When social burst onto the scene several years back it was the organic and free nature of the channel that attracted brands. The potential to harness brand advocates and deliver peer recommendations was exciting. Much effort was expended in building brand social presences and directing consumers to follow, like and share. This then became an exercise in establishing techniques, content and strategies to maximise engagement. At the same time social ROI modelling rose to the top of the agenda as marketing directors sought to justify and understand the returns from their spend.

Then social channels began to embark on the interrelated avenues of maximising relevance to their users and, in turn, monetising brand involvement of brands. This has resulted in a ‘pay to play’ environment across many platforms (though not all) thus enabling brands to target accurately to specific users and, in turn, users receiving content that is most relevant.

Initially this was greeted with a healthy dose of suspicion by many brands whose views ranged from annoyance at social platforms engineering algorithms that drove a big decline in organic reach, through to distrust at social platform ‘profiteering’, through to concerns that users would switch off as platforms became advertising vehicles. There is still a way to go before conclusions can be reached on how paid social media will evolve however, I believe that ‘pay to play’ will ultimately prove effective in getting social up the marketing pecking order. Already we are starting to see brands wake up to a channel whose promise is now easier to liken with the planning and return measurements served up by traditional advertising channels.

The opportunity is there to deliver effective targeting in a manner more granular than other channels. Targeting by demographic, interest, geography and participation in topical event discussions is now possible. In addition brands can marry TV advertising and sponsorship with live social engagement reaching people participating in live discussions surrounding TV shows. Alongside this evolution in targeting, technology has also driven the potential for highly engaged content in the form of video and images. Through both PPC and CPM models brands can now start to see the value they are purchasing in the form of reach and penetration of their audiences.

As all of this has grown so too has the responsibility of social platforms to offer more sophisticated forms of measurement. Brand owners and their agencies can now tap into deeper measures that show the effectiveness of their sponsored story, promoted post or tweet.

All good. However let’s not forget rule number one of every effective piece of advertising. You can pay what you like to reach who you like but if the content is weak then so too will be the return. Content is still king but get that right and with a little paid social media the results can be credible and exciting.

 

By Robert Goldsmith, Managing Partner at Spinnaker


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