Over the past couple of decades, social media has gone from a fringe channel to an essential marketing medium for many companies. After all, with billions of users active on social media platforms every day, how can businesses afford not to incorporate them into their overall marketing mix?
Of course, social media marketing carries its own set of challenges and complications. Companies must understand how to make the most effective use of their social media posts, and sometimes the sheer variety of available options can be overwhelming.
One highly effective marketing tactic that many companies now use is the boosted social media post. It's important to note that this is a marketing tactic, not a form of advertising. What's the difference? And how can boosting your social media posts make your marketing campaigns more effective? The following information will answer these and other questions in more detail.
Boosted social media posts exist in a sort of a gray area between standard engagement through organic posts and outright paid advertising. While money does change hands to make these posts more visible, this is not an advertising tactic. Companies often use this technique to increase the visibility of organic posts instead of generating dedicated ads.
Social media ads are (as the name suggests) ads that are specifically distributed by and often developed for social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Most platforms allow you to target certain audiences or "user segments" with your ads. In addition, when you use social media ads, you often have the option to pay for them on either a CPM (cost per million; that is, cost per thousand) or CPC (cost per click) basis.
The cost of deploying social media ads depends on a wide range of factors, such as the broadness of the audience you're targeting and the competition associated with keywords you're using. You could be looking at a daily ad spend anywhere from $15 to $200.
On the other hand, boosted social media posts are organic posts that you want to make more visible to your target audience. Social media platforms may charge you to "boost" a post on a CPM basis only (in other words, you'll pay a certain amount for every 1,000 views your post gets because of its boosting). You could be looking at an average cost of $6-7 for every 1,000 views a boosted post receives.
Social media ads and boosted posts are part of an effective marketing strategy. It's vital that you optimize your ads and boosted posts for each platform so that they truly resonate with your intended audience.
Of course, paid ads help to further enhance your presence on social media networks by guaranteeing that your message reaches those prospects who may be interested in your product or service. When you have a clear idea of who your target audience should be, and your content strategy feeds into that focus, then you'll no doubt see exceptional results from your social media marketing efforts.
Social media marketing is a powerful tool for reaching new prospects and engaging with your consumer base. Social media ads and "boosted" posts have their place in a winning social strategy.
While social media networks are helpful, cost-effective ad platforms in general, you can take your marketing game to the next level by using automation software to schedule posts on your account automatically. Of course, one of the best ways to unleash the power of social media marketing is to work with an experienced media partner that knows the ins and outs of the major platforms. With some assistance from a team of experts, you'll almost certainly enjoy a higher ROI from your social media ads and boosted posts.