The future of reaching each vertical, including the House of Worship (HOW) market, has a big stake in social media advertising, engagement and user-generated stories.

Like the social media landscape, the audiovisual space often looks like a nascent, promising industry on the verge of something significant. Unlike the social media brands, the audiovisual industry is moored to old thinking in spite of technology advances. The missed opportunity to redefine market opportunities and explore new ways to introduce the holistic value of technology applications stunts the growth among vertical segments, affecting the audiovisual industry at large. The exponential leaps in the quality and flexibility of technology solutions and products have dwarfed the manufacturer’s and integrator’s ability to respond to various vertical markets with new thinking, new marketing and new solutions to recurring pain points.

In case your brand is using social media here and there, allow me to bring you up-to-speed on the significance of these tools, channels, and communities.

Social Media Growth

• As of 2017, there are now almost 2.5 billion social media users compared to less than 1 billion in 2010.
• Facebook has grown from 100 million active users in 2008 to over 2 billion active users as of 2017.
• Instagram has grown from 90 million active users in 2013 to over 800 million active users as of 2017.
• Twitter has grown from 25 million active users in 2010 to over 325 million active users as of 2017.
• LinkedIn has grown from about 35 million users in 2009 to over 500 million users as of 2017.
• Pinterest has grown from about 100 million active users in Q3 of 2015 to over 200 million active users as of Q3 2017.
• SnapChat has grown from just over 40 million daily active users in 2014 to nearly 180 million daily active users in 2017.

[All stats taken from Statista (2017)]

Social Media Is the Voice for Customer Service

Social media is where your customers go to either complain or praise. The cost of customer service consequences is high:

• When shunned on social media, 30 percent go to a competitor and 26 percent are less likely to use the company’s products or services.
• When responded to on social media, 70 percent more likely to use your product or service, 75 percent likely to share the good experience on their own social media profile.

* Taken from SproutSocial (2017)

User-Generated Stories Have the Most Success

User-generated content is a remarkably effective strategy, as these stats show:

• 7x higher engagement than brand-generated Facebook posts.
• 7x more trust from users than ads.
• 56 percent more likely to buy a product after seeing a positive customer generated post about it.
• 45 percent look at user-generated images for inspiration at least once a day.

*taken from data from Starbucks (2017), Marvck (2016), Olapia (2016)

Video Content is Key for Social Media

Facebook average engagement is 2x greater for video posts than any other content type. (*Taken from Buzzsumo (2017))

Video User Stories

Perhaps the most intriguing use of video is in the use of user stories on various social media platforms:

• 300 million Instagram Stories from daily active users in 15 months since launch
• 300 million WhatsApp Stories from daily active users in 9 months since launch

*Taken from TechCrunch (2017)

Video Advertising

Increase in video ad spending continues, as a survey from eMarketer found when interviewing marketers found that for 2018:

• Over 60 percent plan to increase Facebook video ads
• Over 60 percent plan to increase YouTube video ads
• Just over 50 percent plan to increase Twitter video ads
• Nearly 50 percent plan to increase Instagram video ads

*Taken from eMarketer (2017)

Social Media Is Central to Your Brand

You’d think, for example, that there would be an equal effort to reimagine how customers educate themselves, seek social proof, and make informed purchase decisions. As the stats above clearly point to the shift away from buyers believing what you have to say about your own products and services to believing what their peers and other influencers have to say, the audiovisual industry must plant both feet firmly in the social media sand.

The day has come and gone when merely posting the same thing on your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts meant your firm was ‘on social media.’ If you’re not there, day-in, day-out and highly monitored and active, you’re far behind today’s digital native buyers.

Churches are made up of people, right? Those same people who you serve in other markets like corporate, government, and education also exist in churches — and they’re just as active on social media. Go where they are. Better yet, meet your existing users and new prospects there and make it easy for them to tell their story with your brand.

Put the AV in your Social Media

Did you know that Amazon Prime members who own an Alexa (smart speaker) device order, on average, more than 30 percent more than non-Alexa owners? Audio. The old is new again and it will mean working with your web marketing teams to build long-tail keywords and content that makes it easy for Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant and Cortana find your brand, products and even your value proposition and differentiators.

As the stats above stand and point doggedly at video content, the “V” in audiovisual needs some serious improvement for this market’s marketing. You literally have the technology. Use it and make it work for you!

Sometimes the writing is on the wall so clearly that you have to look at another wall to avoid it.

The audiovisual industry is appallingly behind at using audio and video to reach prospects and customers with targeted, valuable and engaging content to drive interest, educate buyers and share stories of success.

Zero excuses. Get to it.

Do you agree with Anthony’s future church predictions for the AV industry?