Mindshare and Snapchat have a new multinational study about the different emotional needs of social media users and how it’s reflected in their choices online.  

The study is available here.  While the report is business to consumer (B2C) there is cross over with Business to Business (B2B).

“Based on segmentation analysis conducted by Mindshare, six platform “need states” emerged that govern all social media behavior: Joy, Progression, Connection, Passing Time, Exploring, and Learning.”

The study identifies six “need states”  governing users' behaviors:  

  • Exploring (22%): Openness to new experiences and discovering new places  
  • Learning (16%): Finding happiness in expanding knowledge 
  • Progression (15%): Desire to build your future and move up in the world 
  • Joy (19%): Specifically looking for fun, upbeat moments and experiences  
  • Hanging Out/Time Waste (15%): Passing the time in their day-to-day lives   
  • Connection (13%): Using social technology to share their lives with family and friends  

I should point out that this report was created to sell advertising on snapchat, so treat it with caution, Snapchat do say they are trying to enable “brands can unlock the power of social media to maximize business impact by uncovering the unique power of various online platforms and how each platform can fulfill different consumer needs.”

As a business, DLA Ignite also enables a business to connect social media with revenue, so I'm interested in what Snapchat have to say. 

Clearly need states differ across the world

"These “need states” differ across the world, reflecting the cultural nuances of each market. The UK and the US use social media as a “fun” space, while growing markets, like India, view social media as a source of progression. A higher percentage of social media users in Australia are focused on self-promotion while the markets of Turkey, the Netherlands and France are exploring and learning markets. In Germany, consumers want to use platforms to change opinions. Knowing how markets vary in their needs helps identify how best to reach these audiences through messaging, timing and formats. These need states were then mapped to generations and social platforms."

These need states were then mapped to generations and social platforms.

As this is a Snapchat document you would expect Snapchat to position itself where it wants to be positioned. So park that.

If you look at the other social media platforms, Linkedin for example, it probably is about right.  If you think that Linkedin “should” be positioned elsewhere, maybe that is one of the issues that Linkedin has and need to change the behaviour of it's users to become more whatever you think. 

 

Conclusion

Snapchat say, “Brands need to create social experiences that take into account consumer needs while balancing cultural nuances to maximize brand impact across markets. Marketers must tailor their strategy to platforms’ unique need states in order to reach and connect with consumers on social platforms.”

The point is, social media is NOT about posting and hoping, it's not about posting brochures and whitepapers, that isn't what your future customers, future employees and future investors want.  Social media gives us a massive opportunity to use social selling, but what is social selling?

It's not sending spam messages on social, that's sending spam messages on social.

Social selling is 

Using your presence and behavior on social media to build influence, 
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to 
conversation and commercial interaction.

As a business you should be using social media strategically across the business to make business impact on your buyers and consumers. That will turn to profit for you and get you back on your growth trajectory. 

 

Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book

"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".

In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.  

Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, DLA Ignite and more.

What does Mark Schaefer, Marketing guru think of the book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition"? watch the video here

It's available on Amazon worldwide.  Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.

 

 

About the research.

“A quantitative survey was conducted to better understand consumers’ subconscious associations between each platform and key attributes, i.e. connection, belonging, etc., across 14 markets that included US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, UAE, KSA, Turkey, Denmark, Netherlands, Sweden, India and Australia. This study also included a neuroscience research designed and executed by Mindshare’s NeuroLabs team, the agency’s in-house neuroscience department.”