We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Now the same can be said even on social networks. We have entered a new era where this is about to become painfully clear to anyone involved in marketing. The dynamic has dramatically shifted.
If you have a message you want to be seen on the social network of your choice, you have to pay for it. Good content is no longer enough. Social media is now very much paid media.
Infographic from SimplyMeasured
A lot of people better read up on their KPIs because paid social media doesn’t live in a vacuum.
Until now the social channels have been owned by the social marketing team, not the media buyer, but as the Facebook organic reach crisis has proven, great content on its own won’t be discovered by anyone.
If you don’t pay for your social media posts to be promoted going forward, chances are slim that anyone will see it. So you better have a good distribution planner and some serious dollars attached to your social media content.
Being present and engaging on social media is not a choice for most brands, it’s simply a requirement, as the audience now is all over social sites.
The social networks have known this for some time and with sponsored posts and native advertising they just needed to tweak their algorithms to have us in a head-lock. Hardly a surprise that this would happen, but still. Welcome to the rest of your lives, brands. This game just got serious.
Image Source: TheSteveSports
