We have had some great discussions about social media’s role in B2B demand generation but at least I have usually focused on ways to organically grow our social media presence. Is it worth it to use social ads to amplify our message and if so, how effective is it in the lead generation process? According to an Infographic from Gryffin Media, there are many reasons to use paid social ads. The first step is to recognize that “paid social amplification” is not just advertising, it is about amplifying the reach of organic content and growing a community. It is about “using the advanced audience targeting of social networks to improve your visibility”.
Why does our content need help and amplification?
- Facebook’s algorithm, for business pages, ensures that no matter how many likes your page has, only 0.52% of fans see any given post
- There are an average of 58 million new tweets per day. How can you be heard in all that noise?
- 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube each month
How do paid ads increase our exposure?
- lets us target potential niche followers, influencers and engagers
- enables targetting based on demographics, explicit and implicit interests, professional profiles, psychographics, location targeting, keywords
How does paid social amplification work?
1. Start with Owned media that is tailored to your target audience, structured for maximum readibility and is indepth and well-researched. Each content piece should be uniquely formatted for each social network.
2. Amplify with Paid social ads such as:
- Twitter promoted tweets and trends
- Google Plus post ads
- YouTube Trueview ads
- StumbleUpon paid discovery
- Reddit Ads
- Outbrain (content promotion ad network)
- Facebook Ads
3. Get exposure and Earned media through:
- social shares from individuals
- getting the attention of bloggers and influencers
- get high placement on high ranking sites
- coverage by traditional media
- more traffic, more inquiries, leads and sales
I appreciate that we are reminded to set goals and measure activity – an extremely important piece. Ensure you set your goals ahead of time for:
- Brand Awareness
- Interest & Engagement
- Conversion
- Sale
- Loyalty
Have you used paid social ads to amplify your content? What were your successes and failures?
