Social media is a big part of any company’s marketing efforts. However, the fact that all businesses use and need social media doesn’t mean they use them in the same ways or that every effort is fruitful. In order to get the best out of your social media campaigns and even more out of your paid media ones, keep an eye on the best practices we are going to share in this article. 

First things first, as evident as it is, one difference between paid and free social media is that in paid media, you invest money in your publications. (Truth be told, “free” media is not entirely free as someone’s efforts are invested in it –a copy writes the texts and a designer prepares the image, for example– and that costs money.) But the crucial difference between paid and free media is the audience you reach. 

While on free media, you depend exclusively on the followers you already have, paid media will allow you to reach a much larger audience and (this is the most important part) to target those who are most likely to be interested in your content, products, or services. 

Of course, targeting the right audience and using the right social media is just part of the work, other equally important factors are creating the content that will make it engage with your brand and choosing the right channel. 

So, how do you select the proper social media channel for your campaign? 

To select the best channel for your campaign, you need to understand your customers’ journey, which is deeply related to the kind of products or services you offer. 

Let’s consider this example to see things more clearly:

Imagine you are the CEO of a company about to open a branch in a new country and you decide to outsource all the Human Resources work. That way, you won’t have to worry about the new country’s regulations and things will be more agile. 

How would you begin looking for this HR outsourcing company? 

In Instagram?

In YouTube? 

TikTok? 

Neither of the above. Not because there is anything wrong with those channels, but because they serve other purposes and audiences. 

TikTok may be the best channel to promote a brand of dancing shoes –I mean, special shoes for dancing, not shoes than dance themselves… either way…– but it is not the first place you would go to when looking for outsourcing services. 

Hence, if, on the other side of this example, you are the community manager of an HR outsourcing company, don’t waste time and money on TikTok; use them better on LinkedIn or Google Ads. 

The customer journey has five stages and what you need to consider is how your audience goes through each of them depending on what you offer. 

These are the customer journey stages:

1. Awareness: This is when they first find you.
2. Consideration: when they look up more information about you and your product. 
3. Choice: they choose your business over any competitors. 
4. Purchase: When they buy your product and become official clients.
5. Loyalty: they will repeatedly prefer you over your competitors.

Additionally, your customers’ journey will also give you an insight into the kind of content you need to create. For instance, if you have enough traffic on your website but for some reason, visitors don’t make up their minds and buy, you might want to create more content for your company’s blog and promote it on LinkedIn or Instagram. Also, you might want to talk with the Sales team to see if you can make a discount code to promote on social media. 

With these two actions, you would tackle those on the consideration stage by showing them you have a thought leadership over your competitors and those in between the choice and purchase stages by giving them the last push they need to convert. 

To learn more about paid media best practices, stay tuned to our blog.