It’s no surprise digital marketers are some of the quickest people to embrace social media. Still, that’s a general statement – what’s more interesting is finding out what social networks they’re using, and what they’re sharing on them.
In a report released in May 2014, researchers from Leadtail Inc., a U.S-based marketing agency, and PunchTab, a platform measuring consumer engagement, tracked the social channels of 515 digital marketers in the U.S. and Canada.
They found 100 per cent of the marketers they were tracking were on Twitter, making it the social network of choice. However, another 56 per cent were also on YouTube, 48 per cent were on Instagram, 28 per cent were on Facebook, and 23 per cent were on LinkedIn and Foursquare, respectively. A smaller group of marketers also used SlideShare, Vine, and Pinterest, while users of Google+, Spotify, Vimeo, Kickstarter, Reddit, Flickr, and SoundCloud were on the fringes.
Researchers also tracked the type of content marketers were sharing online. On Twitter, 43 per cent of the content shared came from mainstream media in coverage areas like news, business, strategy, and technology. Following closely behind was industry media at 42 per cent, while 12 per cent of content was filed under the general heading of “social media” – meaning content like slideshows, Instagram photos of people in the office, cheering on sports teams, and whatever else was trending or a little more personal.
In terms of the brands marketers were sharing, the most popular mainstream news sources included the New York Times, Forbes, Huffington Post, and Fast Company. Among industry news sources, Mashable, Ad Age, Business Insider, AdWeek and other marketing-related publications were the most shared, though marketers also shared content from publications leaning more towards tech. That included TechCrunch, VentureBeat, The Next Web, and The Verge, among others.
It’s also pretty clear marketers like using their mobile devices for sharing content. While the majority of marketers were still using the Twitter website through their desktops, 64 per cent used Twitter for iPhone, 24 per cent were using Twitter for iPad, and 16 per cent were making use of Twitter for Android. In fact, out of 15 apps and platforms used to share content, nine of these were mobile.
For more, head on over here to check out the full report.