When it comes to social media management, the instruction book is as long as an ancient fable. No matter where you start, there always seems to be a contradicting opinion in one way or another. In this blog, we want to talk specifically about your brand awareness, social media presence and the difference between paid and organic reach.
As always, we will keep the do’s and don’ts to a minimum and aim to offer you our sector expertise in an honest and open way. Take what you need and leave behind anything you don’t think is for you. Rather than opening the treasure chest, and spending two days searching through it, we’ll throw you some gold. Treat yourself, it’s on us.
For those who aren’t fully aware of the terminology, ‘social media management’ is precisely what it says on the tin. It’s the management of your social media feeds, the content you post and the voice in which you communicate. Your potential audience is scrolling through social media daily, the importance of managing your business profiles effectively is essential.
Brand awareness 💭
Whatever way you look at social media, it inevitably has sway on your brand awareness. How people view your brand, whether it is through the influencers you use, the location of your adverts or the content you put out regularly, is swayed by several often overlooked factors.
The key to being a social media success is making sure that everything you do is perfectly in line with your ethics. The way your brand operates says everything about the brand itself, therefore, be consistent.
In a recent study, it was highlighted that over 70% of marketers make brand awareness the primary goal of their social media campaigns. This is because people remember what they see, and if they attach a positive emotion to that memory, you’ve won.
When it comes to brand awareness, it is increasingly difficult to measure the success of your campaigns. However, we advise looking beyond the measurable when it comes to social media. Just because someone can deliver you measurable likes and comments, doesn’t mean it’s what’s right for your brand, or that it will result in sales.
Stay true to the reasons you first started on your adventure, both online and offline. There’s an innate passion in entrepreneurs that’s immeasurable. Stick to prioritising brand value, and you’ll be a success in no time.
Paid audience vs organic audience 🥊
When it comes to paid v organic reach, there are arguments for both sides of this debate. Within one of the social media bibles, you can purchase online; this section would probably take up 50 pages, let’s make it more digestible:
Organic reach, in any light, is brilliant for your business. It’s made up of those who actively look to interact with your product and in doing so, show their connection with your business. Brand awareness applies to organic reach too. Are you popping up in the feeds of people who want and remember your company?
Having a broader organic reach is, of course, beneficial, and that is why you should always look to build it. The best way is by providing something that potential customers can’t get anywhere else. Whether that is brilliant blog content or great sharable content, we love this and so does everyone else.
Is having less of an organic reach than a competitor always a negative? Not particularly, no. It depends on what level your organic reach leads to sales. It’s one of those simple business questions, would you rather have 100,000 followers and sell to 1%, or 50,000 and sell to 10%? That’s how you have to look at your die-hard fans, would they go full Bruce Willis for you?
Paid reach 💰
Paid reach on-the-other-hand, is something we can find a little tedious. Hear us out. There are certainly pros and cons to reaching more people through spend. However, unless you hire an agency with experience in social media marketing, we would advise against jumping in with two feet and giving money to Facebook for little effort on their side.
For example, using a targeted advert to portray your product, let’s say Ballet shoes, to all those interested in Ballet, is definitely a positive strategy. This kind of use highlights the benefits of using a correctly implemented paid reach campaign. However, time and time again, we see companies sign up to amateur marketers who will boost posts for them to drive up those likes but not clicks to a website or product. Boosting posts essentially throws your product in front of every person it can regardless of relevance. Look at it in reality, is a middle-aged man living in some far-off country going to buy your Ballet shoes? Highly, highly, unlikely.
If you are looking for more social media information we have built our own guide, which is much shorter than the rest…but full of all the goods!
100. Ultimate Social Media Marketing Plan for Beginners 2020
Why not get in touch with our team to discuss our social media management. Leave the posting and scheduling and boring stuff to us and work on getting your products up to the best standard for your new customers.
For more information about your social media presence, take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:
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