Facebook Ads: When Is Paying For Engagement Worth It?
A new article on Search Engine Journal says if you're struggling to reach a wider audience and considering paying for engagement on Facebook, you'll need these tips to maximize your ROI.
Every company must start somewhere with social media. If you're a new brand, you may be under pressure to grow - and quickly.
How do you do that without a following? You may hope to create viral-worthy content, but relying on this tactic alone for growth is not realistic for most. We now know that organic engagement for page posts can range anywhere from 0.05% to 0.29%, according to We Are Social. With those abysmally low rates, you're going to be hard-pressed to get eyes on your social content even with a large following.
We now know what type of content is the least expensive, so let's take a look at a few ways to get you the most engagement for your budget.
Unpaid Engagement Tactics
At some point, your brand will likely dabble into paid engagement ads. However, there are many ways that you can engage with your Facebook audience that does not come in the form of ads. Some of these non-paid tactics can include responding to users in comments or direct messages (DMs), asking questions in your posts to encourage engagement, keeping posts short and sweet and posting interesting, relevant content consistently.
Every company must start somewhere with social media. If you're a new brand, you may be under pressure to grow - and quickly.
How do you do that without a following? You may hope to create viral-worthy content, but relying on this tactic alone for growth is not realistic for most. We now know that organic engagement for page posts can range anywhere from 0.05% to 0.29%, according to We Are Social. With those abysmally low rates, you're going to be hard-pressed to get eyes on your social content even with a large following.
We now know what type of content is the least expensive, so let's take a look at a few ways to get you the most engagement for your budget.
- Start With A Broad Audience: You may be prone to target who you think is your target audience right away. Narrowed audiences typically have higher costs associated with them, however. By starting with a broad audience, you can then narrow down your audience based on the engagement metrics of your ads.
- Create Remarketing Audiences: The beauty of engagement ads is that you can segment users further based on how they engage with you. For example, your first campaign is targeting a broad audience with a video ad. From there, you can create remarketing audiences on engagement, such as percentage of video watched, and likes, comments, shares, saves.This engagement tactic will allow you to reach a wide audience at scale, and then reintroduce engaged users to your brand in a cost-effective way.
- Don't Use Promotional-Only Posts: If you're starting with a cold audience, do not spam them with promotional posts. They don't know enough about you or your products to want to click on your ads, let alone make a purchase! Instead, save promotional posts for your loyal customers or a warm remarketing audience. Additionally, keep promotions to a minimum if you're able. If your only competitive point is your pricing, you may end up devaluing your brand unintentionally.
Unpaid Engagement Tactics
At some point, your brand will likely dabble into paid engagement ads. However, there are many ways that you can engage with your Facebook audience that does not come in the form of ads. Some of these non-paid tactics can include responding to users in comments or direct messages (DMs), asking questions in your posts to encourage engagement, keeping posts short and sweet and posting interesting, relevant content consistently.
