Did you know people get as much pleasure from sharing information as they do from discovering it? 

The hosts of the Science of Social Media tell us all about ourselves in today’s Listen. Specifically, the psychology behind social media strategy. They tackle a ton of research to give us these 7 factors that motivate people’s engagement on social media: 

1. Emotion
2. The want to entertain
3. Our obsession with talking about ourself
4. Self-expression
5. Staying connected
6. Social currency
7. Supporting a cause

This 12-minute podcast succinctly summarizes what’s so important about these elements, and how you can use them to better your market strategy. Key points are timestamped below:

• (2:10) Emotions and how social media literally fills our brains with dopamine and oxytocin with every like and share. 
• (2:45) The 7 emotions that drive social sharing. 
• (3:25) People share to entertain, inspire, and be useful to others, asking themselves (consciously or not), “Will others find this interesting?”
• (4:43) We love talking about ourselves. In fact, 30-40% of all speech is dedicated to talking about ourselves. That percentage jumps to 80% when we go online.
• (5:55) How a study showed psychological arousal to be nearly as intense when a person saw their favorite brand’s logo vs. when they saw a photo of their closest friend. 
• (6:20) Self-expression and the concept of the “Ideal Self”.
• (7:50) Staying connected — 78% of people share information to stay in contact with people they would otherwise lose track of.  
• (9:10) Social currency is why breaking news does so well on social media, because people want to be the first to share something.
• (9:55) The unified theory of what makes something interesting. 
• (10:20) Supporting a cause — 84% of people report to have shared a cause they support on social media.
• (11:20) How brands can authentically support a cause. 

::Wipes sweat from brows::

Okay, that was a lot. But we didn’t even include everything! Every second of this podcast is a juicy nugget of information. Highly worth it, if you ask us.

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“Video is the future of marketing.”

How many more times are you gonna see that, right?? But it’s true. Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter are all pushing video by promoting the format in their organic algorithms.

Insider tip: LinkedIn just launched native video and it’s a huge opportunity for marketers.

Anyway, today we’re just talking about Facebook. Right now, it’s the best platform for video. That’s why Buzzsumo decided to do a serious study on what types of video perform best on Facebook. We’ve got the results in today’s Read.

Buzzsumo analyzed 100 million Facebook videos for their study. They looked at things like:

• The topics that gain most engagement
• The optimum length of Facebook videos
• Performance of live vs non-live videos
• The optimal amount of text to include in your video description
• The characteristics of the most engaging Facebook videos

The results from their study are going to change the game for your Facebook videos. Here are the stats you need to know:

• The best performing videos were typically short with an average length of 115 seconds.
• The introductory text to the best Facebook videos was also short with a median of 61 characters.
• Facebook Live is best in the 15 to 20-minute range.
• Hacks, Tips, and How-tos perform really well, but don’t ignore inspirational and humorous videos.
• The top videos were more likely to be shared than liked. That creates a really big opportunity for marketers.

When was the last time a Windex commercial brought a tear to your eye? Never? Yeah, we can’t think of that happening before either. Until today.

In what might be the least product-focused ad for Windex ever, Chicago ad agency Energy BBDO tells the story of a father watching his daughter grow up. They do make a point to show plenty of windows, mirrors, and lenses (and hand prints on said windows, mirrors, and lenses) throughout the 3-minute ad, but it’s definitely not overt advertising for Windex. We like that.

The background music also helps take this campaign from just an ad to an emotional journey that will make you say, “I’m not crying, I just got Windex in my eye.”