Engagement Marketing or Paid Advertisement?
In order to dive further into details, let’s take a good look at our contenders.
Social media advertising is an approach where you provide advertisements to audiences through social media platforms. It uses ads to target specific users who aren’t really looking for any type of products or services via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Social media engagement is focused more on meaningful content social media posting, these are all about staying connected through short public updates or center towards particular topics that offer rich, lengthy discussions. Simply a community sharing their thoughts via different social media platforms.
As you can see, the definition itself is already giving out hints which one is BETTER. But let’s not jump into conclusions.
Which are more effective when it comes to traffic generation and customer acquisition channel between the two? Where should a social media marketer invest their resources — time, effort and money (or bitcoins).
So, let us break down and compare the two contenders and find out why one is BETTER than the other:
Social Media Engagement Marketing
So for you to play the game, you’ve got to know the rules.Let’s try and analyze how social algorithms create that natural massive social traffic to your website.
Having a proper understanding of how social algorithms work isn’t a walk in the park. The formula for each of these platforms works differently. Let’s say, on Facebook, an important factor that affects the ranking of a particular post depends on the relevancy score, where on YouTube the overall watch time of the video per session will be determined whether that video enters a ‘Recommended Video’ division or not.
In addition to the misery of social marketers, engineers amend these social algorithms ever so often; which makes it very difficult for social media marketers to check social media platform’s algorithms on a day-to-day basis.
After thoroughly analyzing a couple social algorithms, social media experts have discovered that just like Google’s algorithms, have similar functions which simply designed to give users the best overall experience as possible. Social algorithm goal is pretty simple — “To give the best content for the right people.”
In 2017, similar goals of executing the best user experience possible. They tweaked the news feed algorithms to cut rankings of posts that add a link to a low-quality site.
Which leave us with this conclusion, the only key in boosting your website traffic with social engagement marketing is by posting high-quality content (That definitely falls in any of these 3 categories — informational, encouraging or entertaining) along with high-quality links that are relevant to your preferred audience.
When social media engagement marketing boosts traffic
Focus on your social followers: An organic approach when it comes to social media marketing is the best move. Considering you’re not into any specific audience — people who belong to a specific demographic or age bracket — to advertise your products/services is a great way to boost traffic naturally.
Having a tight marketing budget: If your company has a limited marketing budget to pay social media ads, then again you must aim for an organic approach in social marketing. Keep in mind that there’s also a good chance for you to convert a loyal social follower base into a regular website community visitor.
Benefits in the long run: Getting attention from a social audience takes time and converting them as regular website visitors isn’t gonna happen overnight. Remember, patience and consistency will definitely pay off in the end.
A good example of this is what crowdfunding teams like Crowdcreate, is doing on their strategies — they set up communities for their clients by using social media outlets like Instagram, Reddit, and even Youtube. They develop a social relationship between people who encourage would-be customers to the company/product.
We also have the big guns like Microsoft, their channel shares inspiring stories of people who use Microsoft technology to pursue their passions; thereby encouraging potential customers to similarly leverage Microsoft products.
Paid Social Media Advertising
Several social media marketers have believed that paid social media ads will bring them great results but that’s just the half-truth. Investing your money to paid social ads will do you no good; unless the ad itself is worth clicking.
Your ROI for the paid social media ads depends on how enticing your ads are. Your social media marketing budget should provide your ads the right call-to-action buttons which include a link to a landing page or directly to your website.
When Paid Social Media Ads Boost Traffic
Creating brand awareness: Every respectable business or brand we know promotes its products/services to popular social media channels and use it to leverage their business. Grabbing such attention in a short span of time is surely an opportunity to take advantage of when it comes to paid social media ads.
Driving massive traffic to your site: Unlike going for an organic social marketing, paying social ads will get you instant delivery results. Once your ad goes live on all social platforms, you will experience a large volume of visitors to check your brand out. When you plan on creating announcements or promoting a new product/services then paying social ads is a must.
Target a specific audience section: Having paid social media ads can either target a specific group of people which is based on locations or their specific demographic. These types of people will most likely to check on your ad and verify your website since they can be considered as prospects who could be interested in a product/service that you’re offering.
Limited time offer strategy: As a social media user you need to be aware of your limited or special time offer before it even expires. When you post ads on social pages it somehow allows a follower or visitor to stumble upon an expired ad, it will a bad image for the products you are trying to advertise. Being someone who markets the services and products with an expired date, paid social media ads should be considered.
You can almost see ads everywhere on the web. Good examples are blogs that monetize their income through traffic.
Deciding the Winner: Of course, we have one. But are we really going to use just one strategy?
There is no such thing as a one size fits all algorithm when you’re talking about social media marketing. For example, an up-and-coming product can find a large volume of people who can give interest to their website with just a single organic Facebook post, while middle-sized mobile app development companies may experience real results by boosting a particular post in LinkedIn.
A social strategy that might work for some, may not work for others!
It should be on your checklist to monitor and analyze the strategy closely, particularly you and your competitor’s social marketing activities. Find a post that would fit perfectly on your followers and target audiences by analyzing certain campaigns, social channels and posts. Figure out what works best for your product/service in any given situation. Based on the results you gain from evaluating your social channels, always pursue the best social media marketing strategies for your brand.
Although do remember these 4 factors that top digital marketing companies consider when you’re venturing through social media marketing:
- Time allotted by the users on that particular post
- Engagement activities for that post such shares, likes, and tweets.
- The post should be relevant.
- If you want more boost, focus on posting viral contents. Something compelling for your audience taste will make them want to visit your site more often.
Up to you: It’s your time to shine!
As we all know, paid ads will help get the fire burning and gain initial exposure for any start-up. But for this to constantly happen, a solid plan is needed for an organic social marketing. Therefore it is recommended that you use both strategies hand-in-hand to see remarkable growth in web traffic.
As you plan out your social marketing goals for 2019, don’t forget to keep in mind all the important points and to select the right social action plan under any given situation to enhance your web traffic.
What type of social media marketing plan would you use to leverage your website’s traffic this 2019?
Share your thoughts and experience in the comments below!___________________________________________________________________
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Crowdcreate is a full-service marketing agency that specializes in social media management, community growth, design & branding, influencers, content creation, SEO and more.
We have worked with some of the largest crowdfunding ICOs and startups including BitClave, ANKER, and Tencent. We’ve raised over $106.4 million dollars across 45+ projects since 2014; we are a veteran team and one of the original crowdfunding agencies. Check us out here (https://www.crowdcreate.us).