According to The Harris Poll research conducted for Sprout Social, 45 percent of business executives surveyed anticipate that their social media marketing budgets will increase significantly over the next three years, with 47 percent more expecting at least a slight increase. Moreover, 58 percent said they expect social to become their primary external communication channel.

These stats point to what the pandemic has made abundantly clear: A strong social media presence is critical for businesses. Read how executives are using the channel to inform business decisions, collect data, measure campaign success and more.

Commerce is a growth area on social, too. About a third of consumers surveyed said they use social media to learn about or discover new products, and 26 percent said they use it for purchases. Recent partnerships between ecommerce seller Shopify and social media platforms have underscored this trend.

A company that’s taken advantage of social commerce is fashion brand Rothy’s, which tapped Shopify’s partnership with Pinterest to sell its products. A major plus: Shoppable pins on Pinterest connect to Rothy’s inventory on Shopify automatically, which means that when a product goes out of stock in Shopify, consumers will no longer see the ads for that product on Pinterest. We look at how Rothy’s has used this strategy to scale its digital advertising efficiently.

Another success story to emulate: Jägermeister’s entrance into the coffee space. When the brand launched its Cold Brew Coffee product, which adds fair-trade coffee and cacao to the original liqueur recipe, it homed in on a target audience of young adults and coffee enthusiasts. The results speak for themselves: Its programmatic digital out-of-home campaign in the fourth quarter of 2020 increased consideration and intent to purchase by 66 percent. Here’s how it scored results with simple creative, location-based ad placement and programmatic retargeting.

Lastly, we explore how Facebook used a festival-style format, concise content delivery, out-of-the-box audio and community building activities to create an internal summit with a level of engagement that far exceeds a typical pandemic-era virtual event.

That’s all for now, folks.

Kaylee Hultgren
Group Content Manager
Chief Marketer

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