Community managers spend hours writing and creating content to grow social media organically — or without ad dollars. Organic content is the backbone of most successful content marketing plans, but it’s not the only tactic successful brands and thought leaders use. Advertising on social media helps augment an organic strategy.
Should you be buying social ads? The answer is yes, if you like growth. Here’s why . . .
1. Social ads help you reach more people. Every social platform has a unique algorithm that determines who gets to see the content you post. If you want more people to see the content you’ve spent hours creating, ads are the way around the algorithm. Ads can also help fledgling accounts find a solid, dedicated following.
2. Targeting allows you to reach specific people. Social advertising allows you to target your audience very specifically. If you have a niche personal brand, you can target ads to reach people in your niche. You can target by location, interests, job title, age, and sex. For instance, if you have a children’s book, you can target parents, teachers, and librarians, and provide each group with a unique message only they will see, without cluttering your newsfeed.
3. You don’t have to spend much to get results. On social media, you can pay as little as $20 and see results. Boosting a top-performing organic post can help grow your reach, engagement, and fan count, giving you a larger audience to market to next time. For example, we have a client who has strategically boosted one Facebook post each month. He’s seen the reach of his non-boosted content increase and he grew his fans from around 500 to over 10,000.
4. You can sell more books or products. By creating targeted ads, you can get your book or product in front of the people who would be interested in it, people who might not otherwise know anything about your book. You can market events, webinars, and courses — anything you have for sale can be promoted on social media. We’ve seen a direct correlation between book ads and sales and regularly recommend book ads for our clients.
We believe in the power of social advertising—and so do most brands and thought leaders. Many large consumer brands spend tens of thousands of dollars each month advertising their products on social media. You don’t have to have their budgets to be successful! The key is to be laser-focused on your goals, and only buy ads that help support those goals.
Even a $20 per month investment can help you achieve new levels of success.
Let us know if you’ve tried social advertising!
Christy Kirk, Vice President of Client Services, is a social media strategist, writer, and former television journalist, who’s done everything from launch a news department to create social content and strategy for Fortune 500 companies and brands including Pampers Diapers, Pantene, Luvs Diapers and Carlson Rezidor Hotels. Now, Christy manages marketing projects for Weaving Influence, with an emphasis on social media marketing. She is also a wife and mother of three children, one dog, and one cat. She loves reading, baking, running, hiking and exploring new places.