Before we get into the results and analysis of our social media poll, I’d like to say a very big thank you to everyone who took the time to answer our questions.
The results from this poll have helped us to understand your needs, preferences and most importantly, the lessons you’d most like to learn. This will make our guides, articles and blogs much more valuable.
BTW: The reason we started the Einstein Marketer blog was to help as many businesses as possible (especially those who have no experience with marketing) and this social media poll will help us do exactly that.
Alright, that’s enough of the teary-eyed thank you, let’s dive into the results.
On which networks do you publish the most posts?
Facebook: 50.9%
Instagram: 20%
LinkedIn: 13.7%
Twitter: 13.1%
Snapchat: 1.1%
Other: 1.1%
Pinterest: 0%
Analysis: The big 4 networks (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter) have taken 98.8% of the votes, with Facebook leading the way with more than half!
Facebook is the world’s biggest network with over 2.3 Billion monthly active users, so it’s no surprise how important it is to businesses and marketers.
From a marketing perspective, the network that requires the most amount of posts to gain traction, audience reach and engagement, is Twitter, but these results show us that this network is not necessarily your preferred channel.
If you are posting a lot on Facebook, be careful not to post more than 3 times per day, as Facebook will begin to penalise your reach if they believe you are spamming your follower’s newsfeeds.
Which social network is most important to your brand?
Facebook: 51.2%
LinkedIn: 20.7%
Instagram: 18.4%
Twitter: 6.9%
Others: 2.3%
Pinterest: 0.6%
Snapchat: 0%
Analysis: Given the results in the earlier question (above), and the fact that we began life as an agency specialising in Facebook marketing, I’m not surprised that Facebook has topped this question in our poll.
LinkedIn coming in second with 20.7% of the votes tells us that a large portion of our audience are B2B marketers, and we’ll be sure to prioritise some more B2B content soon (we have a lot of B2B clients, so we have plenty of knowledge to share).
Instagram came in third, which was a surprise as it’s quickly becoming an incredibly important network for brands. Insta are owned by Facebook, making them closely linked in terms of their newsfeed algorithms, advertising platforms and marketing tactics.
On which networks do you receive the highest engagement?
Facebook: 47.1%
Instagram: 27.1%
LinkedIn: 14.1%
Twitter: 9.4%
Pinterest: 1.2%
Others: 1.2%
Snapchat: 0%
Analysis: Unsurprisingly, the network that is prioritised by the majority of our voters, comes in first in terms of engagement, Facebook. However, the biggest leap in votes goes to Instagram, who climb to 27.1%.
It’s well publicised that Insta is the network with the highest levels of engagement, and this tells us that although only 18.4% see it as their most important network, many more of you receive the highest levels of engagement on it. This might mean that there are plenty of voters who could be focussing the bulk of their efforts on the wrong channel.
Do you have a social media posting planner/calendar?
Yes: 47.3%
No: 52.7%
Analysis: The results of this question surprised me the most. More than half of our voters do not use a social media posting planner!
We use one and we absolutely swear by it. It helps us to stay organised, keep on top of content creation and most important, implement a clearly defined strategy.
Many social media marketers publish posts that they ‘think’ their audience like. My best piece of advice here is to create a social media content strategy, organise it in a calendar and stick to it. Don’t post for the sake of it and don’t take guesses.
How many social networks do you use?
1: 27.7%
2: 27.1%
3: 22.3%
4: 25.7%
5+: 7.2%
Analysis: These results represent the different sizes of businesses that voted in our poll. There is a very even split in businesses using 1-4 social networks.
The smaller team, the fewer networks you should be using. It’s much better to post, analysis, optimise and get the most from 1 network, than struggle on many. If you’re struggling, check out our Ultimate Guide to Social Media for Businesses: Which Networks Should You Use?
Approximately how many original (not included cross promoted) posts do you publish every day?
1: 67.7%
2: 13.7%
3: 9.3%
4: 5.6%
5+: 3.7%
Analysis: My biggest regret (when putting this poll together) is that I didn’t include a ‘0’ option for this question.
However, 67.7% of you have told us that you put out 1 original post every day. It’s crucial that you publish original posts and content every single day and remain consistent with this strategy.
The number of original posts you publish hugely depends on the network that is most important to you brand. If your focus is on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn 1-2 is absolutely fine.
Do you curate content on social media or only publish original posts?
