BEST OF 2017: How to get the best out of social media was an ongoing concern for many WARC subscribers over the past year, although the continuing use of email and SMS, along with the rise of messaging apps, means that ‘dark social’ should not be neglected.

In Seriously Social 2016 - How social strategy can drive business results, Peter Field analysed the most effective social media campaigns in the WARC Prize for Social Strategy and reviewed how social strategy drives effectiveness while also offering practical suggestions for other brands to follow.

A chapter from WARC’s Toolkit 2017 report was the second-most read on this topic. Content in 2017: How video is transforming social marketing looked at how the proliferation of video is transforming social media marketing by turning social platforms into broadcast media.

The third most-read paper, How to use social media effectively in the media mix, advised that strategy be aligned against the different roles each platform plays and that a balance be established between scale and precision.

In fourth place was a reminder that much social sharing and conversations are private and occur outside of what can be measured by web analytics programs – including email, copy-and-paste links in instant messaging apps and texting. Social in 2017: What the rise of ‘dark social’ and chat apps means for marketers advised that link shorteners are a low-tech way of testing ‘dark social’ activity as shortened URLs can encourage people to share using trackable links.

Finally, a WARC Best Practice paper, How to select the right metrics for social media, explored the three “building blocks” of core social media metrics, content strategy metrics and audience quality metrics.

Sourced from WARC