Social Media Marketing World is becoming the annual conference to attend for marketers from around the world. The event is held in San Diego, California every spring. This year, the 4th annual meeting saw over 3000 attendees from 55 different countries.
There were several big topics. During his closing keynote address, Mark Schaefer talked about the content shock that is happening on the internet today. It is expected to grow by 500 percent by 2020, which presents a real problem for marketers: How do businesses get noticed will all the stuff out there?
To get noticed, Schaefer suggested creating great content and being more human.
Live streaming video was again a major topic at the conference. Last year, it was Meerkat and Periscope. This year, Meerkat has faded from view, Periscope is still around, and Facebook Live is coming on strong. This trend only appears to be growing as 73% of marketers who were recently surveyed report that they plan to increase the amount of video in their marketing strategies this year.
Facebook ads was also another hot topic at the conference. The social site picked up 505 more advertisers in the last twelve months. In fact, Andrea Vahl's Facebook Ads session was standing room only. Her presentations was slotted during the last session time on the last day of the conference, a time when most people leave these events early. It speaks to Andrea's popularity and that of her topic.
The mobile app Snapchat has also come on big this year. Once thought to be just a knock-off way for kids to share photos, this service is delivering some big numbers. consider this: in May 2015, the average number of video views was 2 billion per day. This year, in February, that number grew to 6 billion per day! That much video content being viewed has to be attractive to marketers looking to reach this young demographic.