Increasing Brand Awareness through Paid Social

Paid vs Organic Media

We as users are probably more familiar with Organic Social media, or media with no form of paid advertisements. However, as marketers it is important to understand the difficulties of generating reach through organic social media, "In fact, the average organic reach for a Facebook post is about?5.5% of your follower count?with even less for brands with large followings." (Forbes). This is where Paid Social Media comes into play. Paid Social Media refers to any form of content or advertisements that is purchased and posted to any social media platform. For example, Instagram will post advertisements in between story posts.

The main goal of utilizing paid social media is to increase the reach of your brand. This can be done by boosting the awareness of your organic content or by placing direct advertisements on social media platforms. Where in organic social media you are trying to deliver creative content that increase brand awareness naturally.

Paid Social Strategies

When it comes to paid social media there are a few things to remember when formulating your strategy. First is what sort of preliminary data you should collect. According to Search Engine Journal your research should be focused on:

• "Understand the landscape of social media advertising" and,
• "Understand your audience and how they relate to each social platform."

These two data sets can be boiled down to conducting market research. Understanding the landscape of social media advertising means to understand the differences in platforms. You wouldn't put the same advertisement on Snapchat that you would on Facebook for example. Understanding your audience is also crucial in developing a paid media strategy. Do this by delving into the analytics from various platforms to create a target audience.

Similar steps are taken in organic social media strategies as well, but the differences have to be noted. Organic social media relies on user awareness as well as creating more unique content. A paid strategy focuses on the data to ensure that the advertisements are as effective as possible.

Tools Utilized

Some of the most effective tools for Paid Social Media is using the frameworks developed by Facebook (or Meta):

• Core Audiences: This is your target audience. They are defined by their demographics and psychographics. Core Audiences are used to identify your target market and who your media will be catered to.
• Custom Audiences: According to Meta, "A?Custom Audience?is an ad targeting option that lets you find your existing audiences among?people?across Meta technologies." This in turn helps streamline the market research component of your strategy as Meta (and other platforms) gives us access to user demographics.
• Lookalike Audiences: These are people that may be interested in your product due to their similarities to your current customers. What's nice about lookalike audiences is that they base their finding on preexisting custom audiences, making the process that much easier.

What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is when a brand or company collaborates with a social media influencer to increase brand awareness. An influencer can be categorized as someone with a social following on a particular platform that is deemed an expert in something, think of someone like Mr.Beast on YouTube. When deciding to collaborate with an influencer there are some way to measure the effectiveness of the campaign. When done correctly Influencer Marketing can pay off greatly, according to Influencer Marketing Hub, "Brands make money when they pick dedicated influencers with sizable target audiences matching the brand’s preferred customer base."

One of the most effective methods is to track the campaign in conjunction with the KPIs set at the beginning of the strategy. Tracking your KPIs and using Google Analytics to ensure that the metrics being tracked are aligned with the goals of your strategy. A tool that can be used is a Social Listening Tool. Meltwater is an example, they use AI-driven analytics to examine user behavior across platforms to find content that could be of interest to your brand. The influencer that you work with should also provide the data of the campaign as well.

In the end

Paid Social is a great way to increase brand awareness. A lot of the research done into discovering your target market will be applicable to any sort of marketing campaign. Understanding the fundamentals of Paid Social and Influencer Marketing will only help your brand get ahead.

References

• https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2022/05/06/the-differences-between-paid-and-organic-content-on-social-media/?sh=358512a01526
• https://www.searchenginejournal.com/paid-social-media-advertising-success/460501/#close
• https://influencermarketinghub.com/influencer-marketing/#toc-7
• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/paid-social-media#:~:text=of%20your%20brand.-,Paid%20Social%20Media%20Strategy,will%20reach%20a%20specific%20market.
• https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/influencer-marketing-guide
• https://www.facebook.com/business/help/164749007013531?id=401668390442328
• https://www.facebook.com/business/help/744354708981227?id=2469097953376494
• https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/ad-targeting#core_audiences