One of our biggest pet peeves with social media is that every marketing company publishes guides to “best practices.” And that’s a problem because most of their data is based on anecdotal evidence. It’s the kind of evidence that would scare real scientific researchers.

But good news. The social media company, Agorapulse, started actually using the scientific method for social media experiments. Yep, they create hypotheses, test them with adequate sample sizes, use control groups, etc. etc. And best of all? They publish all of that data on their blog.

It’s one of our favorite marketing blogs and one we’ve featured in the Daily a few times. But now it gets even better. One of our favorite podcasts—Social Pros—interviewed one of the marketers behind Agorapulse’s blog.

We’ve got what you need to know in today’s Listen. The fun starts at 04:40.

• (06:37) Agorapulse publishes a blog called the Social Media Lab, and it’s just that—a lab. It’s where they experiment and document all sorts of wild social media hypotheses.
• (08:10) They do 3-4 organic experiments and 1 paid experiment each week. The results are published regardless of success or failure.
• (14:51) In one test, they found that on average using an Instagram carousel decreases your number of likes by 25%.
• (16:55) They’re going to start doing more experiments with video (we’ll have some of their results in the Daily Carnage).
• (17:50) One of their early video findings is that only about 18% of people turn the sound on for Facebook Live videos.
• (22:58) Social media is different for every company so test things yourself. Take an Agorapulse experiment and run it at your company.
• (25:07) Don’t forget that your social media followers are not just your fans, they can also be a focus group.
• (31:55) Test this for yourself, but Agorapulse doesn’t see any benefit for brands on Snapchat.

More insight from Agorapulse in today’s Listen, and don’t forget to check out their Social Media Lab right here.

Y’all ready for this: Cisco estimates that video traffic will make up more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic in just four years. Time to consider incorporating video into your marketing strategy. (Omg, how many times are we going to say that, right?)

But that doesn’t mean just uploading everything you make to YouTube. If you’re simply treating video content as a means to an end, you’re going to have a bad time.

Instead, you need to use video creatively to achieve your business goals. Rule #1: “Focus on what you’re trying to accomplish from a marketing perspective (the message) instead of developing a strategy around video itself (the medium).

Today’s Read from Wistia is an amazing guide to video marketing that will get you to start thinking this way and use video strategically. 

Wistia helps over 300,000 businesses grow with video, so who better to serve up an ultimate guide on the matter?

This guide is detailed as heck, so we’ve linked to each section below:

1. How to build a video marketing strategy
2. Types of video to create
3. When and where to share your videos
4. How to utilize video SEO to increase traffic
5. How to make your videos work harder for you
6. How to analyze your video marketing success
7. Using video with other business tools
8. Companies finding success with video marketing

For a more comprehensive exploration, you know what to do. →

As an agency hailing from the ketchup capital of the country, this Heinz commercial hits close to home—literally. But, for real, everything in Pittsburgh is named after Heinz—our football stadium, our history center, one of our performing arts theaters… heck, our history center even has a whole floor dedicated to the ketchup brand.

Okay, okay, we’ll cut to the chase. Heinz Ketchup’s latest spot shows a little boy having a full-blown temper tantrum that has his parents quaking at the dinner table. Why? Because they’re all out of Heinz Ketchup, of course.

Enter: retired NYPD crisis negotiator, Jack Cambria. A smart touch considering he’s the real deal. (Hey, just like Heinz.) He offers authentic negotiating tips for the troubled parents, but they don’t seem to work. Moral of the story: always have an extra bottle of Heinz on tap, duh. 

Looking for a marketing agency that’s as good as ketchup on french fries? Good news, we’ve been called the Heinz ketchup of marketing agencies (disclaimer: no we haven’t).

The point is, we always take time to produce exceptionally crafted campaigns for our clients, and we want to help you. We’ll even throw in a bottle of the good stuff if you give us a try.