Over 100 people joined us for the first Social Marketers NYC Meetup. The topic was "What's Next in Social?" Rachel Silver of Birchbox and Laura Chin of Etsy joined us to discuss the changes, challenges and opportunities taking place in the social marketing landscape. We put together the stats, news stories and advice collected from that night. To join us at Social Marketers NYC, join our group here: http://www.meetup.com/Social-marketers-nyc/ To learn more about Offerpop and try out a free social campaign, visit us here: www.offerpop.com

1. What’s Next in Social?
With Etsy and Birchbox
Laura Chin Rachel Silver
Etsy Birchbox
@lorwich @racheljo

2. Our conversation focused on all the crazy changes in
social media and how marketers are keeping up.
The key themes of the
evening were…
…how social keeps getting
more mobile.
…the rise of social
spending.
…social’s more visual look.
…the pace of change in
social.
…the move towards social
Offerpop CMO Mark Cooper moderates a conversation with Rachel and Laura. data.

3. First, let’s face it. Social is going mobile. And marketers
need to figure out how to adapt.
F Facebook is increasingly mobile. As of late last year, the social
network had 680 million mobile users.
B Twitter naturally aligns with mobile given its texting-like features.
It makes sense that 63% of users access them from a mobile
device.
60% of smartphone 22% of time spent on
owners access social Android phones and
networks from their device iPhones is on social
on a daily basis. networking apps.

4. Meanwhile, social media’s getting more respect – and
more money. Spending on social is on a steep upswing.
$ Brands will spend 37%
more on social this year.
And social’s slice of the
budget is expected to
rise from 8.4% to 21.6%
over the next five years.

5. Social networks are getting more visual, too. Marketers
need to think in pictures. Call it the Pinterest effect.
Pinterest broke into the most visited sites
list in the US in September at 50th. By
January it had rose to 39th.
Sept. ‘12 Jan. ‘13
Shortly after Twitter
"
Facebook’s redesigned
News Feed – where
released its Vine 40% of users time is
product, the new spent – heavily
service saw more emphasizes visual
than 100,000 videos content, both for
uploaded over a people and brands.
single weekend.

6. Change is a constant. Almost every major social network
has announced new features since January.
On January 15,
Two weeks later,
Facebook ups its
Twitter releases
P Y
search efforts by
Vine – inventing
announcing Graph
Search the six-second film
By February 5, On February 20,
F U
Instagram decides Twitter announced
to introduce a Web its Ad API
platform
March 7 rolls Not even a week
around, and
H M
later, Pinterest
Facebook rolls out unveils analytics
a new look for the for business pages
News Feed

7. Social data is a huge opportunity for marketers. It’s also
a big challenge.
 Clearly, people are sharing data. 30 billion pieces of content
are shared on Facebook every month.
 500 million tweets are processed on Twitter per day.
 Yet, CMOs consistently report that they don’t feel social
media is well integrated with other marketing efforts.

8. So with all these topics, changes and challenges in mind,
we got together to talk with Laura and Rachel.

9. Thinking about all the shifts we just
mentioned, I’m curious: what’s the
biggest way your job has changed over
the past year?

10. It’s shifted from a
community management
role to a marketing
strategist role. We’re
working across
departments, and sharing
data about how customers
are interacting and
engaging with us.
We’ve become the
educators internally. Social
media is becoming much
more important and it’s
changing so rapidly that
we’ve all had to pitch in to
explain how it works, and
how to be effective.

11. Of all the big updates to major social
networks, which are you most excited
about?

12. I’m really excited about the new Facebook
News Feed. I think people will start to
consume it like a personal newspaper,
replacing services like Google Reader and
RSS. I used to read like 300 articles a day on
Reader, then I shifted to Twitter. But now I
think Facebook could be the news aggregator.
If brands do content well, then they’ll be able
to take advantage of this change because it’s
more visual.

13. How do you keep up with all the platform
changes? What’s the vetting process?

14. Try everything that’s new,
even if it doesn’t end up
working. The idea is to get
a sense of what works and
what doesn’t. That way,
you’re ahead of the trends.
Social is now the testing
ground for new campaigns
and ideas. Social has
become an immediate
focus group. Through our
social campaigns, we get a
sense of what content or
campaigns are resonating.

15. 
How much do you pay attention to
influencers? Are you targeting and
identifying them?

16. We have a very active blogger and
influencer community, and are always
looking at ways to find new influencers to
interact with. We create authentic
relationships by engaging people that are
fans of the brand who post, comment, or
ask questions through a variety of
platforms. We provide them with Birchbox
news and content, invite them to exclusive
events, and listen to their feedback.
We have relationships with all types of blogs
with a range of followers, and we make sure
we interact regularly with all of them.

17. 
Can you share some of your strategies
for Facebook ads?

18. Our fans would rather see
content than ads. So we’re
ramping up Sponsored
Posts, rather than creating
traditional ads.
Our growth over the last two years
has really been organic. When we
do use Facebook ads, we often use
Sponsored Posts to target fans and
friends of fans, which makes our ad
spend relevant.

19. How are you tackling the growing number
of mobile users engaging with social
campaigns?

20. We’re always surprised at how
many people engage with us
and shop on mobile, which is
why we are constantly
brainstorming ways to innovate.
Our goal is to make the user
experience enjoyable and
seamless.
We’re trying to go from bucketing
mobile as one thing to establishing
the nuances between tablets and
smartphones. It’s not all the same
experience. So we try to design with
these different experiences in mind,
but don’t design exclusively for
mobile.

21. 
How do you connect the physical
experience of your brand with the social
media experience?

22. We look to Etsy sellers to
see how they market
themselves. A lot of these
tactics can be used across
the company. Lately,
they’ve been using Vine to
show off their product
features. So we’re looking
into replicating that.
What I would do is setup an
Offerpop campaign and then ask
people to share the experience,
using a specific hashtag, for a
reward. We find people are really
willing to share for a reward.

23. What is Social Marketers NYC?
Expertise and insight. That's what it takes to be a social marketer in NYC -
and every month we deliver. We bring together journalists, analysts, social
marketers and even scientists to discuss trends, strategies and cultural
shifts that impact our brands. Each session includes a short presentation
and then a discussion with top experts. Members are encouraged to ask
questions and share their own insights. And we leave plenty of time for
networking with food and drinks. Join us at
http://www.meetup.com/Social-marketers-nyc/
About Offerpop
Offerpop is a super easy-to-use social marketing platform for Facebook
and Twitter. Marketers across the globe use Offerpop to build active fan
bases, optimize their social content, and unlock rich, actionable data that
converts fans into customers. From small businesses to top brands like
Amazon, Pepsi, and MTV, companies use Offerpop to drive success across
their key marketing channels – engaging and converting fans like never
before. Offerpop is a Facebook® Preferred Marketing Developer, qualified
by the PMD program in Apps. Try us out for free at www.offerpop.com.