The 3 Areas of Social Media Marketing

The 3 Areas of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing can mean different things to different people. Every week, our staff communicates with hundreds of different business owners, each of whom is looking for something a little different in the social media marketing space. 

The article was written to neatly summarize the three areas of social media marketing, and to help you decide which areas will help you achieve your business goals. The three areas are Organic Content Creation, Paid Ads Campaigns, and Engagement. If you have questions or need social media management services, get in touch with our team by emailing info@twostepsocial.com!

1) Organic Content Creation

Organic content creation involves creating high-quality, informative posts about your brand and publishing them across all of your social media channels. From Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and Pinterest, there are many different social media platforms, and it can be extremely time-consuming to keep up with all of them. As a business, you can create posts that are educational, interactive, promotional, inspirational, etc. The most important thing is that the posts are consistent, professional, and on-brand.

This is Two Step Social’s bread-and-butter. Each month, we create and publish thousands of custom posts for hundreds of brands around the world. 

What’s the purpose of organic content creation?

Content creation allows customers and prospective customers to learn more about your business when they inevitably search for your brand on various social media channels. Additionally, it can allow you to build stronger relationships with your existing customers who follow you on social media already. By consuming content posted by your business on a regular basis, they form a stronger connection with your business. 

More and more consumers use social media as a source of information before they make a purchase. In fact, 55% of consumers learn about new brands on social media. Additionally, 78% of consumers are willing to buy from a company after having a positive experience with them on social media. 

It’s no longer a question of “is social media important?” If your business is not on social media, it diminishes your brand’s credibility. Conversely, if your brand is consistently posting on social media, it adds a layer of social proof and legitimacy to your business. 

For what type of businesses is organic content creation important?

This area of social media marketing applies to more businesses than the other two areas. If there is even a remote chance that your customers or potential customers are searching for your business online, then it’s important to post frequently across each of your channels.

It costs nothing to create a Facebook Page, Instagram account, or Google Business Profile. There’s really no reason you shouldn’t have an organic social media presence!

On which social media platforms does this area apply?

Organic content creation applies to all social media platforms. These platforms exist so that individuals and businesses can post content with which others can engage. 

2) Engagement

Engagement, the second area of social media marketing, involves using the social media channels as they were intended. For example, this simply means liking others’ posts, following other accounts, commenting on others’ posts, and messaging other accounts. 

By doing these things, you are more likely to get other accounts to notice your posts, engage with your content, and perhaps follow your account so that they can see your future posts, too. 

Unlike organic content creation, which applies to essentially all social media platforms, engagement is more channel-specific. For example, engaging on an Instagram account looks quite a bit different than engaging on a LinkedIn Company Page.

What’s the purpose of engagement?

Engagement is how you build a following on your social media channels. While you can certainly gain new followers by only posting high-quality content, engaging can help you grow a following more quickly.

For what type of businesses is engagement important?

If your goal is to get more followers, then engagement is very important. On the other hand, if you are less concerned about followers, and more concerned about regularly posting content to appear active, then engagement is less important.

In any case, you must have organic content if you’re going to engage with other accounts. Without valuable, informative content, those with whom you’re interacting are less likely to engage with your content. In other words, engagement without organic content creation is often ineffective.

On which social media platforms does this area apply?

Interacting with other accounts is very simple on Instagram and Twitter. On LinkedIn personal accounts and Company Pages, you can like posts and add comments. Facebook’s New Page Experience allows Pages to interact with and follow other accounts; you cannot easily do this as a Classic Facebook Page.

We have generally found that it is easier to grow an organic follower base on Instagram and Twitter than on other platforms.

3) Paid Ads Campaigns

Lastly, paid ads campaigns allow businesses to promote their services/offers to those in specific locations with certain interests and demographic traits. If you’re looking for a direct, immediate “ROI” (return on investment) on your marketing dollars, then a paid ads campaign is the best way to do this. In order to run a successful campaign, it’s highly recommended to hire a social media paid ads expert to manage your campaigns for you. Creating a campaign requires a certain level of technical expertise, and hiring an expert can pay off. Generally, this is considered the most costly area of social media marketing. 

If you run a paid ads campaign, then it is important to also be posting organic content. If you run paid ads without posting content, it can give potential customers a reason to think you’re not a legitimate business. While an engagement strategy would also be helpful, it is not essential when running a paid ads campaign.

What’s the purpose of a paid ads campaign?

If your goal is to use social media to generate sales, leads, or website traffic, then a paid ads campaign is the quickest way to accomplish that. You can spend as little or as much as you would like running ads on the Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) – the more you spend, the more people will see your ads. 

Paid ads campaigns also allow businesses to collect data on which offers/creatives are working and which are not working. For example, suppose you run an online business selling European chocolates. You could run a few ads featuring different types of chocolate at different prices, and measure which of the ads perform best. This would give you insights into which offers reciprocate best with your target market.

Paid ads campaigns also allow you to test which market is most likely to be interested in your products. Going back to our European chocolate example, paid ads campaigns would allow you to test if women aged 25 to 34 are more likely to purchase your product than men aged 35 to 44.

For what type of businesses is a paid ads campaign important?

Businesses that are selling physical products (i.e. eCommerce businesses) can greatly benefit from running paid ads campaigns. Additionally, if your business requires you to generate leads (e.g. real estate agents, consultants, etc.), then paid ads campaigns can help do that.

In order to run a successful paid ads campaign, you must have the marketing budget to successfully test different offers. Generally, you shouldn’t spend less than $300 – $500 per month on paid social media ads themselves. This is in addition to any management fees charged by paid ads consultants.

Generally, running a paid social media ads campaign will be more expensive than hiring someone to create organic social media content.

On which social media platforms does this area apply?

Most major social media platforms allow you to run ads. Meta has a robust paid ads system in place that allows you to target specific ZIP codes, ages, and more. 

Social Media Marketing Takeaways

Are you unsure which of the three areas of social media management is right for you? Then ask yourself this question: What is my primary goal of social media marketing?

– Looking to build a presence and legitimize your business? Then you should focus on organic content creation.

– Trying to increase your following? Then you should start by implementing an engagement strategy.

– Want to generate an immediate ROI by soliciting sales? Then a paid ads campaign can help.

Organic content creation could be considered a prerequisite of an engagement strategy or a paid ads campaign. In other words, without organic content creation, the efficacy of engagement or a paid ads campaign could be dampened.

It’s not uncommon to want all three! While you can certainly accomplish all three of these goals, that requires a larger marketing budget. We have found that many businesses want to start by building a presence via organic content creation. This is because it’s the most affordable way to get started with social media marketing.

Organic content creation can take HOURS each week. If you would rather focus on growing your business, then Two Step Social can help take content creation off of your plate. Sign up for one of our month-to-month social media content creation plans today – they start at only $99 per month!