The world of social media is in a constant state of evolution, with platforms vying for user attention and engagement. Among the giants, Twitter and Instagram have long been dominant players, each offering a unique experience to their massive user base. However, a new player recently entered the arena - Instagram's Threads. Let's explore the trending features and functionalities of Twitter and Threads by Instagram, delving into their respective strengths and how they cater to the diverse needs of today's digital users.

Twitter: A Microblogging Powerhouse

Twitter, launched in 2006, revolutionized the way people communicate online. With its signature 280-character limit per tweet, the platform encourages concise yet impactful messaging. Over the years, Twitter has become a hub for real-time news updates, public discussions, and social movements. The platform's trending topics feature amplifies popular hashtags and conversations, making it easier for users to discover and participate in current events and viral discussions.

Additionally, Twitter's retweet and like functions enable users to share and acknowledge content they resonate with, leading to a snowball effect that can rapidly turn a tweet into a trending topic. Celebrities, politicians, and influencers leverage Twitter to reach their audience directly, fostering a sense of connectedness between public figures and their followers.

Threads by Instagram: A More Personal Approach

In 2019, Instagram originally launched Threads, a standalone app designed for a more intimate and private social media experience surrounding the "Close Friends," function allowing users to share photos, videos, and messages exclusively with a select group of connections. This, however, is not the Threads that has blown up with more than 100 million users in about 10 days. With its unique personality

One of the app's unique features is "Status," where users can automatically share their current activity, location, or mood with their Close Friends list. This real-time update feature provides an authentic way to stay connected without the pressure of crafting perfectly curated posts for a wider audience.

Trending Features: Twitter vs. Threads

Twitter's trending topics feature remains one of its most influential elements. By showcasing popular hashtags and discussions, users can easily join conversations that are relevant and engaging. This feature has played a significant role in fostering global discussions, highlighting important social issues, and driving viral movements.

On the other hand, Threads by Instagram emphasizes the trend of creating more personalized and private spaces within social media. The app's focus on Close Friends enables users to share unfiltered moments with people they trust, without the fear of judgment from a wider audience. Threads' Status feature also reflects the growing desire for real-time updates and immediate connections among friends.

The Power of Visual Storytelling

One aspect that sets Instagram apart is its emphasis on visual content. The platform's original app remains the go-to place for photo and video sharing. While Twitter supports images and videos too, Instagram's visual-centric approach has attracted a massive user base of creators, artists, and influencers who engage in creative and visually captivating storytelling.

Threads embraces Instagram's visual prowess and combines it with the idea of more intimate connections. Users can instantly share photos and videos within their Close Friends circle, enabling them to express themselves authentically and candidly.

Twitter and Threads by Instagram represent two distinct approaches to social media engagement. Twitter thrives on its rapid-fire microblogging format and real-time conversations, while Threads emphasizes privacy, intimacy, and visual storytelling within a closer network of friends.

Both platforms are trending, attracting millions of users seeking different social experiences. While Twitter remains a powerful tool for public discussions and trending topics, Threads caters to those who prioritize closer relationships and authentic sharing.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, it will be intriguing to witness how both Twitter and Threads evolve to meet the ever-changing demands of their users, and how these trends influence the future of social media as a whole.

Before you go, follow us on Twitter and Threads for more. Are you new to Threads? Check out how to get in on the action here. 

Marketing has never been more important or complicated than it is today. You can launch the most effective and beautifully designed campaign in the world, but if you’re failing to adapt to your audience’s changing preferences, you’re destined to fail. In order to truly succeed with your marketing initiatives, you need data-driven insights into how consumers think and feel about your product or service, as well as their competitors’ products or services. This article will introduce you to marketing intelligence and help you better understand how this knowledge will improve your marketing strategy as well as all other aspects of your business operations.

What is Marketing Intelligence

Marketing intelligence is a broad term which refers to different sources and forms of data that are used to improve marketing processes to drive better results. It can be thought of as an umbrella term that encompasses many other, more specific terms such as competitive intelligence, market research, market analysis, and quantitative research. Marketing intelligence helps marketers understand what consumers think about their brands, competitors' offerings, and emerging trends in the marketplace.

The Benefits of Marketing Intelligence

If you want your marketing efforts to be successful, there are a few things you need to know. The first is that marketing intelligence can help you stay ahead of the curve in your industry by staying on top of changes in society, new technologies, and customer preferences. It also helps identify trends in your industry that could have an impact on future success. Second, such knowledge is essential for understanding the needs and wants of consumers; it will help you determine who your target market is and how best to reach them. Finally, being knowledgeable about what influences people's decisions will make all aspects of marketing more effective because you'll know what type of messages resonate with customers and which channels work best.

Gathering Marketing Intelligence

Marketing intelligence is a process that involves extensive research about your industry and competitors to better position yourself. More than just understanding what your competitors are doing, marketing intelligence is about understanding trends and changes in your industry. It's also important to understand what customers want, which you can find out by looking at where they spend their money. The more knowledge you have, the better you'll be able to create a strategy that will help you stay ahead of the curve.

What to Include When Collecting Marketing Intelligence

There are several types of marketing intelligence that companies can use to stay ahead of competitors and improve their marketing efforts.

Competitive Analysis: A detailed assessment of the competition is invaluable data to assist in the evaluation of your own products, services and customer approach while also empowering you to best align and highlight your own competitive advantage within the market.

Customer Analysis: Research in this area must be applicable to new and existing customers. While new customer acquisition a necessity, it is also critical to improve existing customer relationships by understanding what they want from a product or service. This analysis invites positive changes to your business and may even result in the creation of new products or services to fit changing needs.

