Unpaid Social Media Marketing Is A Myth

If you go to share this article with your followers on your business’s social pages, hardly anyone is going to see it. Organic reach on Twitter and Facebook is continuing to plummet as these channels attempt to monetise and change their algorithms. Basically, they’re now requiring that brands pay to reach their fans, writes Livefyre’s Jordan Kretchmer.
According to a recent study by Forrester Research, the average Facebook post from a large brand will reach just 2% of that brand’s followers, and less than .01% of the audience will engage with that content.
The time has come for social media marketers to refocus and control their owned channels. Gone are the days when it was worth investing quality content and energy accumulating thousands of likes and followers on social networks. You used to be able to more or less rely on Facebook and Twitter to generate chatter, increase brand awareness, and engage users to share your content. And it used to be free.
But it’s not free anymore. In 2014, Facebook revealed that its average ad price went up 123% from the previous year. The reality is, unpaid social media marketing is a myth and there is a persisting illusion amongst some marketers that they have control over these channels. As the old adage goes – if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.
Facebook and Twitter can be valuable distribution channels, and an important part of the marketing mix, but it’s important to understand their limitations. Firstly, although it’s free to create a page and gather as many likes as you can, there’s only so much you can achieve before you have to start paying for the privilege. These social networks have the right to change their reach algorithms or payment methods at their discretion.
Secondly, Forrester found that visiting a company’s website is the number one way fans prefer to stay in touch with the brands they love, outranking Facebook all the way down at number five.
External websites that have become reliant on the Facebook and Twitter traffic model will be the ones most in danger of being left behind. While their Facebook pages are brimming with exciting, yet unseen content, their website may be neglected – at a high cost to community interaction.
However, there are multiple ways that social marketers can adapt their thinking to take advantage of this newly sustainable era. It all begins with changing the way you think of these different channels.
My key tip is to divide your various social and marketing outputs into ‘leased’ and ‘owned’ channels. Whenever you outsource your material, photos, or engagement strategies through Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, you are essentially reassigning control of that content and who gets to see it to a leased channel.
If you begin thinking of Facebook just like any other business – answering to their shareholders, concerned with their own bottom line, with a set of editorial and branding policies that are completely out of your control – you will begin feeling newly empowered by your owned channels… the networks you can control.
A well-designed, diverse, and socially-integrated website can offer so much more than traditional social networks. It works to increase engagement, boost customer loyalty, and encourage people to always come back for more.
By shifting focus to their owned properties, marketers can utilise resources such as their website, blog, and mobile app and transform them into social hubs for their communities. Instead of spending time stressing that Facebook will change its algorithm (again), or that your tweets are getting buried in the feed, you can fully measure, monitor, and engage a community within a structure that you own, and a set of rules that you’ve established.
This is a call to action to show your owned channels some love and understand that all-important difference between what you do and don’t control. Through understanding this crucial distinction, you can reconsider your ROI, and re-evaluate your social media investments in order to get maximum reach and engagement out of your content.
Jordan Kretchmer, CEO and Founder of real-time social curation company Livefyre.
Please login with linkedin to comment
Advertising Standards Bureau Air BnB Newsreaders of Sydney Online ads SensoryLab Social MediaLatest News

Net Profit Up 60% For Southern Cross Austereo On The Back Of Leaner Operating Model
Southern Cross Austereo's profits up 60%! Which certainly made interviewing Grant Blackley today a lot less awkward.

Cummins&Partners Welcomes PR Agency Romano Beck, Bringing Creative, Media and PR Under One Roof
Cummins&Partners has welcomed Romano Beck, who may sound like a swarthy Italian actor but is actually a PR agency.

CarsGuide Partners With Mitsubishi, Wavemaker To Create Virtual Road Trips
CarsGuide, Mitsubishi and Wavemaker create virtual road trips that includes virtual car sickness.

Petition To Ban Same-Sex Kiss In Cadbury Crème Egg Ad Garners 56,000 Signatures
Cadbury Crème Eggs join Durex condoms & Frankie Goes To Hollywood on list of things Christians find hard to swallow.

Future of TV Advertising Conference: Times Are Tough, But We’re All In This Together
B&T's reporting live from today's Future Of TV event. Not before mistakenly going to the dental hygienist conference.

