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I am sure that we all agree that the fantastic thing about social media is that it is essentially free marketing. If someone told you that you could market your business to millions of people all across the world, you wouldn’t say no! In my opinion, these days every business should be on social media. There are two ways of growing your social media following. The first way is through organic social media campaigns and the second is through paid advertising or paid social media marketing campaigns.
What is Organic Social Media Marketing?
Organic social media marketing is building up an online following through social media platforms such as Facebook or Twitter by posting engaging content. You will find that when you share relevant and engaging content, your followers will come. Interactions with other people and businesses are also included in organic social media marketing. The more that you interact and engage with people online, the more people will follow you and and listen to what you have to say. But is organic social media marketing alone enough for your business?
Organic vs Paid Social Media Campaigns
Online author Justin Wilson shed some interesting statistics about paid to social media marketing. 17% of people who paid for social media marketing in 2014 are destined to increase the budget for this in 2015. There was also a great deal of evidence that shows that social media advertising can be between one and 3% more effective than advertising on Google.
When you are cheating how to spend your advertising budget for paid social media campaigns, it is important to consider which platform to use and how to structure the ad. In my experience, sponsored tweets are often ignored. Sponsored links on Facebook that appear in peoples newsfeeds are also unwelcome. Many people see the style of paid marketing campaign is a slight invasion of the newsfeed. What I do find that works extremely well paid social media marketing campaign, is running Facebook ads.
How to run a Facebook Paid Social Media Campaign
There are two ways that you can run a paid Facebook campaign. The first is sponsored posts and the second is through Facebook Advertisements. As I mentioned, I find that Facebook ads are much more effective, because is because people generally view sponsored posts as an ‘invasion of their newsfeed’! If you design a Facebook ad, your advert will appear in the right-hand margin with an image and caption. You can direct the clicks either to your website or to your Facebook page. The great thing about a Facebook ad is that you can target the exact market that will be interested in your business or product. Specify the age group, gender and interests of the people that you are aiming to attract.
Things to Consider when Creating a Paid Social Media Campaign
Creating a paid social media campaign involves slightly different skills to building an organic social media following. Here are some things to consider when developing paid vs organic social media campaigns…
- Which platform is appropriate for your paid social media campaign?
- What kind of person is the advert targeting?
- Does your advert add value? Does it offer to help someone?
- Does the advert fit in with your brand?
- Does it grab attention or include a call to action?
Organic vs Paid Social Media Campaigns – Which should I choose?
The future of advertising is clearly in paid social media campaigns. I recommend combining both organic and paid social media campaigns to achieve the best results. The more you experiment, the better. So when you decide to run a paid social media campaign, try running three different ads at once. Use the statistics and analytics to see which is the most successful and run that one again.
Knowing your target market and your audience is key to getting both organic and paid social media campaigns right. Remember that social media marketing is a cyclical rather than linear process. So remember to engage with your audience and do not be afraid to ask them what they would like to see more of. Make use of the analytics to understand the age, gender, interests and geographical location of your fans. Use this information to make your combination of organic and paid social media campaigns even better.
If you enjoyed this article you might also like to read about Social Media Advertising Versus Traditional Marketing Campaign
I’ve had the same experience with Twitter Ads-tried the free with no response. Sounds like Facebook side bar ads are the way to go, if they’re not too expensive. Currently, I run Twitter organic by scheduling tweets with Hootsuite.