Know Your Stuff? The 2016 Social Media Marketing Quiz Results Are In

Small business owners wear many hats. In fact, it’s reported that the average business owner ends up doing three to six extra jobs outside of their main role. And often, marketing falls onto their plates. Knowing this, we challenged our blog readers to test their social media marketing knowledge. We also asked them specific questions regarding their level of comfort when it comes to handling marketing for their business. See the quiz results and responses of the small business owners below.

Bonus Content: What’s the State of Social Media?

Find Out

But wait! Want to see how you fare on the quiz first? Take it here:

• Quiz: How Social Media Savvy Is Your Business?

Social Media Marketing Quiz — Answer Logic and Results

Now let’s discuss the social media quiz results, answers and reasoning behind each one.

Q1. On what platform was the hashtag born?

A: Twitter

Score: 83% of quiz takers answered correctly.

The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages. (Source: Twitter)

Q2. What percentage of American adults use social networking sites?

A: 65%

Score: 43% of quiz takers answered correctly.

Sixty-five percent of adults now use social networking sites — almost a tenfold increase over the last 10 years. (Source: Pew Research Center)

Q3. Which social media platform does not allow you to send direct messages?

A: None of the above (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)

Score: 51% of quiz takers answered correctly.

In a battle to keep users from leaving their platform, both Instagram and Twitter added direct messaging capabilities to compete with Facebook.

Q4. What percentage of small business owners use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn?

A: 93%

Score: 37% of quiz takers answered correctly.

According to Social Media Examiner’s 2015 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 93 percent of small business owners reported using Facebook, 79 percent use Twitter and 71 percent use LinkedIn — all the more reason for your business to be active on these platforms! (Source: Social Media Examiner)

Q5. What social media platform has the most active users?

A: Facebook

Score: 77% of quiz takers answered correctly.

Facebook remains the most popular social media platform with the largest number of active users. YouTube and Twitter follow behind. (Source: SmartInsights)

Q6. Which of these is the closest to the number of active monthly users on Instagram?

A: More than 400 million

Score: 13% of quiz takers answered correctly.

In September 2015 Instagram celebrated reaching 400 million users.

Q7. What is the character limit for Twitter posts?

A: 140

Score: 45% of quiz takers answered correctly.

A tweet may contain photos, videos, links and up to 140 characters of text. (Source: Twitter)

Q8. What’s the best kind of content to post to increase engagement?

A: Content that’s adjacent but not directly related to your business

Score: 40% of quiz takers answered correctly.

By sharing useful or interesting content without directly marketing to your audience, you’ll get better engagement, stay top of mind and become a trusted authority in your field. Traditional marketing and advertising is often quickly tuned out.

Following the social media marketing quiz, we asked business owners to answer a few survey questions.

Q9. What kind of activities take up the majority of your time?

Getting logged in to social media accounts — 4%
Thinking of good content to post — 54%
Responding to customers on social media — 17%
I don’t use social media on a regular basis — 25%

Q10. What obstacles do you face in your social media marketing?

Time — 25%
Expertise — 34%
Creativity — 28%
Obstacles, what obstacles? — 13%

Q11. What social media topics do you want to learn more about?

How to set up accounts — 9%
What and when to post — 26%
How to get more followers — 42%
New trends and topics — 23%

Industry of Social Media Marketing Quiz Respondents

Real Estate — 65%
Insurance — 18%
Home Services — 5%
Promotional Products — 2%
Mortgage — 1%
Wellness — 3%
Automotive — 4%

Wrap-up

When it comes to social:

• Business owners are most interested in learning how to gain more followers on their accounts.
• Lack of expertise, time and creativity are the three biggest obstacles to social media marketing for business owners.
• Thinking of good content to post takes up the majority of their time.

Quiz takers knew a lot about the features of social media platforms like direct messaging and hashtags. They were less informed about the large number of small businesses that have adopted social media as part of their marketing mix, character limits on Twitter, and best practices for content sharing.