3 Things You Need to Know About The State of Social Media Marketing

What can you accomplish in just 60 seconds?

The Instagram community is capable of uploading 67K photos.

Pinners? 3.4K new pins. 

Twitter users? 433K new tweets.

Impressive, right?

With social media communities growing more active, and more influential than ever before, it's important that marketers take note. 

As our online behavior begins to reflect a shift away from traditional search and desktop-only consumption, it should come as no surprise that more people are turning to social platforms to turn up information. 

So what's to be said of it? As marketers, where do we stand?

We've uncovered 3 interesting insights that every marketer should be using to inform their social media strategy this year.

1) It's number one 

According to a report recently released by Shareaholic, social media is officially the number one driver of all website referral traffic. 

The report goes on to further detail that as of December 2014, 31.24% of all referral traffic was tied to social media (an increase from the 22.71% it was accountable for just last year.)

To help you visualize social's rise to the top, as it compares to the performance of search-based referrals, check out this chart:

While we aren't implying that you throw your SEO strategies to the wind, it's clear that it's time we start to prioritize our social efforts.

And while the 31.24% is a cumulative number based on the performance of the top 8 social sites (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and YouTube), it's important to note that Facebook was responsible for 24.63% of the traffic, while Pinterest and Twitter fell considerably behind at 5.06% and 0.82%.

2) 60% of time spent on social is on mobile

As if I needed any more confirmation that we are a society gone totally mobile, I recently came across a Tumblr page called "We Never Look Up."

Created by a Finnish mobile researcher, this page serves as a display case for his collection of, yup, you guessed it, people on their phones. 

Considering this said website is actually "a thing", it should come as no surprise that 65% of time spent on social networks happens on mobile. (Source: Statista) 

(That's a lot.)

While it's likely that this number will only continue to climb, it's important that marketers are ensuring that their content is optimized for both showing viewing and social sharing. 

For tips on mobile optimization, check out this resource. 

3) Social audiences are craving video content

Did you know that video posts on Facebook are up 94% in the US and 75% worldwide?

While it's likely that these increases are tied to their autoplay feature (which many other social platform are beginning to adapt), it's no secret that social video is on the rise.

Not only do they lend themselves to our diminishing attention spans but they also play into our desire to consume information in a way that is both entertaining and visual. 

Not to mention, the more effectively you engage visitors, the more time they will spend consuming your content, which essentially opens up a greater opportunity for conversions. 

And while production costs used to be a viable excuse for businesses overlooking the medium, the influx of social networks like Vine and Snapchat have introduced a new way for marketers to approach this type of content creation. 

The result?

Social video content that is as easy to create as it is to consume.