7 Intriguing Digital Marketing Stats From the Past Week

From Instagram and WeChat to Paul George of the Indiana Pacers, the past several days have revealed numerous marketing stats that should interest digital players. Below are seven data points that caught our eye:

1. Social video buzzes

As Facebook plans on de-emphasizing publisher-posted content in users' news feeds in favor of posts from friends and family, video is getting more reach on the social network. According to data from SocialFlow, a social analytics company used by many major publishers, video accounted for just 0.9 percent of posts but for 7.15 percent of reach, 5.2 percent of likes and 11.1 percent of shares. The recent findings are based on 30 consecutive days of research.

2. Growing Instagram pushes discovery features

Instagram now has 300 million daily users and 500 million monthly users. What's more, it claims that 60 percent of its users discover products and services on the platform, while 75 percent of them said they take action after being inspired. James Quarles, global head of business and brand development at Instagram, spoke with Adweek at Cannes Lions last week about how his platform is focused on discovery rather than direct response. 

3. Organic Instagram performs almost as well as ads

Markerly compared follower engagement between sponsored content and content that's not sponsored on Instagram. The two tactics work on a relatively equal level, the influencer marketing player's study found.

On average, nonsponsored posts and sponsored posts have a nearly identical like rate with sponsored getting 0.027 percent and nonsponsored garnering 0.025 percent for accounts with less than 10,000 followers. For bigger brands with followers between 250,000 and 500,000, there was a 0.019 percent like rate for sponsored and 0.017 percent like rate for nonsponsored. 

4. WeChat picked up 60 million monthly users in a few months

The messaging app went from 700 million monthly users in April to 760 million in June. Of that total, 100 million live outside of China, said Steven Chang, corporate vp at Tencent, WeChat's parent company. WeChat's popularity is expanding organically, Chang explained.

"We have more and more Westerners around the globe," Chang told Adweek at Cannes. "But basically, we do not expand it on purpose."

5. Programmatic grows in TV and online

According to a report from eMarketer, overall programmatic spending on TV ads is expected to grow nearly 128 percent to $710 million. However, that's still only 1 percent of total TV spend. Meanwhile, eMarketer predicts programmatic digital video this year will total about $5.5 billion, or about 56 percent of total digital video ad spending.

6. Hate beats love for Twitter tune-in

This next study is fascinating, so sit tight. Tech company Canvs employed program-related Twitter data measured by Nielsen to better understand how certain words used in tweets about more than 400 drama, reality and comedy shows spanning 5,700 episodes predicted future viewership. The programming was a combination of new and returning seasons on networks including HBO, Showtime, CBS, Fox and AMC. Canvs' chief scientist were sifting through hundreds of millions of pieces of emotional conversation and wondered how emotions affect what people will do next.

After examining the tweets, they realized that for comedy, every 1 percent increase in mentions of "love" was followed by a 0.1 percent increase in viewership the next week. For every 1 percent increase in the word "beautiful," viewership rose 0.3 percent. However, reality and drama shows trended differently. For every 1 percent increase in the word "hate," viewership the following week rose 0.7 percent. Increases in "crazy" saw an increase of 0.3 percent and "love" had an increase of 0.2 percent. For drama, words followed nearly the same trajectory.

7. Paul George paces Olympics on social

According to MVPindex, Paul George is the U.S. Olympian at the top of the heap in terms of visibility and likeability on social media. With millions of followers—on 1.4 million on Twitter, 3.3 million on Facebook and 3.4 million on Instagram—the Indiana Pacers All-Star publishes promotional posts and insights about his life, his team and his friends.

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