Cuker Attends #SMDAYSD

Last Monday marked the fifth annual Social Media Day, an internationally recognized day to celebrate the ways in which social media has changed our lives for the better. Social Media Day San Diego has become one of the leading Social Media Days around the world, and the Cuker team was thrilled to participate in such a fantastic event. 

Over 1,000 social media enthusiasts gathered downtown at the Marriott Marquis & Marina for a speaker series packed with key influencers covering topics including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google+, and more.

We’ve compiled a handful of our favorite takeaways from this event: 

“Content is KING, but engagement is QUEEN… and she rules the house.”
As usual, Facebook guru Mari Smith did not disappoint as she took the stage. This quote sums it up well: content is extremely important, but it needs to provoke some sort of social action or engagement to become truly valuable.

“Posting for everyone is posting for no one.”
Vine celebrity Zach King explained the importance of serving a specific audience, not everyone. Find your audience: What is your niche? What does your audience do? Where do they spend time? Why do they watch? The ultimate thing you can do for your audience is to serve them!

You only get one chance at a first impression.
Ron Nash’s “LinkedIn: The Power of Perception” emphasized the importance of how others view you or your brand on social media. An important takeaway - what is real? People see things differently, and “you are responsible for creating the social media perception you want others to see.”

Visual Marketing is the buzzword of 2014.
Move over content marketing, the buzzword of the year is visual marketing. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have all seen visual layout improvements this year. Instagram is not only a visual platform, but allows for the creation of powerful visual content, which can also be shared on other platforms. 

Podcasting is new media.
Podcast experts Michael Steizner, John Lee Dumas and Tyler Anderson explained this new media as an intimate way to get into the ears and minds of people. One tip was to create your avatar, that one perfect listener, and use your avatar to guide your business decisions.

Don’t Hashjack!
On Instagram, it’s important to use hashtags effectively. Jenn Herman’s tips include: Use relevant hashtags, use industry related hashtags, combine popular and less common hashtags, and use between 5-10 hashtags per post. One final tip was, “don’t hashjack,” or don’t use trending hashtags that have nothing to do with your post.

Google+ is Google.
As Martin Shervington began his Google+ keynote, he caught everyone’s attention when he said, “Google+ is part of the Google ecosystem.” He referred to it as a social layer of Google, not just another social platform. The Google+ community will help you achieve search results since Google ranks websites based on trust, reputation and authority. Ultimately, we learned that Google+ is here to stay.

Stats, stats and more stats!
The keynote speakers blew us away with social media stats. Here are a few that caught our attention: 

• 90% of data in the world today has been created within the last two years
• Facebook is the #1 social network referral traffic source - it generates more referral views than all the rest combined
• Only 6% of your audience is seeing your Facebook content organically, and Facebook is looking to diminish that to 1-2%
• Over 27% of all time online is being spent on social networks
• 77% of jobs in the US are on LinkedIn
• 60 million photos are uploaded daily to Instagram which generate 1.6 billion likes daily

While Twitter wasn’t a topic specifically covered, it didn’t stop the live tweets as #SMDaySD was trending #1 on Twitter in San Diego, and we wouldn’t have expected anything less.