Webstock is definitely one of the biggest events in Romania dedicated to online and social media. It has always been the most anticipated event of the year, a meeting spot for bloggers, influencers and marcom specialists from both agencies and companies. Unfortunately, given the current context, the event was held entirely online over the course of 2 days. Even so, it was filled with useful information and advice from top professionals in the online industry.
Even though I missed physically attending the Webstock 2020 conference, I was happy to curl up on my couch with some healthy snacks from Lidl and listen to 30 very interesting speakers. I put down a few ideas from the event, hopefully of use to you as well. My main interests were for Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn, so here are some of the most important advice regarding these platforms I took from the conference.
Instagram: Always test and measure your campaigns
In her Webstock 2020 presentation, Andra Negru, Head of Performance Media Department at Mavericks, pointed out the importance of testing your Instagram campaigns and then measuring them to what works and what doesn’t. She underlined that you have to test everything: formats, messages and placements, no matter if they are in the Explore or Stories area.
You also need to keep in mind that Instagram users are usually looking for inspiration, ideas, motivation and a community. And some of the most followed topics on the platform are: travel, music, cooking, fashion, movies, fitness, cosmetics, etc.
YouTube: The key to success is keeping your audience engaged
In her presentation at Webstock, Raluca Radu, Founder of MTH Digital, pointed out that people watch videos on YouTube, especially on weekends. But also that only 25% of users, internationally, watch YouTube from their mobile phone! The average session, internationally, is 40 minutes.
She also mentioned that people usually go on YouTube to be inspired and have fun (53%) or to search for something (47%). Searches on Youtube were divided by Google into 3 major types of searches, namely: “want to know” content, “want to do” content and “want to buy” content.
Raluca also had some great tips to help increase your viewership on YouTube. These include:
- Videos that contain people whose faces are seen have a higher rate of views and engagement.
But if you’re too camera shy, here are my tips on how to make videos without showing your face. - Closeup frames attract more attention.
- Fast-paced videos perform better, especially on mobile devices.
- Tell them to prepare to click on a popup or link and tell them why to do so.
- Insert animations into clips to show them where to click.
- Divide the video into several pieces and try different sequences with or without those pieces and see which one brings the best results.
- Use on-screen text to increase engagement and provide additional information.
LinkedIn: Generate compelling content based on your followers interests
“LinkedIn is among the few platforms that help you reach a large number of people organically”, mentioned Cristian Florea, Social Media Consultant & Co-owner M20 at Webstock 2020. The platform is on the rise, so Cristian pointed out the steps to creating an effective strategy to promote yourself as a professional on the platform. Here they are:
- Set a goal – Think about what can LinkedIn help you with. It can be personal branding, getting leads for personal business, finding a job or interacting with experts in your niche. Depending on your goal, you will make the following decisions regarding your presence on LinkedIn.
- Create a persona – Determine what types of people you want to connect with. Ask yourself things like what are these people’s age, jobs, interests or passions etc. Depending on this persona, you will also create your content ideas.
- Connect with the typology of people identified in point no. 2 – LinkedIn has a Search box that allows you to filter the results very well, through the All filters button. This way, you will be able to generate a list of people who might be interested in what you are saying. It is recommended to connect with a maximum of 10-15 people a day.
- Think about what these people would like to read – The content you are going to generate must be more about them than about you. It can be case studies, how to information, success stories, interviews, book recommendations, etc.
- Start generating content ideas for your persona type – Examples of content ideas: lists (books, movies that influenced your career), industry news, quotes, case studies, did you know, podcasts that you liked, things learned at event X or course Y, how did you come to love the job you have, top 5 mistakes in the industry you represent, etc.
- Measure the results – Once you start publishing content, the next step is to measure the results. LinkedIn also helps you in this regard, even for the free version, because under each post you see the total number of views for that post. And if you click on that number, you will see a ranking with information about the people who saw your post (what companies they work for, what function they have and what geographical area they are from). This way, you will see if you have reached the right people or not.
Hope these ideas are useful for you. Feel free to share your own takeaways from the conference.