Product Analysis: Scrutinizing your products and services against others offered within the market should be done both internally and through public review. By understanding the differences between them and how the market is responding to those differences may confirm or reframe your competitive advantages and influence improvements.

Market Analysis:  Investigate and maintain an active pulse on other business areas your target audience is engaging with, such as industry conferences, member organizations, magazines, or journals. This knowledge enables you to determine the most relevant media outlets, digital communication channels, and industry forums to consider for your marketing strategy. 

Every company should have a marketing strategy, and continuously enhance that strategy with updated marketing intelligence. It's important to know what your audience likes, how they interact with social media, and what they are searching for online. Use marketing intelligence to better understand what your audience wants so that you can provide a better service and improve all aspects of your marketing.

Technological shifts, new digital experiences and the rise of platforms will fuel a transformation in B2B marketing. New dynamics will emerge that place increased emphasis on digital engagement, personalization, consumer awareness, and brand loyalty. Various factors such as these make it difficult to predict what the B2B landscape will look like in 2023—but we do have some hints.

Today, the most successful B2B marketing campaigns are cross-channel and multi-touch. They engage with customers across social media, email, digital advertising, and apps. As the pace of the business world continues to accelerate, organizations will be looking for ways to weave these mixed experiences together through a single platform. But regardless of which technologies you use today, it’s important that you help guide customers along their journey through your brand touchpoints—while simultaneously generating valuable insights for each interaction. This helps you to gain better insight into what makes your business tick and helps you reshape your marketing as an ongoing process instead of an isolated idea.

B2B marketers will be challenged to create meaningful and lasting experiences that engage the buyer throughout their journey. Many of these efforts will focus on improving the B2B buyer experience—ensuring each stage is personalized, seamless and optimized for mobile. But most importantly, marketers need to build an intersection between technology and human connections.

Adapt to Changing Buyer Behaviour

With the shifting digital landscape, businesses must adapt to meet current buying behaviours. This includes an emphasis on data-driven technology that enables buyers to make more informed buying decisions, and a desire to simplify the purchasing process for the end user. A dramatic increase to B2B purchases through social media was captured by Forrester’s B2B Buying Survey¹.  Mobile and location-based commerce is on the rise with consumers looking for products and services at their fingertips. Social media can become an important marketing tool for B2B companies to direct buyers to find what they need.

Embody and Promote Social Responsibility

The marketing world is changing, and B2B marketing strategies are no exception. Now more than ever, organizations must focus on their corporate social responsibility to become leaders in the eyes of their customers. As the world becomes more connected, consumers are searching for brands who are socially aware and approachable. Brands that understand this and embody socially responsible business practices can increase loyalty and attract new business; thus, benefiting both themselves and their customers as well.

Post-Sale Engagement and Customer Retention
With consumers and businesses increasingly taking advantage of a multitude of marketing channels, B2B marketing strategies must keep up. Increasing post-sales customer engagement drives loyalty and substantially increases brand recall. Thoughtfully planned email strategies, loyalty promotions and programs, and value-based communications directly contribute to consistent and even increased CLV (Customer Lifetime Value).

Substantiate and Commit to a Budget – include some infographics/numeric elements

As businesses are confronted with the digital and data age and the need for more evidence-based marketing, it’s essential to continue investing in your B2B strategy to ensure relevancy in your market. In the 2022 B2B Marketing Survey² conducted by Forrester, it was concluded that more than 50% of the companies that grew annual revenues by 20%+ had also invested 6-9% in marketing. A strategic approach to marketing is at the core of consumer and company growth.

¹https://www.forrester.com/b2b-marketing/how-the-pandemic-transformed-b2b-buying/ | ²https://www.forrester.com/report/2022-marketing-investment-forecast-global/RES177171

In the 21st century, when everything from soaps to software is "shared" on social media, it's easy to forget that not everything is truly free. Earned, owned and paid media are terms often used interchangeably to describe the various types of advertisements that companies purchase. However, the three forms of advertising aren't created equal.

Earned media refers to the buzz or word-of-mouth that a business generates simply by virtue of providing great products and services. Owned media is any type of marketing that a business controls directly, such as a website, blog or social media account. Paid media includes any type of advertising that doesn’t fall into either category, such as ads on TV, in magazines or online. All three methods can be used in combination with each other to achieve maximum results for your business as each type has its own advantages based on your business's needs and goals.

To help you decide what would benefit your business most, here are some important facts about each type of advertisement:

Earned Media:
To be put quite simply, this is the process of building brand awareness through word of mouth, including any press that is not paid for by the company. It’s one of the most effective ways to reach new customers. When someone recommends your business to friends and family, they can provide a personal endorsement that builds trust and increases brand loyalty. This type of positive exposure can drive business extremely well because it drives customer satisfaction and retention. Think about it in terms of online customer reviews, blogs and social media posts. A customer will use social media channels as an outlet for their own personal experiences with a product or service, as well as recommend businesses that make them happy. The process ends up building brand loyalty on multiple levels – for both customers and potential customers.

Owned Media:
Since this form of media is owned by the brand itself, this may be the most important source of content in a marketing strategy. In a world where consumers are bombarded with ads and other messages, it's crucial that the brand stands out because anyone can develop messaging but not everyone can create personal connections with customers. If you want your company to stand out from the crowd and communicate more effectively with your customers, owned media is key.

Paid Media:
Advertising through paid media can be a useful way to reach the exact audience intended. With paid media, you can provide your customers with highly targeted advertisements to increase sales and brand awareness and businesses can advertise their products and services on search engines and social networks among other channels. Paid media works well for brands with a strong understanding of their value proposition to their ideal market. Because paid media can be expensive, it's important to ensure that what's being spent on advertising is meeting your goals. It’s also important to understand how different types of paid media perform against one another and which will make the most sense for your goal or campaign.