Social After Dark
By Cerebra
Introduction
Social media never sleeps. Regardless of where you are in the world or what time of the day or night it is, if you log into a social network there will be people posting, liking and commenting. Barring the odd network crash, there is no off time.
This always on, always connected society that’s developing all around us is presenting some interesting challenges for the brands that are trying to make a place for themselves on the world’s favourite networks.
Businesses are not traditionally always on; they have office hours, employees who deserve some home time and age-old processes that operate on the assumption that at some point the lights will be switched off. It was their world, so they could set the rules - like bank managers who locked up at 3pm leaving voicemails stating: “you have phoned outside of offices hours”, implying that you’re the one who’s in the wrong.
The shifting customer expectations created by the always-on world of online are putting strain on traditional businesses, even ones that have made the move to social. As long as ‘social’ is seen as a function that must serve the business, it will fall under the same rules as the rest of the business, the biggest of which is the concept of office hours.
The aim of this eBook is to take a closer look at the opportunities and threats facing brands that decide to keep their social accounts running after dark, to learn about the changes in the after-hours audience behaviour and detail the real business changes that will be required in order to thrive as a social brand after dark.
In order to evaluate whether your brand should be active in social media after dark, you first need to get a sense for what makes social after dark different. The specific dynamics will change based on the culture of the network in different regions around the world, but, holistically speaking, the below observations will help to guide you.
The major social platforms should be able to provide you with more specific demographic information as per your country. Based on the years Cerebra has spent managing brand platforms after hours, we can make the following key observations:
Changing Audience
Your social media audiences are highly dynamic. You may have a single numerical measure for how many people are within your reach, but the kind of people you are speaking to changes based on the time of day.
To get a sense of the changes, you can speak to a national radio station. Radio producers have long known how to change their content to suit the audiences that are listening at different times of the day. Social media is no different – different groups of people are more active at different times of the day.
Like radio, social media activity is dominated by a younger demographic after dark. This is not to say that other groups aren’t present, but the youth are far more active as it gets later. This youthful audience informs the other differences in social after dark.
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Social After Dark (0.88 pdf)