The days of organic reach on social media channels are all but gone. According to social media commentator Ewan Spence, 89% of social network managers now have a 'paid channel' approach in their marketing budget. Organic versus promoted has been a hotly contested and rapidly changing landscape; back in 2012, visibility of social posts from brand pages was sitting at around 16%; this dropped to 6% in 2014, dropped further to around 2% in 2016 and now stands to be even less, depending on the channel.
This means that a paid (or boosted post) strategy is now essential for social media marketers, but a mix of organic and publicised posts is still considered best practice. According to Facebook Newsroom, worldwide, there are over 2.01 billion monthly active Facebook users for June 2017 (Facebook MAUs) which is a 17% increase year over year. (Source: Facebook data 7/26/17) What this means (in case you had any lingering doubts), is that statistically, Facebook and other social channels are now too big for brands to ignore.
As consumers use social media channels on a daily basis, they will often consider brands, products and services that they have interacted and engaged with when making a purchasing decision. The average time spent per social visit (Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook) is 16-20 minutes, according to Infodocket. This shows digital marketers that they only have a short time period to make their brand impression, so the advice is to use this window of opportunity wisely by boosting relevant, interesting and unique posts and offers in order to make the biggest and best impact for your campaigns.
While organic posts can be essential for building and growing an audience, boosted or promotional posts are necessary for reaching new audiences. So, once your budget is set, it is important to understand more about which types of posts should be supported by a paid campaign. Here are the 7 types of social media posts to boost for better engagement.