popping up? Probably.
We’re starting to see more stylised video content - very similar to Instagram filters. This is due to software being readily available.
With the popularisation of GoPro products, slow-motion on smartphones, timelapses, and 360-videos, 2015 looks to be a popular year for creating video content. But which social channel will we upload our videos too?
3. Better social analytics
Social Candy to be your go-to metric analysis tool.
4. Social conversions
#AmazonBasket.
Perhaps Twitter will introduce a ‘Buy’ button to tweet to allow direct purchases.
This would certainly be of benefit for Pinterest, who’s demographic is mostly in aspiration and shopping mode.
The movie from 1989 got a few things right when it depicted what 2015 would look like. Although flat screen TVs and drones are abundant, the movie’s prediction of flying cars, hover boards and self-lacing shoes was completely wrong.
29 predictions for 2015: Fortune.com’s Crystal Ball
#SocialAdvent has been a phenomenal success this year. Over 1,200 tweets have been sent by almost a 150 of you smashing bunch!
The hashtag itself has reached over 2 million Twitter users. Yes, 2 million!!
One of the best stories was of @DESChistory getting a retweet off Russell Crowe for day 12. That’s right, the Russell Crowe was involved in #SocialAdvent!
There are still 8 days left of #SocialAdvent. Get involved!
———–
Schools all around the world are taking part in #SocialAdvent. Each day a new challenge is set, and is designed to encourage you to share inspiring stories.
Twitter and Facebook are often seen as the same type of channel, of which only one is relevant - ‘you should be on either Twitter or Facebook’. This is simply not true. In short, you should be on both.
Appearance-wise, they may look similar. Both have a profile picture, header image, description, links, timeline etc. But they each offer their own set of benefits and type of communication and language.
We’ve split this blog post up into two parts. [Part One] will explore the basics of the channels, and what differentiates them. [Part Two] will be a more advanced look into Twitter and Facebook - types of content, ways to advertise, psychology of users, demographics etc.
Twitter
Twitter is a microblogging service that allows users to share bursts of information, known as tweets, in 140 characters or less. It has developed into a great platform to engage with prospects and current communities. Schools can use the service to show all of things happening at the school, in real-time.
That’s the key here. Twitter is all about real-time communications - what is currently happening at the school.
Twitter has becoming much more visual in its appearance. Photos and videos are being integrated into tweets much more frequently. And we are seeing more engagement with tweets that contain photos. Twitter now allows you to upload up to four photos into a single tweet.
With over 271 million active users, it is still a small but effective community for schools to use.
Facebook
Facebook is the worlds largest social network, with over 1.3 billion users. The ability to develop a community on the platform is incredibly powerful. Schools should be using the platform to enhance brand, voice and community.
Facebook’s Timeline is designed to visual show photos, videos, links and other media.
The purpose of the channel is to develop a community that will advocate your school’s brand to increase awareness and publicity. This can be achieved by sharing content that resonates with the current community.
Your Facebook Page will also offer a place for prospects to discover what life at the school is like, through statuses, photos, videos and comments.
It should be used to showcase all of the great things that happen at the school.
Real-time vs Archive
What’s happening?
Twitter is your what’s happening channel. This is what is currently going on at the school, with posts and activity from the diverse range of interests and activities at the school - sports, drama, music, art, science etc.
People in Twitter mode are fast-paced and what information now.
This is your place to tell every story that is currently developing at the school.
Facebook is your what’s happened channel. This is where you showcase the best things that have happened recently. Not all stories will be told on Facebook, but the most exciting ones will be.
People on Facebook are in down-time and likely to be in consumption mode at the end of the day.
This is your place to tell the best stories that have happened today.
In December, we explored the differences between Twitter and Facebook, and how this affects your school’s marketing. We’re now going to look deeper into who uses them, and how people use these two channels.
Demographics
Facebook
71% of adult internet users // 58% of entire adult population.
Facebook is still, by far, the most popular social network. However, growth has slowed (kinda inevitable when you have so many users already!) over the past year. Other platforms have seen large growth.
The only group to be growing fast on Facebook? The ‘over 65s’.
A list of who people ‘friend’ on Facebook:
93% of Facebook users say they are Facebook friends with family members other than parents or children
91% say they are Facebook friends with current friends
87% say they are connected to friends from the past, such as high school or college classmates
58% say they are connected to work colleagues
45% say they are Facebook friends with their parents
43% say they are friends with their children on Facebook
39% say they are connected to people they have never met in person
36% say they are Facebook friends with their neighbours
Facebook is surprisingly the most popular sharing platform for ‘personally created videos’. These are videos that people have taken on their smartphones, cameras etc.
Facebook has been built to be a timeline of your life. From the moment you are born, they want people to be sharing your story.
It has always been about closed connections, whereby friendship and an acceptance of request is needed. Tagging, liking, commenting, sharing… The life of Facebook is about sharing the lives of you, your friends, and your family.
Who do you connect with on Facebook?
Friends
Family
Can you like brands, companies, organisations? Yes, of course. But would you say it is a connection? Probably not. People only Like brands for the discounts. Am I right?! Well, kinda. Here’s the real deal about why people become a fan of brands on Facebook:
Celebrities and public figures were introduced to Facebook - and yes, people Like or subscribe to them. But do they really ‘connect’? No, not really. It is more one-way communication.
Interactions with other accounts are much more likely on Twitter. Take a look at some of the most popular UK accounts below, and notice how popular accounts are interacting.
Harry Styles
Twitter seems to have much more open-interactions. And this is clearly due to its open nature.
Want to see how schools (or anyone!) are interacting on Twitter? Hit the 'Tweets & replies’ button to see.
A great article about how each social channel was used to cover a breaking local new story in American via Gigaom.
