Social media marketing is more competitive than ever, as brands try to be heard over the constant noise of other brands and their customers. A great way to reach your target audience is through paid social media advertising.
In this guide, our team of professional video marketers will explain everything you need to know about paid social media, answering questions such as: What is paid social media? How is it different to organic social media? And is it effective?
Just like it sounds, paid social media involves putting money behind your content to ensure it reaches your target audience. It’s a form of advertising that allows your posts to go beyond your existing follower base and land in front of those who fit your customer criteria.
While organic posts (more on that later!) keep your followers engaged and warm, paid social media adverts help your business to grow and expand.
Most social media platforms offer paid advertising, each with its own formats and options. Common types of paid social ads include:
This list isn’t exhaustive, but it gives you a glimpse into the versatility and creativity that paid social media can offer. Whether you want to promote a product, boost engagement, or drive traffic, there’s an ad format to help you achieve your goal.
At this point, you might be wondering: ‘Do I really need paid ads when I can post for free?’ And it’s a fair question. Let’s look at the differences between organic and paid social media to help you decide.
Organic social media is content you can share without needing to pay to promote it. These types of posts naturally gain likes, comments, and shares from your existing followers, and they are a great way to build a community and form long-lasting relationships with your customers. But organic growth takes time, consistency, and a lot of effort.
Growing your audience on social media doesn’t happen overnight. You need to post regularly, engage actively, and align with the platform’s algorithm to increase your visibility. Without a strategic approach, your content can easily get lost among the millions of other posts grappling for attention.
That’s not to say organic content isn’t valuable; it absolutely is. So, if you need expert support on your organic social media strategy, reach out to Inov8 Studios at info@inov8.studio or 07853 825 464 to see how we can help.
But if you’re looking for faster, more targeted results, paid social media is the way to go.
If you still need convincing that paid social media is a powerful marketing tool, just consider this: brands around the world are expected to contribute to a projected $276.72 billion in paid social media spend in 2025.
And that number isn’t slowing down. Global spending is projected to grow by 9.37% annually between 2023 and 2025. What’s more, paid social media is now the leading driver of brand awareness among 16 to 34-year-olds, one of the most valuable demographics for many businesses.
These figures highlight not only the current momentum of paid social advertising but also its growing dominance in the years ahead. With over 5 billion social media users worldwide, investing in paid social, whether through targeted campaigns or as part of a broader marketing strategy, is becoming less of an option and more of a necessity.
As a social first video marketing agency, we understand the importance of not only creating engaging content but also implementing a stellar social media strategy. Here are the four steps we cover as part of our paid social media service.
After taking your brief and understanding your campaign goals, we’ll produce a comprehensive, multi-channel paid social media strategy. From media planning, performance-driven creative strategies, channel-specific approaches, and precise budget allocation, we’ll cover it all.
We take care of the media buying process, purchasing the optimal advert placements at the right time and in the right places. As part of this step, we’ll ensure effective advertising campaign management, reactive and forecasted optimisation, copywriting, and ongoing A/B testing.
Did you know: We also offer this key area as part of paid search, not just paid social media!
Analysis and monitoring are just as important as the implementation. So, to keep you up to date with the performance of your campaign, we’ll provide monthly in-depth, customised reports, as well as weekly simplified updates. This way, you’re always aware of how the campaign is working, and this allows us to track and optimise where necessary so you can get the most out of your paid social media.
When you work with Inov8 Studios, you’re partnering with a content team that delivers inspired video production, graphic design, and UGC for your paid social media. We can even reuse your existing content and assets for maximum marketing impact and brand recognition.
Want to see an example of our paid social media content?
We’ve worked on several projects with Nextbase. And for the launch of the Nextbase IQ, we created four feature adverts and four paid social media adverts, as well as some more assets for the launch. Some of the adverts performed amazingly, with some ad variants achieving a ROAS of over 12, a result that speaks for itself.
Ready to see what we can do for your brand’s paid social media efforts? Simply get in touch to kickstart your paid social media campaign with us.
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