Group Mentality

If you’re like us, you prefer the niche community vibe found in Facebook Groups vs. the tumultuous nature of the infamous timeline. And we’re not alone. More than 4 million users started actively using groups in the past year, bringing the total to 1.8 billion. So at Facebook’s annual Communities Summit, it announced a slew of new group-focused features, like increased engagement tools and hyper-specific group formats.

For brands, the most beneficial announcement is the addition of group promotions to the Brand Collabs Manager tool. Now marketers using the Manager can quickly identify opportunities to promote their sponsored content within relevant public groups. 

While creating a branded group can be a great way to build community and advocacy with your audience, it can also be a slippery slope into time-consuming admin and moderation tasks. But with Facebook’s continuous rollout of new group tools, brands of all kinds can take advantage of the engaged users and tailored audiences seeking respite from the timeline. 

TL;DR: Facebook Groups continue to grow in popularity for users, and new features and tools make it easier for brands to capitalize on Facebook’s wealth of niche communities. 

Reddit's Purchasing Power

Last week Reddit was readying itself to become a full-blown marketing platform. This week it’s showing marketers just how effective it can be. In a survey with Vero Analytics, Reddit analyzed how it influences purchasing behavior and buyers’ journeys compared to other social platforms — and the results are incredibly impressive:

Of those surveyed, 90% trusted Reddit’s product info more than any other social media platform. Feeling informed and confident in their decisions, Redditors make purchases 9x faster, spend 15% more, and are 13% more likely to become brand advocates post-purchase.

What makes Reddit so different from social sites like Facebook or Instagram? It’s rooted in the platform’s community and collaboration aspects, where users have built trust among one another. And that trust extends to product and brand recommendations, reviews, and discussions — making it one of *the* go-to places for companies to gain exposure to passionate consumers. (Just don’t get caught spending hours scrolling through the forums for “research.”)

TL;DR: The Reddit purchase journey results in more profound research, faster purchase decisions, more spending, and higher net promoter score (NPS) ratings than any other social media platform. 

Voice Tweets, Who?

If you remember anything that happened on Twitter back in June (let alone last week), major props to you. We do recall the platform’s announcement of audio tweets, which three years, sorry, months later, have yet to take off. But as Twitter rolls out the audio tweet functionality to more users, it’s also made a promise that could expand the feature’s usage. 

Initially criticized for audio tweets’ lack of accessibility, Twitter shared it’s working on adding auto-transcription functions for both voice and video tweets, which should roll out in early 2021. As many brands reaffirmed their commitments to diversity and inclusion this year, the upcoming additions to audio tweets could make the feature a more viable part of your social strategy. With this transcription capability, you can reach new audiences by considering all the different ways people consume content. 

TL;DR: As Twitter rolls out audio tweets to more users, it also announced it’s working to make the feature more accessible through automatic captioning.

ICYMI