Every year the most authoritative English-language marketing resource surveys thousands of practitioners and shows where the industry is heading. The Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2016 is above all about plans: which content formats marketers intend to scale up, and which they will leave aside. We have translated the key figures from the first part — it will save you at least 20 minutes of reading the English original.
The main points from part one
In 2016–2017 marketers plan to increase their use of content by anywhere from 26% to 73%, depending on the format.Social Media Marketing Industry Report 2016
The gap between formats is enormous: what some see as the main bet of the year does not figure in other people's plans at all. Here is how the picture looks by content type.
Video is the key bet of the year
Scaling up video content is a central part of most marketers' plans for 2016. 73% of respondents plan to increase the volume of video they produce. That is the highest figure among all the formats the study asked about.
Visual content — almost level with video
Visual content comes immediately after video: 71% of marketers plan to increase their use of visual material in 2016 itself. In effect, the two most popular directions for developing content are both visual.
Blogs — text has not gone anywhere
Written content still holds an important place in marketing. Two thirds of the marketers surveyed plan to blog more actively. That said, the segments behave differently.
B2B
Marketers in the B2B segment are more likely to intend to increase how much they blog — 71%.
B2C
In the B2C segment the figure is noticeably lower — 63%.
Live broadcasting — a new format half of them are trying
Given that live broadcasting was considered a relatively new content format at the time, the numbers look unexpectedly high: 39% of marketers plan to increase their use of it in 2016 itself.
Podcasts — a format for the minority
Podcasting closes out the list. Only 26% of marketers plan to increase their use of podcasts, while 60% have no plans for the format at all. As with blogs, B2B is more active: 30% against 23% in B2C.
How the survey was conducted
Participants were recruited by email. The survey ran in January 2016: invitations to take part were sent to 400,000 marketers' addresses. Responses were collected for 5 days.
Who answered: the demographics of the participants
This is important context for any conclusions drawn from the report — because the core of the sample is not made up of large corporations at all.
- The largest group of participants — 38% — works in small business (2–10 employees).
- Next come the self-employed — 23%.
- 18% of respondents work in commercial organisations with a staff of 100 or more.
- The majority of participants — 65% — are marketers from the B2C segment, and the remaining 35% are from B2B.
- Most participants — 69% — are in the 30 to 59 age bracket.
- Women edged ahead of men, making up 57% of all participants.
Where the participants are based
| Country | Share of participants |
|---|---|
| USA | 52% |
| United Kingdom | 8% |
| Canada | 6% |
| Australia | 4% |
What is in the next part
The second part of the translation answers the questions marketers most often ask themselves: exactly how their peers in the market use social networks, and what is worth focusing on — Instagram or Snapchat.
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