What Works Where? Social Media Platforms and the Creative Content that Performs Best
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Lucas Bird
Account Manager at Wavo
Wavo Blog: This series shares information that’s most relevant to music marketers around the globe.
“Market research has shown that the quality of a creative can make or break an entire campaign.”
Context
What is the single most important factor when it comes to predicting the success of a digital marketing campaign in the music world? It’s not targeting, platforms, or star power of the artist, rather it’s the creative; the digital asset being used to attract the attention of viewers and potential fans.
Market research has shown that the quality of a creative can make or break an entire campaign. This makes understanding the characteristics of successful creatives supremely important for music marketers. Creative content, however, is not a one-size-fits-all scenario. Different types of creative content will perform better or worse on different social media platforms. After all, Snapchat hosts a different kind of user than Instagram, which both differ from audiences on TikTok.
This article will provide you with some proven strategies that Wavo has established by performing tests across thousands of campaigns in our Wavo Labs platform. I will also offer my own personal perspective as an Account Manager in the recorded music space who has studied creative performance. Once you begin to understand the type of content that works best on each platform, you’ll be able to improve the performance of your campaigns and boost engagement from your audience with specific strategies for each placement.
“Content posted to a social platform performs more effectively when that content has synergy with the style of the media appearing alongside of it. ”
Strategy
Social media users tend to be more willing to interact with content that appears native to the platform, likely because it’s less immediately identifiable as an ad. I’ve consistently seen content that has synergy with the style of other media appearing on a social media platform perform more effectively than content which stands out from the crowd.
As Facebook tends to be populated by an older demographic, audiences on the platform are generally appreciative of creative content that is highly produced, professional, and formally framed. In general, I’ve observed highly traditional types of advertising content perform well on Facebook, making music video cutdowns with high production value and well-edited, artist created content great choices.
That being said, as long as the production value remains high, artist created content is a generally more effective choice than music video cutdowns; this Wavo Labs study found that, on Instagram and Facebook, artist created content drove more engagements and featured a lower cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) than music video creatives.
Snapchat
Snapchat, which serves a younger demographic of people who are primarily concerned with messaging and sending pictures to their friends, provides a different kind of digital environment for advertising media. In general, I’ve found that content which presents as “Behind The Scenes” (BTS) style footage performs best on Snapchat.
Snapchat is unique because it is primarily a one-to-one communication platform. I theorize that BTS footage is particularly successful because it engages that same communication dynamic with viewers of ads; it allows the viewer to feel directly connected to the artist, encouraging a para-social relationship that is invaluable for driving deeper actions like landing page views and click throughs.
TikTok
TikTok is special because of its singular potential to skyrocket a track or artist into virality. The way virality manifests is through User Generated Content (UGC) – videos made organically by TikTok users, or an artist themselves, which utilize music as a soundtrack for original content. .
For this reason, I’ve concluded that UGC content is by far superior to other types of creative content on TikTok. Further, this Wavo Labs study found that boosted posts on TikTok which feature content that appears native to the platform created more views, drove more visits to artist profiles, and featured lower CPMs when compared to boosted posts that utilize music video content.
Instagram Feed and Stories
Out of all of the platforms in use, Instagram tends to be the most balanced when it comes to demographics. Instagram offers a number of creative placement offerings with which to reach Gen Z and Millennials of all genders. I’ve found that as a result, IG is the platform where you can exercise the most freedom of approach and still see success. Both casual content that comes directly from artists and highly produced, professional content has the potential to be successful on Instagram.
While creative agency exists on Instagram, content should still strive to follow the best practices that are associated with effective audience engagement overall. As illustrated in this Wavo slide deck, creatives should show the artist, including their face, on camera, play through the chorus of the song as opposed to the verse, and use eye-catching visuals and bright colors. Instagram stories will also benefit from shorter form content, which is punchy and bite-sized, whereas feed ads can be more narrative and longer while still prompting effective engagement rates.
Instagram Reels
In some ways Instagram Reels are still the untrodden ground of music marketing – their novelty makes what little data we have about strategy in those placements more precarious. While similar to TikTok, viewers of Instagram Reels tend to have an even shorter attention span. I’ve personally encountered difficulty in achieving six-second views with consistency through the Instagram Reels placement.
The type of content that is successful on Reels is characterized not by its format or style, but by its directness. The content I have seen succeed on Instagram Reels, illustrates to the viewer or listener the material it is advertising with immediacy; whether this takes the form of highly produced content or organic artists content, brevity is the name of the game.
YouTube
YouTube can be considered somewhat separately from other social media placements, since the most common type of YouTube ads, Truview, will simply highlight existing content from an artist’s pre-existing video. In addition, because Truview campaigns result in public-facing views on an organic piece of content (the music video itself), In-Stream Truview campaigns have a dualistic impact; they promote the video as an advertisement to viewers of other content, but they also contribute to the social proofing effect that occurs because of a music video’s popularity. Simply put, music videos with more views are more popular, and therefore more likely to be appealing to new viewers purely by virtue of their popularity.
In addition, because of recent changes YouTube has made to the function of its algorithm, YouTube ads run for videos longer than 3 minutes will now serve less cost efficiently . What this means is that advertisers promoting videos longer than 3 minutes can expect a higher CPV, making shorter videos a more economic and potentially more effective choice when putting digital marketing dollars to use. While this change does affect In-Stream ads, this change does not affect In-Feed ads. More on In-Stream and In-Feed ads can be found here.
“Effective TikTok ad content appears to be user generated, highly organic, and native to the TikTok platform.”
Key Takeaways
Successful Facebook creatives will feature high production value, professional presentation and formal framing. With uniform production value, artist created content tends to outperform music video cutdowns.
Creatives on Snapchat are often most successful if they feature casual, behind the scenes content that allows the viewer to connect directly with the artist and get a sense of their identity.
Effective TikTok ad content appears to be user generated, highly organic, and native to the TikTok platform. Boosted posts on TikTok are cheaper and more efficient than dark ads.
Strong creatives on Instagram stories and in-feed will come in a variety of forms, but the best will show the artist’s face, feature the chorus of the song, and include bright colors and engaging imagery.
Creatives that find success on Instagram reels will be short and sweet to the max – getting right to the point and conveying their message to the viewer in a matter of seconds.
YouTube ads that promote music videos as opposed to visualizers will find more success, and music marketers can drive views and serve impressions if they promote videos that are 3 minutes long or shorter.
Written by Lucas Bird, Account Manger at Wavo
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