Hootsuite CEO：改变企业社交媒体使用方式的五大趋势

    杜克大学最近发表的一份关于社交媒体的研究令许多企业管理者挠头。该报告显示，许多企业的社交媒体支出约占企业营销预算的9%，预计未来五年内，这个比例将激增到25%。但半数受访的企业营销人员表示，他们根本无法证实社交媒体对他们的企业究竟产生了哪些影响。

    很多批评人士认为，企业一窝蜂地在社交媒体上烧钱不过是在填一个无底洞。不过我认为，这些矛盾的数字却说明了另一个问题：社交网络正在以飞快的速度发展，同时企业也正不遗余力地跟上。虽然企业正在通过社交网络接触更多受众，也正在看到日益增加的好处，但持续变迁的社交媒体图景使得获得持续的成果，以及衡量这些成果，成为一个巨大的挑战。

    2015年，社交媒体变革的步伐注定会进一步加快，但对于企业来说，现在与以往存在一个重大差异：主流社交媒体为了生钱，正在想方设法使企业能更轻松、同时更富有成效地与消费者进行互动。同时，随着各种工具的不断涌现，追踪社交媒体支出的成效，甚至衡量每一条微博的收益，也会变得更加简单。

    简言之，2015年是企业利用社交媒体的成效更容易显现，也更不容易被忽视的一年。现在就让我们透过“水晶球”，看看明年的社交网络会给企业带来什么。

    在Facebook上搞营销将花费企业更多的钱

    你们公司的Facebook主页已经有了几千个粉丝，所以这意味着每次你更新内容的时候，都会有几千人看到，对不对？错！在Facebook专用算法的限制下，每条营销内容大概只会接触到一个品牌16%的粉丝。不过奥美公关公司的研究人员今年年初发表的一份报告显示，目前这个数字已经下降到6%左右，可能还会进一步下跌。该报告的作者马修•曼森认为：“Facebook等于是说，可能有一天，营销内容的‘自然触及人数’可能达到零。”

    那为什么会发生这种情况？首先，用户的消息流中，涌入的内容只会越来越多，也就意味着每条营销内容被看到的概率也会越来越低。与此同时，Facebook还在鼓励企业使用它的付费社交广告，它所触及到的用户要比企业发布的普通内容多得多。这些所谓的“原生广告”就像普通的Facebook消息一样，会直接显示在用户的消息流中，而不是像传统的横幅广告一样显示在网页边缘。

    这对2015年的企业意味着什么？这意味着，要想在Facebook上做好“微营销”，企业可能要在付费社交广告上砸双份的钱。与此同时，企业还会把鸡蛋往其它的篮子里放几个，比如Twitter、Instagram甚至是中国的微信等等。这种广撒网的方法虽然对Facebook的未来发展不利，但对于企业来说不失为触及不同人口群体的好办法。

    如果“微营销”真能促进销量，我们还会看到更多的工具

    在Twitter或Facebook上有几千个数丝，或者在Instagram上收集几万个“赞”来秀一下虚荣心，的确不是很难的事。但它们如何转变成销量和收入？一直到现在为止，这个问题很大程度上都被规避掉了，企业在社交媒体上砸了那么多钱，只是基于“曝光度”和“注意力份额”等空泛的术语。

    但是这种情况也正在迅速改变。很多新工具正在涌现，它们给社交媒体营销流程带来的精确性，就犹如上一代衡量工具之于网络销售流程。首先，有一些分析工具已经能够指出哪家社交媒体最能吸引流量和点击率（比如我们公司使用的uberVuTool），并且会记住你正在发送哪类内容（文字、图片还是视频），以及你的目标群体是谁。这些应用可以自动规划消息的发送时间，使它们在一天中最佳的时间发送出去。同时它们不仅可以报告有多少人阅读了你发送的内容，还可以反馈这些读者的相对影响力。

    将这些工具与GoogleAnalytics和Nimble等社交客户关系管理软件（它可以记录客户在社交媒体的互动情况）结合在一起，企业就有可能追踪到，所有这些“微营销”的内容如何转变为企业网站的访问量，甚至可以追踪到有多少人联系销售人员，或者直接通过网购渠道购买。最后，我们就可以明白一条特定的微博可以产生多少实际的销量，带来多少真金白银，而不是想当然地猜测。

    社交网络将与商业联系得更紧密

    今年11月，Snapchat公司推出了一款叫做Snapcash的产品，由此成为北美第一家允许用户通过消息向其他用户转账的主流社交网络。该服务使用的是借记卡信息，而且至少目前为止还是免费的。一旦它存储了你的信息，你就无需再次输入，只需要在手机上点点划划，就可以把钱轻松地从一个账户转到另一个账户。

    随着移动支付大战的升级，其他社交网络可能很快也会如法炮制。事实上，今年10月的黑客事件显示，Facebook已经悄悄地在其备受欢迎的Messenger应用程序上嵌入了一个隐藏的支付功能。如果该公司将其激活，该应用的5亿用户就能互相转账了。

    不过，这种点对点支付还只是一个开始。预测这种功能即将向商家付款开放，并不需要很大的直觉跳跃。这反过来将为社交媒体潜入电子商务世界铺平道路。打个比方，零售商可以以推文或微博的方式发送特定产品的信息，而消费者只需在手机上点一两下就完成了整个网购流程。实际上这种社交媒体与电商的“合体”已经发生了——目前Facebook和Twitter已经开始对“购买”键进行beta测试。

    另外，对于商家来说，通过社交媒体接受低成本甚至零成本的转账，比接受信用卡支付更有诱惑力，因为信用卡支付每笔都要收取2%至4%的手续费。随着社交网络开始参与越来越多的金融交易，用不了几年，Facebook和其他社交平台有可能会推出比传统的信用卡体系更廉价易用的交易系统。

    Duke University recently published a study on social media that left many managers scratching their heads. Social media spending at companies, the report showed, currently represents 9% of marketing budgets, and that’s forecast to rise to nearly 25% within five years. But half of marketers interviewed said they couldn’t show what impact social media had on their business – at all.

