What Is Paid Social Media?

Paid social media is another way of saying social media advertising. This is where businesses are paying social platforms in order to boost their content to a targetted audience. This boosted content can be either standard organic content or specifically designed advertisements.

Targeted Audience

The standard audience your business has on social media are customers or potential customers that follow you, plus their connections should they share your content. This doesn’t always mean that the content you post is reaching the most appropriate audience. In fact, only 5% of your followers are likely to see your post (Hootsuite).
This is where paid social media is superior to organic. Paid ads allow you to carefully select the attributes that your key audience has and specifically target them.
Targeting can include key demographics such as age, gender, location etc. As well as their social interests. Algorithms on the platform (such as those used by Meta) will help to pair users’ interactions and followings to the appropriate ads interests.

Organic Post Boosts

If you are looking to target your organic content to your audience this is known as boosting a post. With this method, you can select the post you wish to share, and pay to boost that post to your target audience.
This way, your organic followers will still be able to see the post and interact with it, and your selected target audience will also be able to interact. Boosted posts are considered to be a more natural way to reach your target audience, and primarily work to grow brand recognition and in turn organic audience.

Paid Ads

Unlike organic posts, these posts are created and designed to be ads. They may have more of a CTA to them, and link directly to the business’s website, rather than straight back to their social page. Paid ads have somewhat more options available when it comes to targeting your audience, including the ability to broaden the audience. They also offer a selection of ad types, formatting and features (such as the mentioned CTA button!).
While paid ads aren’t as natural as boosted posts, they are superior in generating leads and increasing conversion rates.

Choosing The Right Option for You

The key to choosing the right option for your paid social media requires an understanding of your aim. If your aim is to drive traffic to your site, boost your conversions and concentrate more on sales, then paid ads are an excellent avenue to go down.
If your main aim is to boost brand recognition, bolster social followings and increase product awareness, boosted posts are key. With this method increasing your following, it can also be seen to boost conversions and sales in the long term, with fewer paid ads or boosts required to make a conversion.

Interested in learning more about how paid social media can be a staple of your social media marketing campaign? Talk to the team of experts today who will help get your paid ads and boosts off the ground.