Social media is no longer an ancillary marketing channel for brands to explore. Brands that want to stay relevant to today’s consumer must constantly work to optimize their social media strategy.
This infographic shares how marketing and analyst professionals are approaching 2022 and the challenges and opportunities they plan to encounter.
How impactful are sports leagues for paid partnership posts? ListenFirst created a comprehensive infographic to answer that very question for brands and marketers. Sports and Sponsored Content: The Winning Playbook looks at the performance of 5,378 sponsored posts shared on the social media channels of the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and MLS between July 2020 – June 2021.
Moschino, Michael Kors and Christian Siriano Top Most Social Media Engagements During NYFW
Dashboards, Machine Learning and Modern Design
Over the last year the ListenFirst team has taken a deep look at user workflows and closely collaborated with customers to understand their biggest needs. As a result, we’ve invested in many enhancements that will help users save time and uncover more relevant insights in fewer steps.
Starting in September 2021, ListenFirst users will have access to a new platform experience. Notable features now available in the new ListenFirst experience include the ability to:
quickly find the data you need
build configurable dashboards
uncover key takeaways automatically
create brand roll-ups on the fly
dive into the analytics and share meaningful visuals quickly
We breakdown our most exciting enhancements below.
Configurable Dashboards
Enjoy more flexibility by creating easy-to-update dashboards tailored to your KPIs.
When you first log in to your ListenFirst account, you’ll get a quick glimpse at the performance metrics most important to you. Configurable Dashboards make this all possible. Our new dashboard feature allows customers to create specific combinations of ListenFirst data to match their team’s unique use cases and workflows.
It’s easy to add an analysis tile to your favorite dashboard, or to multiple dashboards. It’s your choice. From there you have easy-to-understand, beautiful reports to share with other ListenFirst users.
You’re in Control with Instant Insights
Quickly understand how your brand performs on social media using simple visuals and easy-to-understand language.
Tired of burning precious hours attempting the work of a trained data analyst? Instant Insights, is a new analytics feature that quickly shows how brands perform across social media. It’s all in a single view!
Leveraging years of intelligence gathered from working with the largest brands in the world, Instant Insights utilizes machine learning to deliver analysis like no other. Users can benchmark performance and uncover valuable takeaways in natural language. Even configure multiple brands and content filters on the fly.
A Modern and User-Friendly Design
Introducing a complete re-imagining and redesign of navigation, data visualization, and analysis in the platform.
We worked hand-in-hand with ListenFirst customers to ensure the new interface would provide easy access to the data needed most. This resulted in a more streamlined workflow paired with modern design. Save time with more intuitive navigation, clean data visuals and more ways to share key metrics and insightful takeaways with others.
Experience the Enhancements for Yourself
Throughout the month of September, users will be given the opportunity to switch between the new and legacy UI. So, the next time you log into your ListenFirst account, look for the toggle button at the top right.
Don’t be shy. Dive into the upgraded experience for more flexibility, faster insights and access to powerful dashboards. New feature walk-thrus will be available as you explore the platform, but for a deeper understanding of the new workflows, check out the knowledge base dedicated to the Platform Redesign found in the Help Center.
ListenFirst Names David DiGiacomo New Chief Executive Officer
The Key Hire Signals ListenFirst’s Transition From An Industry Pioneer To A High Growth Global SaaS Company
NEW YORK, July 15, 2021 /PRNewswire/ —ListenFirst, the premier social analytics solution used by the world’s leading brands, today announced the appointment of David DiGiacomo as CEO. Current co-founders/co-CEOs Jason Klein and Christian Anthony will remain on the ListenFirst Board of Directors, focusing on corporate strategy and relationships with key customers.
ListenFirst CEO, David DiGiacomo
As CEO, proven operator David DiGiacomo will focus on scale and accelerating growth by executing proven strategies within the developed markets. He will also focus on leading the executive leadership team with ListenFirst’s global expansion and next stage of growth. This change comes as the need for ListenFirst’s unique analytics solution has grown dramatically and the number of new ListenFirst clients has followed suit. For example, new business has increased 114% year over year and clients are finding more and more value in the rich data insights the platform provides.
In the past ten years, ListenFirst has been a pioneer in powering social media analytics for some of the biggest brands in the world, such as Amazon, AT&T, and NBCUniversal. ListenFirst has stood out as the preferred social analytics solution thanks to continued investment in creating technology that’s machine learning-driven, and their ability to empower marketers with premium analyst-style reports that help capture ROI to maximize their marketing budgets.
With ListenFirst experiencing unprecedented growth, it was an opportune time to bring in a leader with a proven track record at scaling cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) companies.
David DiGiacomo joins ListenFirst with exactly such a resume. Earlier in his career, he co-founded and led the first of its kind multimodel SaaS communications technology company, Emergency Communications Network (now Onsolve), through 15+ years of successful growth — from two full-time employees to the industry’s largest provider of emergency and intelligent notification services with $100+ million in annual revenue. Additionally, DiGiacomo was brought in to help lead PowerDMS in their quest to be the premier provider of Policy Management and Accreditation software which was realized as best in class through a merger with NEOGOV. In the companies he’s run, DiGiacomo drove nearly $1 billion in Enterprise Value creation while upholding industry leading client NPS scores.
