What Role Does Paid Media Play In A Social Media Campaign? A Thought From A Vegas Horse Show.
I happened to be in Las Vegas last week for a horse show and while I was steadily losing money one night at the casino I was thinking about how people can fit paid media into their social media campaigns better. I had to think of that because if I didn’t I would notice that at one point the guy next to me won $150 on a penny slot and the lady two machines down won $900. I would look down as they won and say “hey, that’s great!” and in my mind I was like “come ON! Why are they winning when I already spent too much money here and I’d love to pay myself back for my obscenely expensive (but amazing) haircut at the Ceasar’s Salon”.
So to distract myself from the fact that I wasn’t winning, I started thinking about social media campaigns and how it’s a lot like putting quarters into a slot machine hoping it pays back big time in some way. You write bloggers in hopes that they will like your product. You tweet every day hoping to be re-tweeted. I can see why people are still buying banner ads because paid ads online will give you a guaranteed number of impressions or clicks whereas a social campaign can send you home with 7 cents in your purse and nothing to show for it. However, those banner ads don’t ever “go viral” (I can’t believe I even just used that terminology). They don’t really get passed along and they aren’t even all that social.
Let’s go over something quickly about possible online campaign components:
Paid Media – is your basic online ad. It’s in that awful spot on the side that everyone knows is an ad but you’ll get impressions and clickthroughs for sure. This is a sure bet.
Owned Media – This is your site, your Facebook Page, your blog, and your content. You made it, you own it, and you can control it. This is essential stuff to have as part of your campaign because this will be passed along, read, and will ultimately be where people can go to find out more about your brand.
Earned Media – This is really the good stuff. It’s all the great reviews, Tweets, comments, and posts that your fans have written about you organically. It’s tough to get this and it’s not guaranteed.
Now that we have talked about the pieces of a campaign online, I can tell you which part is really important right now. Paid Media. Earned media has been enjoying the spotlight for a while but paid media is really the one that’s interesting to me since it’s the sure bet that can potentially turn into earned media if we figure out a better way to use it.
I don’t recommend buying banner ads all that often but I do recommend spending some money in a social campaign for the simple reason that when you spend some money with your campaign you can measure it better and you can make some demands. Putting a banner ad on a community doesn’t make a campaign more social. It does make it more targeted which is on the right track. Targeting our dollars online better means we spend less, get to the right people more, and hopefully we don’t annoy them too much with our ads there. Except, I think we are still annoying them with our ads there and that’s the part we need to work on.
Here are some ways to use some budget on social media that don’t include banner ads or hiring more entry level tweeters and Facebook-ers.
See a community you think your audience likes? Ask them how you can help them. Do they have anything like a contest you can get involved in? Do they write a column you can help provide content for? Can you provide some service? See where the audience is struggling and offer help there.
Think outside the box a bit when it comes to online. Banner ads are easy to buy but what about asking if you can sponsor a tweet a week for a community? For example, could a running shoe sponsor a “run of the week” tweet that highlights the country’s or a city’s best runs? You can measure clicks on these and it’s not an ad. There’s a million ways to do this if you just brainstorm a little. Plus, these ways are generally more measure-able than an outreach or comment which is important.
Lots of communities are struggling for help and while they might love your banner ad dollars, the community members likely don’t benefit. For a dollar to be best spent online, it has to be win-win-win for you, the community owners, and the visitors.
Even if you didn’t hit the jackpot in Vegas, you definitely did on this topic! I’m working on a media plan for a potential client and they have NEVER advertised before. Ever. They want a national campaign on traditional mediums: cable TV, radio.
Getting avails and rate cards, I know without a doubt, that their socks are going to be blown off when I come back with the figures. Even though they didn’t ask for it, I’m giving them a digital campaign so they can compare and contrast costs vs. reach when it comes to traditional mediums vs. digital media.
My money is on the digital plan.
Btw, I didn’t know you were into horses?
I like the basic premise that there should be MUCH better integration of different ad campaigns. I think that’s typically true among even paid media, let alone among paid + social + earned. It does typically take someone spending a good amount of time focusing on the overall marketing picture to keep all the threads tied together, in my experience.
Is that typically your role as a consultant?
Andrea – it’s true that companies that have been looking at social media budgets are generally not too happy when you add TV and print to the mix. Plus there are so many other creative ways to add paid media that’s NOT the typical buy.
And yes, I love horses. I used to show them when I was younger and kind of stopped once I discovered boys were more fun than ponies.
Royce – yes, I typically try to find the best combo of those for my clients so that we aren’t relying on any one area for all of our online success. I have found that some of the more creative paid opportunities have been doing extremely well.
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