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The question of whether your business needs to be active on social media (yes, it does) was answered a long time ago. The new question is whether you should pay to be social — and if so, how much?
The ever-changing algorithms of Facebook’s newsfeed combined with the explosive growth of platforms like Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram mean that making your online presence stand out from the masses has become a real needle in the haystack dilemma. Like any good business, though, social media has figured out a way to capitalize on this problem.
Where Should You Put Your Social Media Dollar?
Facebook calls them “Boosted Posts,” Twitter has “Promoted Tweets,” and Pinterest features “Promoted Pins.” Whatever the name, they’re all pay-to-play social media solutions: cough up the cash, and your post magically moves front and center, reaching a larger audience.
Most social media platforms base costs on either click-throughs or engagement. Cost per click (CPC) is exactly what it sounds like: you set your preferred bid for every click, and your post is promoted until your budget is reached. So, for $.20 per click and a budget of $10, your promotion stops after 50 clicks.
Cost per engagement (CPE) works the same way, except CPE charges for a set number of views, replies, retweets, repins, or other types of active audience response. For the same $10 budget and a bid of $2 per 1000 views, you’d end up with 5000 views total.
A Boosted Post on Facebook combines these two models. You set your dollar amount, and Facebook lets you know the estimated reach that dollar amount can deliver. However, they also include CPC/CPE in that cost, so the boosted post may not reach the number of people originally estimated if your budget is maxed out before hitting that point.
As an illustration, let’s look at what’s possible with two price points in a monthly social media budget:
$500 of promoted social media can get you:
- $300 worth of Boosted Posts from Facebook
- Between 50-200 engagements on Twitter ($100 at $.50-$2.00 CPE)
- About 270 clicks on Pinterest ($100 at an average of $.37 CPC)
$1000 of promoted social media can get you:
- $500 worth of Boosted Posts from Facebook
- 50,000 views on LinkedIn ($100 at $2 for every 1000 views)
- Between 100-400 engagements on Twitter ($200 at $.50-$2.00 CPE)
- About 540 clicks on Pinterest ($200 at an average of $.37 CPC)
This probably seems like a lot of dough for small and even midsized businesses, and it is. These options can be mixed and matched to come up with a customized solution that meshes with your audience’s preferred platform or type of engagement. We recommend starting very conservatively, most likely with some Facebook Boosted Posts, before scaling up any paid social effort.
It’s also key to think about what types of messages work best as promoted posts. A limited-time offer, special or discount? Absolutely. That announcement of a staff member’s 2 year work anniversary? Certainly not.
Social Media Costs ROI
So what’s your projected return on investment if you start down the road of paid social media? ROI will of course vary depending on your business goals — once you know your goals, you’ll have an objective way to measure your ROI.
For example, adding more followers might be the best investment for a business that’s just getting started on a particular social media channel. A more established social media effort might be looking for different types of engagement, like shares or lead generation. Social media platforms offer built-in analysis tools that let you look at all of these elements separately or together, so you can track the metrics that matter most for your business.
Like any type of marketing, though, keep in mind that your methods need to continually adapt to the needs of your audience. Before you start spending on social media, talk with your web marketing team to get a strategy together and make sure the tracking is in place to judge success.