“Beyond their superior technology, ListenFirst has an incredible culture and an amazing team who serves a client roster of the best brands in the world,” said DiGiacomo. “World-class companies have great people, process, product and customer support, and ListenFirst has them all! As ListenFirst embarks on its next chapter, I look forward to working with Christian, Jason, and the rest of the capable team to build on their existing success. We’re setting a course to create new solutions that fulfill our client’s complex and ever-changing needs along with driving new products to meet the needs of clients in new market verticals.”
“Social media has forced every brand in the world to be a content creator, which only serves to fuel the social analytics business,” noted Klein. “David will lead the charge to leverage our industry-leading technology and insights as we expand our footprint in high-growth verticals including CPG, sport, and entertainment. His experience will be invaluable to the continued success and expansion of ListenFirst.”
“We’re thrilled to have David join the ListenFirst team,” added Anthony. “We’re confident that his vast experience will continue to drive success for the company and afford us an edge as we continue to innovate and evolve our technology to best serve our customers.”
Week 3 Data Around Brands Embracing “Stop Hate For Profit”
With many brands pausing their Facebook and Instagram ad spending during the month of July to protest the use of hate speech, ListenFirst continues to monitor how the boycott is impacting the social media ecosystem.
Following up on the data we shared last week, here are our top findings for the week of July 13-19, 2020:
Methodology: Looking at the indexed number of Facebook and Instagram ads brands from the ListenFirst Data Co-op launched between July 1 – 19, 2020 compared to the indexed number of Facebook and Instagram ads brands launched between July 1-19, 2019.
Finding #1: Brands Have Stuck With The Boycott
Through the third week of July, brands continue to participate in the July boycott of buying Facebook ads. Between July 13-19, 2020 brands shared -72.05% less new ads on Facebook and Instagram compared to July 13-19, 2019. That’s consistent with what we’ve seen through the entire month, as during July 1-19, 2020 there were -74.26% less new Facebook and Instagram ads compared to the number of new Facebook and Instagram ads during those 19 days during 2019.
Finding #2: The Real Time Conversation Around #StopHateForProfit Slowed, Except Around Disney
Disney, the biggest spender on Facebook ads so far this year, has reportedly pulled all its Disney Plus ads in order to force Facebook to confront the hate speech problem on its platform https://t.co/vg1YZVBp1O
Around the news that Disney, Facebook’s biggest advertiser during the first half of the year, would be suspending their Disney Plus and Hulu ads on Facebook, there were 5,477 Tweets mentioning both Facebook and Disney between July 18-19, 2020 with 237 Tweets mentioning the #StopHateForProfit hashtag specifically. The phrase “Well Done” appeared in 11.52% of those Tweets.
However other than additional companies opting into the pause on paid, the July boycott was far more talked about on social media before it started. There were 68,743 Tweets mentioning the #StopHateForProfit hashtag between July 1-19, 2020 which was a decrease of 53.96% from the 149,315 Tweets mentioning the hashtag between June 12 -30, 2020.
Methodology:Looking at the volume of new posts 485 Top Advertisers posted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Tumblr between July 1-19, 2020 compared to July 1-19, 2019.
Finding #3: Advertisers Are Not Increasing Organic Posts During The Boycott
There were 31,599 posts that Top Advertisers shared on social media between July 1-19, 2020 which was a -22.36% decrease from the volume of posts they shared during those 19 days in 2019. Brands are not sharing more organic content on social media, to try and make up for the loss of reach, now that they’re running so many less Facebook and Instagram ads.
Methodology:ListenFirst Social Engagement measures the volume of post responses (likes, reactions, comments, shares, retweets, replies) and fan growth on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram around 485 Top Advertisers brands during July 1-19, 2020 compared to July 1-19, 2019.
Finding #4: The Return Of Sports Is Starting To Lift Organic Engagement
While social engagement around Top Advertiser brands had been down –17.97% during July 1-12, 2020 compared to July 1-12, 2019; there was actually 22.10% more social engagement around those brands during July 13-19 in 2020 compared to 2019. That turnaround was largely about Instagram specifically, as there was 22.63% more Instagram social engagement around Top Advertisers brands during the past week compared to July 13-19, 2019.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCljdfInJfo/
The NBA, which made up 20.58% of all Top Advertiser social engagement on Instagram between July 13-19, 2020, had a social engagement score of 21,420,835 during that time, which was an increase of 52.7% from the NBA’s Instagram social engagement score during July 13-19, 2019. Meanwhile, the NFL which accounted for 7.53% of all Top Advertiser social engagement on Instagram between July 13-19, 2020, had a social engagement score of 7,831,968 during that time which was a 34.13% increase from the NFL’s Instagram social engagement score during July 13-19, 2020. Around NBA activity in the Orlando restart bubble heating up and around the NFL revealing which players are getting a 99 rating in the upcoming Madden 21 video game; sports both real and simulated is starting to generate more engagement on social media.
Want more information about how ListenFirst can help your brand monitor trends around Facebook, Instagram and the rest of social media? Request a demo today!
