As Instagram roles out advertising in the UK for the first time, the debate about whether paid for or organic social is the most effective rages on. The world’s experience of how Social Networks introduce paid-for services is of course largely based on Facebook – and some very large brands have opted to allocate budget away from engagement and organic activity, towards the purchase of Proof & Reach on the planet’s most pervasive medium.
fire up your engagement, dampen down your costs.
So why spend time developing great content, analysing optimum posting times and responding to Facebook Fans? Aren’t you better off just sticking a junior marketer’s salary equivalent behind FB advertising each month and getting on with something else? The answer Yes – if of course you don’t mind paying a King’s Ransom per Like to buy an audience so unengaged you’d have been better off placing an ad in local press ( do people still do that?)
Great, regular content and ongoing engagement is what builds your audience, keeps it interested in what you have to say, leads to purchase AND lowers your cost per Page Like when you do decide to buy a bit of traction. A Social Campaign we’ve recently completed created such affinity and engagement that Facebook dropped its rate to 0.04p per Like whilst competitor Pages paid 10 times this amount to attract a similarly profiled audience.Twitter is no different. The more authentic and engaging your content, the more consistent, conversational and knowledgeable your interaction, the lower your cost per follower will be when and if you decide to use Twitter’s paid-for services. Indeed the absence of a Facebook-style algorithm on Twitter which restricts content delivery means that great engagement and content will get you there on its own.
So create great content, engage knowledgeably and as much as possible (including out-of-hours) – and pay a little, if you have to. Remember, money wont buy you love, you still have to earn it.