When it comes to social media marketing, there are some things you should be familiar with as a marketing professional. This is especially true when it comes to choosing to use paid versus organic social media content for a business or organization.
Let’s face it. If content is to be heavily seen, it needs to have cash flow behind it. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount of money, but a little bit can go a long way when it comes to social media for marketing.
Organic Social Media Content
According to a recent Hootsuite study, only about 6% of organic social media posts, specifically those published by Facebook business accounts, reach the intended audience.
However, organic social media is still useful when it comes to brand and business social media marketing. Not only can it be used as an awareness or thought-leadership tool, it can also be used as a form of employee advocacy or overall brand building.
What is Organic Social Media Marketing?
Organic social media marketing is free content. This includes the posting and sharing of static posts, text posts, memes, stories, or videos on social media platforms, without paying to boost or advertise the content.
Thought Leadership & Brand Awareness
Creating organic content for social media publishing is a great way to increase brand awareness and thought leadership.
Think of it this way. You stumble upon a new brand or company that you have never heard of before. Maybe you were the target audience of a single ad (we will explain more about paid social media below). Oftentimes, if interested in the product or business, you visit their website and social media pages to scope out what they are all about. If the social media pages are bare, with very little content and context around the brand, gaining further awareness and knowledge is nearly impossible.
Organic social media is the key to building a brand’s look and feel. In one glance, one should be able to determine a lot about a company or product based on the organic social media presence available for browsing.
Organic social media is the key to building a brand’s look and feel.
According to GlobalWebIndex, people, individually, spend an average of 2 hours and 23 minutes on social media per day. This does not count those who are on social media for an above average amount of time.
So many individuals spend hours of their free time using social media platforms. Because of this, spending money to advertise via social media makes a ton of sense.
Employee Advocacy
What IS an employee advocacy program? The easy answer is, employees of an organization or company share company and company-related content with their own social followers. This is done through personal social media accounts. These posts are often curated by the organization or company’s marketing department and can create organic brand awareness through the sharing of information.
Keep in mind, when it comes to B2B businesses thinking about creating an employee advocacy program, LinkedIn is best. This is a great place to network and start sales focused conversations with colleagues and others within the industry the employee works within.
Sprout Social has an amazing social media advocacy tool called “Bambu.” Using this tool within an organization that has a sales team present as a part of the marketing funnel is extremely helpful in many ways. The platform is easy for anyone to use and allows reach beyond the company social media profile.
Learn more about employee advocacy programs and how to begin creating one within your organization within this article by Sprout Social.
Paid Social Media Content
The main percentage of engagements, social media sales, and content reach is brought to you in part by…
You’ve guessed it!
It is paid social media marketing content!
What is Paid Social Media Marketing?
Paid social media content is content published on a social media platform that you pay to target specific groups of individuals.
Paid social media content includes but is not limited to:
- Video or Static Ads
- Boosted Content
- Influencer Marketing
- Sponsored Posts
Talking to Clients About Social Media Marketing
There may come a time when a client asks you THEE popular marketing question these days…
“Why do so few people “Like” the Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn content we are publishing?”
It is a solid question for those who are not in marketing. People use Facebook and other social media channels daily for personal use. They like a photo of their niece at the zoo, and tend to see it immediately, whenever it is posted. For this reason, many tend to assume “I post it, you see it.”
Yet, that is not the case due to ever-changing algorithms used by these online platforms.
How To Explain It
The majority of companies or businesses become companies or businesses in order to offer products or services and make money, period. Businesses change their revenue strategy as the brand grows. These changes can be based upon customer studies, trends, and other analytics.
Facebook (along with Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.) are no different. These are companies with goals to increase revenue from year to year.
So, when these social media platforms noticed businesses gaining growth and followers when using their platform – for free (back in the day), they decided to create a business model from the information.
Ads Aren’t Free
Paid advertising. The availability of paid content drops down the percentage of people who can see business social media pages content posted for free. On the flip side, it amped up the percentage of those who see and interact with the paid content.
Now What?
In the end, if you have a client who is skeptical and is unsure about paying. Remind them that publishing successful, paid social media marketing campaigns is a great marketing tool to utilize. Mentioning the use of social media as a paid marketing tool allows you the chance to also explain the reasoning behind it. Social media platforms, just like clients, are businesses trying to make money. A business or company would not be able to run a free ad through TIME Magazine, and the same goes with social media.
However, always mention the need for organic social media as well, remembering that it creates awareness and brand trust overall. This is especially true to a new customer who may have run into a paid social post and wants to learn more.
In the end, having a digital social media marketing strategy is important whether it includes organic or paid campaigns. Both are useful and necessary in their own ways.
