As a social media consultancy, we are often asked ‘why are my organic posts on Facebook not being seen?’

Well if you haven’t already heard this, Facebook organic reach is a thing of the past. Those of you managing a Facebook Business Page over the past couple of years will have noticed a drop in how many of your fans have been viewing and interacting with the organic posts you publish to your page.

Earlier this year, Facebook announced changes to its News Feed algorithm. For those of you not up to speed with algorithms, these are a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer. Basically, what Facebook wanted to do was shift the ranking on people’s news feed to make it more about connecting with friends and family and letting marketing content take a back seat. They feared the ‘meaningful interactions’ people had on the channel had been lost and they wanted to get it back.

Due to these changes, businesses now need to put a little money behind their posts if they want people to see them. We could spend all week writing Pulitzer-Prize winning content, but if no one is going to see it, what’s the point?

Why it pays to include social media advertising in your digital strategy.

You should have noticed on your social media channels the word ‘sponsored’ or ‘promoted’ alongside a post or piece of content. This is an example of paid social. It’s likely your News Feed will have a few of these type of posts dotted about.

More and more businesses are turning to social media platforms to generate awareness, engagement and traffic, so it’s no surprise that the number of businesses using paid social to maximise their reach has also increased. As a social media agency, we recommend all our clients put aside some budget each month for social media advertising. What’s the point in spending all week writing?

By using paid social media, you are able to reach audiences not currently engaged with your brand and generate new followers or clicks, something that organic posts can’t do.

We can shout until we’re blue in the face that organic posts are on the decline and that paid advertising is the way forward, however some marketeers will still shy away from it. Here’s our top five reasons why you should use paid social and hopefully we’ll convert a few of you…

1. You’ll target an engaged audience

When you target people within social media feeds, you’re showing adverts to users who feel comfortable engaging with content. It’s hard to distinguish between paid social adverts and organic posts, leaving users happy to engage with paid ads!

2. Interest-based targeting

The sites we visit, the posts we like and interact with and the information that we provide generates a lot of data that be used by paid social experts – this is music to our ears!

One key example of the targeting option available on social platforms is to target people by their interests. So, if done well, this means the ads that users will see in their feeds will be relevant or useful and won’t seem out of place with their organic posts.

A bride-to-be looking at wedding-specific pages isn’t going to be offended if a wedding dress shop targets her for their paid advertising, now is she?!

3. Fast results

One of the biggest advantages for paid social vs organic is the ability to generate quick results.

Organic posts are limited to showing your message to those who already follow you, but this could be small numbers. Depending on your budget and objectives, paid social can get you in front of the right people at the right time to a greater scale than you can organically.

4. Location targeting

An area that you can focus your efforts and budget on is location targeting. How localised you make your targeting will be determined by the minimum audience size required to run a campaign (typically 1,000 users). So, on Facebook you can target cities or towns or a radius around them.

5. Insights

Where would we be without insights? Paid social provides you with insights about your brand and messaging that you may not otherwise have collected. Not only does paid social provide top line data around reach and traffic, but each platform (to an extent) allows you to collect data about the users interacting with your page.

For example, you can review the performance of ads by users’ gender and age, and depending how you segment your campaigns, their interests. So, let’s say you run two campaigns, both aimed at the same ages and genders, but you target people with an interest in football for one campaign and rugby for the other.

Upon reviewing the two campaigns after 30 days, you may determine that rugby fans have a higher tendency to click-through to your site or engage with your ads. You can use this data to refine your message, website content and the promotions you run.

The future’s bright, the future’s paid social

I think it’s fair to say that over the next few years, the social landscape will become more saturated with paid ads. This on its own isn’t a bad thing, but it’s crucial that the ads and proposition you provide become even more targeted and specific.

Paid social is just one of the social media services Social Soda offers. To find out how we can help your business achieve its goals, put adverts to good use or help write engaging content, why not drop us a message at hello@socialsoda.co.uk