    Critics were quick to call the surge in social media spending a case of throwing good money after bad. From my perspective, however, these conflicting stats tell an entirely different story: that social media is evolving at breakneck speed and companies are struggling mightily to keep up. Businesses are reaching larger audiences and seeing increasing benefits, but the shifting social media landscape makes getting consistent results – and measuring them – an enormous challenge.

    In 2015, the pace of social media change is – if anything – poised to accelerate. But for businesses, there’s one important difference from the past. Hungry to monetize, the major networks are figuring out ways to make it simpler and more productive for companies to engage with customers. Meanwhile, tools are proliferating that make it easier to track the impact of social media spending and even measure return on individual Tweets and posts.

    In short, 2015 is the year that the impact of social media on business gets easier to show and possibly impossible to ignore. Here’s a look into the crystal ball at what the year ahead holds for businesses:

    Staying relevant on Facebook will cost companies more

    Your company’s Facebook Page has thousands of Likes, so that means thousands of people see your updates each time you post, right? Nope. Historically, Facebook’s proprietary algorithm limited reach to just 16% of brands’ fans. But a report published by researchers at PR firm Ogilvy earlier this year showed that number has since declined to around 6% and may fall further. “Increasingly, Facebook is saying that you should assume a day will come when the organic reach is zero,” explained the paper’s author, Marshall Manson.

    Why has this happened? First of all, there’s more potential content than ever flooding users’ news streams, which means that less and less of it actually gets shown. At the same time, Facebook is encouraging companies to use its paid social ads, which reach a significantly larger percentage of fans than organic posts. These so-called “native ads” look just like normal Facebook posts and show up directly in users’ news streams, not along the side of the page like traditional banner ads.

    What does this mean for businesses in 2015? Staying relevant on Facebook FB 1.90% will require doubling down on paid social ad spending. At the same time, we’ll also see companies diversify their social media efforts to include other social channels, including Twitter TWTR 1.25% , Instagram and even China-based messaging service WeChat. This “platform-neutral” approach is both a hedge against further changes at Facebook and a smart way to reach different demographics flocking to other networks.

    Finally, more tools to see if Tweets actually produce sales

    It’s easy enough to flash around vanity metrics showing your company has thousands of Twitter and Facebook followers or gets tens of thousands of Likes on Instagram. But how does that all translate to sales and revenue? Until now, that question has largely been evaded, with spending justified on the basis of vague terms like “exposure” and “mindshare.”

    That’s changing, fast. A new crop of tools are bringing the same rigor to the social media sales process as older-generation measurement tools brought to the online sales process. For starters, analytics software (like the uberVuTool that my company uses) can now pinpoint which social networks drive the most clicks and traffic, bearing in mind what type of content you’re sending (text, images or video) and who your intended audience is. Applications can auto schedule messages to be delivered at optimal time of day and report back not just on how many people viewed but on the relative clout and influence of those viewers.

    Combine these tools with Google Analytics and social customer relationship management software like Nimble (for logging customer interactions over social media) and it’s possible to directly track how all of these efforts translate to visits to company websites and, in turn, leads for salespeople and even purchases via ecommerce channels. Finally, we’re reaching a point where specific Tweets and posts can be linked directly to sales and assigned a real monetary value, not just an aspirational one.

    Social networks will dive deeper into ecommerce

    In November, Snapchat announced the launch of Snapcash, becoming among the first major social networks in North America to allow users to transfer money to one another in messages. The service uses debit card information and appears to be, at least for the moment, free of charge. Once information is stored, it doesn’t have to be entered again – funds are transferred from one bank account to another with a few taps and swipes.

    Expect other social networks to soon follow suit, as part of a larger race into mobile payments. In fact, hacks released in October show a hidden payment feature already buried deep inside Facebook’s popular Messenger app. If activated by the company, it could allow the app’s 500 million users to send money to each other.

    Peer-to-peer payments, however, are likely just the start. It’s not much of an intuitive leap to see how this functionality could be opened up for payments to merchants, as well. This, in turn, paves the way for social networks to dive into the world of ecommerce. Retailers would be able to send out offers for specific products in the form of Tweets or Facebook posts, for example, then consumers could buy with a tap or two. In fact, we’re already seeing exactly this convergence of social media and ecommerce in the “buy” buttons currently being beta-tested on Facebook and Twitter streams.

    And there’s one other twist to this story. For merchants, receivinglow-cost or no-cost payments via social media is much more attractive than getting paid with credit cards, which generally skim a 2-4% interchange fee off the top of every transaction. As social networks become associated more and more with financial transactions, we may well see Facebook and other platforms branch out to offer a cheaper, easier-to-use alternative to the traditional credit card system in the years ahead.