The Science of Social Media

What if we told you that LinkedIn, a social media platform that is now 14 years old, is the next big opportunity for marketers and brands? While much of the focus over the last few years has been on perfecting our Facebook and Instagram marketing strategies, LinkedIn has been silently growing their user base to more than 500 million users. LinkedIn is evolving into a thriving network of incredible content, influencers, and networking opportunities unmatched by other social media platforms.

Important updates in the world of social media and marketing!  This week, we chat about the continued decline of Facebook organic reach (including BuzzFeed Tasty's unbelievable dip in video views), LinkedIn video and what marketers need to know, our chat with Gary Vee at the Animoto Video Summit in NYC, Snapchat data, and more.  We'd love to hear what you think about this new style of episode on The Science of Social Media. 

Social media studies have given us great ideas to improve our social media marketing. To help you better understand the ever-changing social media landscape, we jumped into the latest social media research papers, hoping to discover some under-the-radar insights to help supercharge your social media marketing strategy as we head into 2018.

There are now more than 1.3 billion people using Facebook Messenger every month. Yes, billion with a B! We've have been experimenting with different ways to include Messenger as one of our go-to marketing tools, by sending out our latest blog posts through Messenger and engaging and helping our customers through the platform too. Here’s everything we know about getting started and using Facebook Messenger for your social media marketing.

One thing that often gets overlooked in a lot of social media content is a general approach to social media for businesses and entrepreneurs. What should businesses be thinking about? What are trends that businesses can feel good about investing in? Hosts Brian & Hailley cover successful social media for businesses & entrepreneurs. After chatting with hundreds of businesses, we've dwindled it down to 8 super important social media tips you should consider on your way to social success.

Understanding how to leverage and strategically utilize Facebook Ads is becoming a staple part of almost every social media strategy. And if you want to get your posts seen on Facebook, it’s becoming more and more likely that you’ll have to pay for reach with Facebook Boosted Posts or even run a full-blown Facebook advertising campaign. Join hosts Brian and Hailley as they explore how top brands with $300K+ monthly Facebook Advertising budgets find success time and time again!

Social media is changing. It used to be a one-to-many channel. Businesses would publish links, photos, and videos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, hoping to reach as many people as they can and drive a high number of leads and sales. Then, we hit content shock. There is now more content on social platforms than people can consume. If a post doesn’t look interesting or useful, people just scroll past it. Social media is no longer a megaphone. Here's why...

"Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light." - Vera Nazarian As social media managers and marketers, books have the power to open our minds to new and tremendously exciting ideas - no matter the subject. Join us for episode #62 as we break down some of the best reads on marketing and social media, including our favorite quotes and takeaways for social media managers from each!

Why is Facebook blue? Can colors impact how people perceive your brand and ultimately impact their purchasing decisions?  Absolutely! The visual sense is the strongest developed one in most human beings. It’s only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone. Join us as we explore the incredible world of color and how you can evoke powerful and specific emotions in your potential customers.

The Facebook and Instagram algorithms are mysterious for so many marketers, yet they are also ingenious and brilliant in showing the best content to the most people. But how exactly do the Facebook and Instagram algorithms work? And how can marketers use this knowledge to have their content seen by more people? We explore the 7 key factors that influence the ranking and success of your content in your followers’ feed.

Now is the perfect time for marketers and businesses to take a closer look at Facebook video and how to use videos to engage more fans on the platform. With Facebook video being a top priority for marketers in 2017, we’d love to help you get ahead of this rising trend. In episode #59, you’ll learn proven ways to consistently increase views, engagement, and shares to your Facebook videos.

Ryan Holiday - best-selling author and media strategist - explains why marketers and businesses are approaching the art of content creation all wrong. We explore the current state of marketing and social media content and how short-term thinking only creates short-term results. Ryan Holiday dives into how we as marketers and businesses can begin to think strategically about our content and create something that lasts a lifetime or more.

What if we could understand the psychology of social media and use that knowledge to bring customers closer, give them more of what they want, and create better relationships? In episode #57 of The Science of Social Media, we explore just that! We take a deep dive into the psychology of social media and why people share and like what they do online. Many of these will surprise you!

We explore everything you need to know about creating captivating Instagram Stories content that your audience will love. We also dive into our favorite tools for creating beautiful graphics and videos that we use here at Buffer.

Noah Kagan joins us as we explore the top 5 most exciting social media and marketing trends that all marketers should consider in 2017 and examples of how you can get at started with each today.