Social Media Week has just published a very interesting infographic on what it called ‘the trifecta’- a place where Earned, Owned, and Paid social media meet, which, if exploited properly, can allow brands to significantly amplify the reach of all three, without wasting time and money.
Within the information there are some fascinating stats which give a basic impression of what the social landscape looks like in 2017 for the average business.

Without further ado, here are the numbers…

*90% of people discussing your brand are unlikely to follow your Owned pages
*80% of social media effort that is seen will be Paid for
*70% of discussions about your brand will take place on Earned social channels
Put simply, then, the vast majority of what you put out will only be seen if you put money behind it, but if you start engaging with outside channels, jumping on active trends, and listening to what others are saying elsewhere in the digital sphere you stand a good chance of boosting the visibility of your content by a huge margin.

What are the best ways of bolstering Earned social media?

Utilisin Earned social media properly is all about listening. By this we mean:
*Locate and learn about emerging trends, and consider how you can be part of these, taking into account how your brand’s reputation is seen within the context of the subject.
*Lend an ear to the public, read what they are saying about the trend and gauge sentiment based on their comments- is it positive or negative?
*Try to harness that sentiment by inviting engagement with your own channels, based on the trends- Social Media Week suggests creating marketing campaigns with user generated content as a backbone, for example photo competitions.

So how do you discover the latest trends?

Good question, and arguably the most complex as there is no real right or wrong answer here. Lifewire published a useful piece back in April; 5 Big Ways To Track the latest Viral Content Online. This included:
*Subscribing to ‘trendy’ blogs, news sites and social profiles- obviously ‘trendy’ is in the eye of the beholder, so we would instead say it’s more useful to recommend subscribing to the most relevant, based on profiles of your average target audience members.
*Use social networks as they were meant to be used- Put simply, look at the ‘trending’ sections on the networks you use; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Snapchat all have this functionality, and that’s just for starters.
*Read social news sites- This isn’t a reference to social media industry news sites, but rather forum-style domains like Reddit, where users are creating their own story threads for others to get involved with. Which have the most engagement?
*Set up alerts- Arguably the least popular choice, simply because of how much communications these create, nevertheless using services like Google Alerts, RSS feeds, and IFTTT, which we have featured in our blog before, can inspire great ideas for social media activity by notifying you with desktop alerts, text messages, or emails whenever new content goes online relating to a trend, field, or subject.

Looking for more advice on PR, social media, and marketing? Why not get in contact or submit a brief to inject a little ingeniousness into your brand.