Social Media Marketing World is the largest conference focused solely on social media marketing. Every year, thousands flock to San Diego to learn about new trends and the latest social media marketing hacks, to get inspired from speakers like Guy Kawaskai and Mari Smith, and to network. A lot comes out of this hands-on conference hosted by Social Media Examiner, so if you’re pursuing social media marketing for your small business, you’ll want to know and understand the best of Social Media Marketing World 2018.

Superfans are Critical for Success

Pat Flynn from Smart Passive Income spoke about the rise of superfans, and how important they are to your social media marketing strategy. A superfan is someone who has a strong connection to you, your brand, and/or your products. More than just fans or influencers, Superfans define themselves, in part, by what they’re fans of, sharing your message to anyone who will listen.
In the context of social media marketing, superfans connect with your content deeply, and will share, retweet, like, and comment on your social media posts and content thoughtfully and consistently. They actively sell your brand, products, and message for no reason other than they love what you do.
While superfans aren’t new, cultivating them to help energize your social media marketing is. And over the three days of Social Media Marketing World, it became apparent that identifying and cultivating superfans is driven mainly by your engagement on Facebook. And to reach superfans, small businesses must invest in Facebook advertising.
If you want to learn more about Pat Flynn’s perspective on superfans, check out his podcast where he dives deep into why they’re important and how to turn followers into superfans.

LinkedIn Innovations are Key

Throughout the conference, one speaker after another talked about the innovations at LinkedIn. One such innovation that was all the buzz was LinkedIn video. Announced back in August of 2017, LinkedIn video is an exciting innovation for social media marketers looking to connect with their professional audience.
The other LinkedIn innovation that had people buzzing at Social Media Marketing World was LinkedIn Pulse. Pulse is LinkedIn’s native blogging platform that allows individuals the ability to host their blog right on the social media network. While Pulse has been around for a few years now, the potential for Pulse to reach key audiences is just now starting to take hold.

The Rise of Video

Video content continues to prove itself as a powerful tool to connect and convert followers. Did you know having a video on a landing page can increase conversions by 80%? 80%! That alone is worth the effort of producing a video.
The social networks are seeing video take off and one key trend discussed at Social Media Marketing World was the rise of the native video platforms. LinkedIn video, discussed above, is just the latest, following Twitter, Facebook, and even Instagram and Snapchat. And while YouTube continues to rule video, marketers are finding value in posting videos in these walled gardens. Posting a video on Facebook’s native platform, for example, can deliver 10X the shares as reposting a YouTube video. Those are stats no social media marketer can ignore.
If you’re pursuing a social media marketing strategy for your small business, it’s important to stay up to speed on trends, because even now this channel is changing rapidly. Thankfully if you missed Social Media Marketing World this year you’re in luck. They sell a virtual ticket to the event for just under $700, where you can watch recordings of all the speakers and find your own insights into this year’s event.

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