Hop on the Plane of Paid Social

Have you ever been in charge of planning a trip or vacation? I have been in charge of planning a vacation for this upcoming summer and have benefitted from finding the best travel agencies through my social media network. This is called paid social, and it has become a powerful strategy for marketers in this era of social media.

What is Paid Social?

Paid social is when a company uses some of its marketing budget in promoting their content on social media platforms. Paying platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, etc. will help make your content reach new audiences and reach people who wouldn't come across your content organically. Paid social allows you to run targeted ads for specific demographics, promote events or products, utilize influencer partnerships, generate leads, and much more.

There are many advantages and benefits of paid social media. One is that it allows you to use advanced targeting. In the past, a brand wouldn't really have a good way of knowing who was seeing their content. But in today's world of digital marketing with advanced targeting, a brand can specifically target and has a way to interact with their audience. Another benefit of paid social is how easy it is to track. There are many analytic tools that allow each ad to be recorded to show exactly how many clicks, sales, or lead that ad generated. Because of this it makes the ROI of your advertising very clear.

Types of Audiences:

Before a brand starts dumping money into paid social media advertising it is good to know who you are spending that money on. With paid social there are different types of audiences.

• Custom Audience: A custom audience allows a brand to reach people who are already connected with the brand through something like an email list. This is strong because these people already know the brand and are the easiest to convert into customers.
• Lookalike Audience: Creating a lookalike audience starts with a custom audience. A lookalike audience are lists of people with similar traits to the ones in a custom audience group. This lookalike audience is also known as a cold audience, and it is good for targeting people who have never interacted with the brand but could if they are aware.
• Saved Audience: Saved audience is simply an audience created that a brand saves for later use. With a saved audience a brand won't have to recreate all the filters when creating content. Once the audience is put together it can be saved and used again whenever the brand wants to.
• New Audience: New audience is the default audience for ads. With a new audience a brand is able to select certain features like location, demographic, behavior, or interests. Brands can use this to reach out to users with a high chance of engagement.

Travel Agency Industry:

Like I said in the beginning, I have been recently seeing this a lot on social media with travel agencies. As I've spent a lot of time researching for my upcoming trip, I have become a target for travel agencies. In today's world of marketing, if a travel agency isn't adapting to the new age of digital marketing, then they will be quickly left behind. Travel agencies can no longer rely on outdated marketing methods such as print advertising, cold calls or billboards.

The way that travel agencies are adapting to using paid social is often through established social media influencers. The reach of a travel agency can be quickly amplified with the influencers network and influencers are often eager to make such partnerships. During my research for this trip, I've found the best travel agencies through the posts of influencers. Paid social can be a win win for both consumer and business. I was able to quickly find a great travel agency to work with because of my regular social feeds while the agency was growing their business through a relatively inexpensive, while effective, marketing strategy.