You heard that right folks, if you’re planning on social advertising, you better be paying.
Sorry, we don’t mean to make it sound like a ransom note. But if you want your advertising to go well, you should seriously consider paying for it.
It’s not like you can’t get by by just growing organically. But these days, in such competitive and saturated environments, you’re going to need those fertilizers.
According to Hootsuite’s 2022 Social Media Trends Survey, 43% of respondents said “the decline of organic reach and the need to increase paid advertising budgets” was their biggest challenge on social media.”
This challenge was second only to consistently coming up with ideas for content, which is a pretty important thing to compete with. The end times are near for pure organic growth. Let’s take a look into it.
Social advertising: some context
This isn’t news; organic reach has been declining ever since platforms introduced paid ads. With paid ads available, ads could be effectively targeted towards certain target audiences via carefully-created algorithms.
That’s why the moment you talk about getting a new toaster, you start seeing sponsored ads for the Mitsubishi TO-ST1-t.
Over time, these algorithms got better and better. And social platforms have no interest in making their organic algorithms as good as the paid algorithms. So as it stands now, it’s a freemium market.
Facebook once said that brand posts reach about 16% of their fans, which is now a measly 2.5%. While it’s always good to have content that has the capacity to grow organically — being interesting, unique and valuable — it’s more important now to use the benefits of paid marketing.
Businesses have been realizing this over the years. Beyond the 43% of respondents who said the decline of organic reach and the need to increase paid advertising budgets was their biggest challenge on social media, small to medium-sized businesses said the same concern was in fact their number one challenge.
With the decline in organic reach and Apple’s option to opt out of tracking, this leaves businesses who grew their audiences organically on social platforms in a tough position. They must reinvent their marketing strategy.
It’s time to learn paid advertising
Like all the other businesses that participated in Hootsuite’s survey, maybe increasing paid advertising budgets should be on your list of priorities too.
Paid advertising can amplify your reach (how many people see your posts), increase brand awareness, improve your targeting and generate leads at a rate which organic wouldn’t have.
We’re not saying you should put all your eggs into that basket either, we understand some businesses have spent years catering towards audiences they’ve organically grown over the years.
Well, the good news is that paid advertising is budgetable. You can put as much or as little as you want into it, meaning there’s room for experimentation. Meanwhile, you can keep up the work you do on organic social media — increasing brand awareness, providing customer service, engaging your audience, and showing your brand’s personality.
In any case, whether you’re ready to advertise or not, getting yourself acquainted with paid advertising is a good — if not necessary — idea.
Final thoughts
It’s funny. This pay-to-play model is something we’re all familiar with, whether in advertising or not. Because in one way or another, we know that paying for services usually far outperforms unpaid services.
We can compare it to the voice over industry. It can be so tempting to cheap out on hiring a voice actor (either buying a ‘quick and dirty’ service or finding a volunteer amateur), but it seriously won’t make the most out of a voice over.
We’ve spoken volumes on why you should hire a professional voice actor for your voice over needs, and we think the same can apply to advertising. Speaking of hiring a voice actor, if you’re ever in need, don’t forget that Voice123 hosts an incredible range of excellent, professional voice actors. Be sure to check us out!
In any case, you get what you pay for. If you’re like every other business, you’ll be trying to figure out paid advertising in the days to come. At least you’re not alone! With that said, we’re wishing you the best in your marketing efforts, whether it’s paid or organic!