Both: 58.8%
Original content only: 26.3%
Curate: 15%
Analysis: Content curation is a quick way to demonstrate an interest in your industry and remind your followers that you’re plugged into all the most relevant content (in your niche).
Original content is much more valuable to your brand, but it’s a mix of both content post types that wins in our poll with 58.8%.
Publishing curated and original content gives brands the best of both worlds and is a well-used tactic.
So far, I haven’t created any information about the best places to find content to curate, I’ll get to this soon. In the meantime, feel free to curate one of our articles (cheeky, I know!).
Which social network do you consider best for advertising?
Facebook: 76.4%
Instagram: 13%
LinkedIn: 3.7%
Twitter: 3.1%
Other: 3.1%
Pinterest: 0.6%
Snapchat: 0%
Analysis: Facebook is the world’s best social media advertising tool. They have the best business advertising manager of any social network, allow brands the most targeting options and boast the most users in the world. This is represented in our poll, with 76.4% of our votes.
We have put together numerous guides for businesses about FB advertising and I’ll be getting to work on more soon (so keep your eyes open).
Instagram is the only other network with a relevant percentage of votes (13%). They are owned by Facebook and as an advertiser, you are able to use Facebook Business Manager to run ads purely on Instagram (by editing placements in ad set level). If you are using Insta for ads, I’d recommend doing this. Don’t worry, I’ll be putting together an Instagram advertising guide that walks you through the entire process very soon.
On which social network would you like to learn more advertising techniques?
Facebook: 45.9%
LinkedIn: 20.4%
Instagram: 18.5%
Twitter: 10.2%
Snapchat: 2.6%
Pinterest: 1.9%
Others: 0.6%
Analysis: Although 76.4% of you consider Facebook the best advertising platform, 45.9% of you would still like to learn more about it! This tells me that many of our readers who advertise on FB, would still like to get more out of their campaigns (we’ve got plenty more knowledge in the locker).
The biggest surprise was the 20.4% of voters who’d like to learn more about advertising on LinkedIn. The network is becoming increasingly important as a marketing channel, particularly for B2B brands. We have used it extensively for some of our clients and I’ll be researching our best performing tactics ASAP.
Which element of a social media ad do you struggle with the most?
Video: 33.3%
Copy: 28.9%
Other: 12.2%
CTA: 9.5%
Photo/Image: 8.3%
Headline: 7.7%
Analysis: Videos are a great way to grab attention in social media newsfeeds. They also receive high levels of engagement and encourage algorithms to show your ad to more people organically (if they were posts originally) because people spend more time on the network watching them.
Copy is another crucial element of a social media ad and can make a huge difference to your ad’s performance and CTA.
These two elements will feature prominently in our upcoming guides.
Does your business use the social media story feature?
Occasionally: 32.9%
Never: 31.6%
Rarely: 21.9%
Everyday: 13.6%
Analysis: Stories appear at the top of the newsfeed, allow businesses plenty of data to analyse and can make a brand feel much more human.
As a brand, you should try to create ‘stories’ as often as possible. Instagram and Facebook are the two networks that are most known for this feature. If you aren’t already, follow some of the biggest brands in your industry and see what they’re doing in terms of social media stories.
Do you get more satisfaction from a post that receives high engagement on your personal or business profile?
Business: 69.7%
Personal: 30.3%
Analysis: Almost 7 out of 10 of businesses and marketers who use social media prefer their business accounts to perform well, than their personal accounts! This tells me just how much you guys care about marketing success.
Are you happy with your marketing performance on social media?
Underperforming: 47.7%
Satisfied: 25.5%
Not at all: 19%
Very happy: 7.8%
Analysis: Our final question provided some pretty sorry results. Only 7.8% of our voters are ‘very happy’ with their social media marketing performance, and just 25.5% are ‘satisfied’.
Most of you see their performance as ‘underperforming’, which means you’re definitely in the right place to learn more about social media and up your game.
The key to your success is to implement tactics that have been proven to work. Keep reading our guides, or get in touch if you’d like help with social media marketing (for some free advice!). We don’t bite, promise!
Conclusion
Our social media marketing poll has given us a wealth of information, that we can analyse and use to create targeted guides to help you overcome your biggest problems.
And it’s given me a ton of work to get through (thanks for that guys!). So I’m going to keep this conclusion short and get to it!
Before I go, I’d just like to say one more big thank you to everyone who voted! THANK YOU!!!
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