For most businesses, having a solid social media presence is less and less of an option and more of a necessity to cultivate repeat customers and attract new ones. 78% of consumers are likely to buy from a brand or company after a positive experience with that brand on social media.
But, for almost 10 years, social media algorithms (namely Facebook and Instagram) have been making it incrementally harder for businesses to reach new audiences without paying up—and this is now becoming true for people who already like your page (and essentially have said they want to actively follow you).
Therefore, it’s important to not only have an organic strategy in place but also have budget set aside to ensure your organic efforts are seen. And in order to make the most of these efforts (and your budget), your strategy needs to shift in focus to quality over quantity.
You should incorporate quality photography and videography—this includes user-generated and credited content. And quality copywriting that is a good mix of sales, inspiration and tackling customer pain points and questions.
As long as you keep in mind the kind of content your primary target audiences are interested in and are using best practices for each social media platform, adding this focus on quality over quantity should be your recipe for curating compelling content going forward.
Knowing that 35% of consumers have purchased products or services directly from a social media platform, a number that is growing at a rapid pace along with increased screen time, social media is growing in importance related to purchasing decisions. With that growth in purchasing relevance and your focus on quality over quantity, it’s more justifiable than ever to scale your reach on social by putting some of your budget behind that (quality) organic content to be sure it is getting seen by the right audiences.
And when it comes to shifting more of your media budget to increase the reach of organic social content, three basics to keep in mind for maximizing these paid efforts are:
- Have a Facebook pixel on your website in order to better track campaign performance, make optimizations and retarget interested audiences.
- Have a good understanding of advanced targeting, from demographic targeting to interest-based to behavior-based and more.
- Lift up user-generated content in your paid efforts when possible. I can’t say it enough, but there’s a plethora of data to back this up.
I don’t want to downplay just how difficult Facebook and other social platforms can be sometimes, and not just in the paid space. These ever-evolving social channels can be a lot to keep up with in order to maximize platform capabilities and results. But, that’s why we’re here. So, when you’re ready, we’re just a strategy call away to discuss all things organic and paid social.