What Hits Home? Organic or Paid Social Media Content?
Social media is at the lifeblood of today’s PR and business outreach initiatives, and at the cornerstone of community engagement and driving revenue is the content creation that will bring in prospective customers and improve revenue. However, one of the biggest questions that businesses face is how to deliver this content through social media, be it through organic or paid social ads.
Altering the path to purchase
In the past, Facebook likes and page follows ruled the roost, but as the social networking site dialed down the amount of these content sources popping up in users’ news feeds, companies had to respond differently to adapt to Facebook’s new model. While the move was mostly driven by Facebook’s desire to increase its revenue from paid advertising, marketing researchers have found that these advertising methods often have far more of an impact than homegrown content can do on its own.
According to research posted by Conferto and AOL Platforms, paid advertising accounted for a 0.1 increase in conversion rates on Facebook, while on Twitter this was increased by 3.9 percent. Conversely, paid advertising on the image sharing site Pinterest saw a much bigger response from organic content than paid content, which could force many marketers to conclude that paid advertising isn’t the quintessential answer t their outreach woes, but rather how the platform is used in the path to purchase to pique buyer interest.
How social drives buyers’ purchase habits
Social touchpoints, or the stage at which a buyer are most likely to interact with social network advertising when exploring a product, is also pivotal to a company’s marketing efforts. For instance, platforms like YouTube can provide 100 percent of the information needed for a customer to make a purchase, while other sites like Tumblr, Twitter, and Pinterest may only have a snippet of information that could pique the interest of consumers.
Ultimately, social media is here to stay in the business world, but the cycle of conversion through these various media channels and what information they can provide to users will continue to be the primary challenge facing marketing departments the world over. While organic content is still vitally important to refine a brand’s voice and communicate with new audiences, paid social ads within the right mediums are the investments that will go to the heart of an ideal audience, put the best message forward and drive conversions upward.
