Advertising Campaigns on Social Media

Written By Brooke Cohen

When advertising on social media, there are many ways to go about your campaign. To start, it is important to consider the pros and cons of paid advertising versus organic advertising. There are many different forms of paid advertising, such as pay-per-click advertising, branded or influencer-generated content, and display ads. While organic content is any advertising content a brand does not need to pay for, such as organic posting, use of hashtags, and more. 

Pros of paid social media advertising

One of the biggest pros of paid social media advertising is the ability to expand the reach of your message. It allows you to reach specific demographics that would be receptive to the products or services you provide and can sort users through categories such as location, age, gender, and interests. Based on provided specifications, ads can be placed only on specific social media feeds. This process allows for the ability to reach beyond just your followers and find potential new users. Paid social media advertising also allows for budgeting and will only advertise within the given budget. Lastly, unlike organic advertising, paid quickly reaches a wide target audience, which allows for much quicker results.

Cons of paid social media advertising

As for the cons of paid social media advertising, one is definitely how saturated the market is. If you own a business that is crowded in the social space, it could mean you will end up dealing with higher pay-per-click (PPC) rates in order to see your ads shine through. Additionally, the success of an advertisement is not dependent on how much you invest. Developing a strong campaign can take time and may require revisions. 

Pros of organic social media advertising

The biggest pro of organic social media advertising is definitely the price tag, free. Another pro is that it allows for direct engagement with your customers, to interact with them, and respond to questions or concerns. Focus on organic posting can also help foster a deeper connection between the business and consumer, as well as building a community. Additionally, an organic social media page allows businesses to project the tone and personality of the brand.

Cons of organic social media advertising

When it comes to the cons of organic social media advertising, the price of free is instead paid with time. Consistent posting is not enough to build a community. To fully take advantage of and build a social media presence, brands need to interact with their users as much as possible. Lastly, a big con also comes down to reach. You simply will not be able to reach as large of an audience through organic posting. Your reach is only your followers and the people they share your posts with. It is possible to take advantage of hashtags to reach more users than just your followers, but it doesn’t nearly compare to the reach of paid social media.

Skillshare

A great example of a brand that excels at paid social media marketing is Skillshare. Skillshare is a brand that provides an online learning community that consists of many different courses people can learn from. This brand excels on social media advertising, taking advantage of paid social media for the range of users they can target, as well as sponsoring a bevy of different creative channels, sometimes providing discount codes in their videos. It is not unlikely that if you have been on a creative channel, you probably have seen a skillshare ad or sponsorship.

In this video by Jazza, Skillshare sponsored his video and he talks about the benefits of using Skillshare, as well as providing a discount code for his viewers. Skillshare does many sponsorships like this in addition to their targeted advertisements. 

Their current advertising campaign slogan is “Explore your creativity.” Skillshare has a focus on educational videos that fall in the creative realm, such as design, art, photography, and more. 

Skillshare does a great job of targeting creative people, as they show ads or sponsor videos that explain or teach something creative. They focus their ads on those looking to learn how to do something creative, hoping to direct them towards their site. Skillshare also does a great job of using popular influencers in creative fields, such as Jazza with art, or Jessica Kobeissi with photography. I think that because they advertise to the right people, in combination with their use of influencer partnerships, Skillshare has been very successful in growing its business. 

Digiorno

Another great paid social media advertising campaign is Digiorno’s  #DeliveryDigiorno campaign on Twitter back in October of 2019. This month was also National Pizza month and Digiorno used that to their advantage for this creative campaign. 

Most of us have heard or seen the “It’s not delivery, it’s Digiorno!” ads at least once in our lives. This was a creative spin on that well-known slogan, not only delivering their pizza but delivering it for free. The campaign used a combination of organic engagement and promoted trends to draw attention to their campaign. They first had their followers vote on what cities the deliveries would take place in and used paid ads to target the pizza lovers in the selected five cities. 

This campaign was so successful, both because of its combination of paid and organic content, as well as taking advantage of the pre-existing buzz that National Pizza Month brought to social media. In doing this, the brand created an authentic buzz that incentivizes engagement with the reward of free pizza. 

So is one version of social media advertising better than the other?

Personally, I believe it is very hard to definitively say organic is better than paid or vice versa. I think the best course of action varies, depending on the campaign, brand, goals, and budget. There is no one set way to tackle social media advertising and the best way to go about it is to figure out what works best for your own business. It also doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Many great social media advertising campaigns take advantage of both paid and organic to create a path that works best for them.

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Brooke Cohen
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