On October 7th I had a day full of social media, creativity, networking and people with experiences and projects that inspired and motivated me. Webstock is the largest social media and online communication event in Romania. This year the organizers divided the program into 4 thematic stages: Inspiration Stage, Creators Stage, New Trends Stage and Strategy Stage. So we slalomed from one stage to another, just as you switch from Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok in the morning so you don’t miss the important information from overnight. Glad they published the footage on their Youtube account (I’ll show you the link at the end of the article). Obviously, some speakers captured all my attention and from whom I took notes that I want to share with you.
Here are some key takeaways from Webstock:
The evolution of the platforms is very interesting, especially when you are creating a communication strategy and you want to choose the right networks to reach your target audience. Have you posted a video on Tiktok and it went viral? Have you tried your luck with the same video on Instagram Reels but it didn’t have the same effect?
Perhaps some TikTok vs Reels statistics (presented by Adina Jipa, founder of Socialinsider, source – Socialinsider data) will help you better understand why. With its biggest growth to date, Tiktok surpasses Instagram’s user accounts by 15%. The engagement rate on Tiktok is about 6 times higher than that on Reels. This is also because engagement is most represented by comments, and TikTok registers 44% more comments than Instagram Reels. Also, 3x more clips are posted on Tiktok than Reels, and where there is more content, there is also a greater possibility of keeping users interested in the long term. If you think that TikTok is still not the platform where you find your target audience or that it is a platform strictly for entertainment, maybe you should analyze this platform more because TikTok is the leader in all age groups and the interest of users is divided into various fields: from services, tech devices, video games, to sport, beauty, travel, education or food and beverage.
We continued to talk about engagement with Dan Oroș, Head of Marketing at Google. He presented us some important statistics, such as the fact that YouTube reaches more than 11 million adults monthly in Romania (source Youtube Internal Data, June 2022), which makes YouTube the number 1 video platform that Romanians would hardly live without. Youtube users use the platform to search in detail about the topics they are passionate about, and 85% of users in Romania admit that YouTube helps them make choices in the purchasing process. It’s not hard to understand this choice when vloggers and brands gain visibility and trust on YouTube. In Romania, there are over 1,300 channels with over 100,000 subscribers and over 110 channels with over 1 million subscribers. Wouldn’t you like to be the one changing the number to 111 channels with over 1 million subscribers? 😀
- Community creativity – communities are increasingly influential and “conversations about culture have become culture”. The sense of belonging to a group and the satisfaction of discussing common interests with group members can play an important role.
- Multi-format creativity – Short videos or long videos? The answer is both! Content creators often use short videos as a teaser to attract users to longer videos that they can watch when they have more time.
- Responsive Creativity – Users produce and consume content that meets their psychological and emotional needs, whether we’re talking about relaxing content that satisfies the need for peace after a hard day or content that takes you beyond time and space and satisfies your curiosity and your desire to escape the ordinary. It would be better not to go into detail about the desire to explore unknown places because I have already visited the world on Youtube and I have a long list of destinations where I want to go soon 😀
Let’s get into details about current trends!
Memes have now become the star content used by big brands. Are you also terribly disturbed by the fact that everyone else gets out of their seats as soon as the plane lands? Then you’ve already reacted to the content posted by Vola.ro 😊) If you didn’t laugh at this, maybe you laughed when you saw memes with the Duolingo Owl: the Duolingo Owl when it’s a little over 24 hours: beg for your life in Spanish! It was a response from the app assuming that their notifications are annoying.
Here we can also talk about the self-irony that brands like Ryanair have used to respond to negative customer reactions to their service. Their strategy is trust marketing, meaning that they assume average quality services through the idea of low cost / low services: “You paid 10 euros to go to London. What did you expect? 😊)”
And if we talk about trends, we can also talk about non-trends in advertising (well, it wasn’t my idea, Raul Raul Gheba and Alex Coteț presented themselves as former young people and experts in non-trends, and I admit that it is the presentation that I liked the most from Webstock 2022). I identified a lot with their approach, I think it is important to know the trends and to apply them when the trends match your message and your goals. Otherwise, I hate forced content, a form without substance, content which wants to go viral only following a trend, but which has nothing to convey. It’s even worse when you’re talking about trends you haven’t experienced enough, but you want to sound professional and you tell to your client that the Metaverse is the best innovative option for their strategy.
In this case, Raul Gheba and Alex Coteț found the alternatives: “What is the opposite of Metaverse? The real universe! There are enough stories to be told in the real world that you don’t have to go to the Metaverse.” They also found an alternative for influencer marketing. Why reach out to a big influencer who has many ongoing projects with other brands when you can create your very own memorable persona to represent your brand? That’s what they did with the ”bombardier” from Maxbet, who ended up duelling with Dorian Popa 😊) I also learned from the boys how they found the famous character, he was working as a security guard at Maxbet. How cool is that?
I have a lot more to tell from Webstock, but I’ll leave you with the trends and statistics above.
If you are curious to find out more information from the Webstock 2022 speakers, here you have the Youtube link, as I promised you at the beginning of the article. See you soon 😊
