What Fans Want – Master The Connection With Your Audience In 2019

A critical component of running a successful organisation or company is knowing what your customers want and understanding current trends; two new reports from key figures in the industry provide insights on just that.

Australian media company, Southern Cross Austereo (SCA), has released a report on a survey of over 1,400 Australians, which delves into the psyche of everyday Aussies to understand their emotional connection to sport. This report provides information on what the fans want and coincides with Hootsuite’s release of their Social Trends 2019 report, which gives brands ideas on how to touch and engage with their audience.

‘I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel’; This quote from American poet and Singer, Maya Angelo, is a key part to SCA’s findings which says 80% of buying decisions are emotional and only 20% are logical.

The emotional connection fans have to sport is a direct result of how an experience makes them feel, with 82% of Women being inspired to do something when seeing females athletes in the media; female athletes also inspire 74% of men.

It’s vital to understand that feelings not only produce the outcome of a sale but also builds a brands value, as SCA reports 73% of people have used sport as part of a conversation when interacting with friends, colleagues and family within the last 12 months.

National Sales Research Manager at Southern Cross Austereo, Jasmine Beech, referenced the Binet and Fields work that found that campaigns which utilised emotion build brands more strongly, no matter the measuring metric; “awareness, commitment, trust, differentiation, fame or image,” she said.

International social media management platform, Hootsuite’s, third annual report on global trends in social media reveals the significant opportunities available for executives, marketers, customer experience leaders, and social media professionals in the year ahead.

The report highlights the latest trend by consumers, who are more engaged by video stories than that of traditional news feeds, as it provides a compelling ‘storyliving’ component versus traditional ‘storytelling’.

Hootsuite CMO, Penny Wilson said: “In many ways, 2018 was a tumultuous year for social media.

“Concerns around privacy have led social media users to more private channels like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and WeChat, creating unique opportunities for businesses to develop 1:1 relationships with customers, particularly as those customers increasingly prefer messaging for interactions like support.”

The top 5 social media trends for 2019 are:
Rebuilding Trust – 60% of people no longer trust social media companies
Storifying Social – Stories are growing 15x faster than feed based sharing
Closing The Ads Gap – 1 in every 4 Facebook pages now use paid media
Cracking The Commerce Code – 70% of China’s Gen Zers now buy directly from social
Messaging Eats The World – Top messaging apps collectively count nearly 5 billion monthly active users

Whats profoundly evident within these two reports is that consumers are chasing experiences that make them ‘feel’ apart of an organisation or brand, something they can relate to, which ultimately produces ‘sales’.

Download Hootsuite’s report here.
Download Southern Cross Austeros report here.