TV Will Not Only Build Your Brand, It Will Get Your Cash Registers Ringing
There can be no denying TV's power as an advertising medium. Putting aside Holey Moley and Plate Of Origin, that is.

TikTok Continues To Fight COVID Misinformation
Current COVID misinformation includes the vaccine can make you pregnant while developing a Lionel Richie addiction.

Wednesday TV Wrap: 10’s The Cube Debuts To 567,000, Gives MAFS A Little Hickey
B&T's delivering all of last night's TV numbers, dipped in chocolate, rolled in coconut, with a tasty jam-filled centre.

As Bruce Springsteen Is Cleared Of Drunk Driving Charge, Jeep Resumes Use Of Super Bowl Ad
With the Springsteen saga dealt with, Jeep now turns its focus to Michelle Bridges as its next brand ambassador.

WPP AUNZ’s Unveils 32.6% Profit Drop For 2020, Revenues down 14.1%
WPP AUNZ's results out today made for some pretty sobering reading. That's why B&T read them with a couple of daiquiris.

Faceook Pledges $US1 Billion To Support Journalism
Facebook pledges a billion dollars to journalism. Primarily journalism that involves cats playing the harpsichord.

Sam Armytage Hosts New Podcast For News Corp’s Stellar Magazine
Sam Armytage will be taking her Sunrise pedigree to new News Corp podcast. But don't let that put you off.

Impact Promotes Sam Morton To Partnership Director, Peter Bray To Sales Director
Impact's Sam Morton and Peter Bray pose for press photo before catching the ferry to Manly.

Delacon Adds Bridgestone Australia, Simply Energy and Smart Pay To Clients Roster
Delacon staff forced down the local Bob Jane T-Mart for new tyres after someone went and won the Bridgestone business.

Learning Your ABCs From Your AAIDs: Understanding Mobile Data
Learn your ABCs from your AAIDs with this top read. Although it does have a strobe effect for anyone with ADHD.

Comscore And Samba TV Launch CTV Partnership In Australia
Comscore has today announced the expansion of its TV measurement footprint to Australia, driven by its partnership with Samba TV, the leading global provider of omniscreen advertising data and audience analytics. The new connected TV (CTV) measurement solution, launched last year in select European markets, has now reached this key market in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) […]

UnLtd Launches MOOD Tea With All Proceeds Going To Fight Youth Suicide
B&T certainly takes our hats off to this top industry initiative. Our editor is even threatening to take his pants off.

Leo Burnett Snares CNH Industrial Australia Creative Account
Leos snares the CNH Industrial Australia creative account. Believes it to be some sort of farming/agricultural firm.

IVE Reinstates Interim Dividend Following Strong H1 Results
IVE has reinstated its interim dividend. Plans afoot to reinstate Arnott's Assorted Creams to office biscuit barrel.

How To Win With Video Advertising In 2021
Here are must-read tips on how to win with video advertising. Sadly, no tips on today's horse racing at Eagle Farm.

Think HQ Makes 18 New Hires
Absolutely no one knows anyone else's name in the Think HQ office this week after agency announces 18 new hires.

TikTok And Shopify Announce Partnership
TikTok & Shopify announce partnership. Can't decide on the vanilla cream sponge or chocolate mud for the cake cutting.

Toyota Media Pitch! Three Agencies Left As Race Goes Down To The Wire
As clarification, this article contains comments from "unnamed sources". Industry parlance for "possibly under crap".

Snapchat Research Suggests Millennials And Gen Z Embrace Value Driven Brands
Study finds Gen Ys & Zs "embrace value driven brands". Strangely they also like the music of Shawn Mendes & the cronut.

Woolworths Dominates Coles In New Years Sales
Woolworths dominates Coles in sales for first six weeks of 2021, as Status Quo's agent waits patiently by the phone.

Nine Secures Rights To Viral Britney Spears Doco
News of Britney's doco has created an excitement here at B&T not seen since the arrival of our cordless electric knife.

Women Leading Tech: Why HubSpot’s Kat Warboys Prioritises Transparency
HubSpot's Kat Warboys drops by the B&T office for a chat on all things tech and to critique our lemon drizzle cake.

Seven Signs Deal With Facebook Following News Backflip
The media companies continue to jump into bed with the tech giants. It's like a slightly less interesting MAFS episode.

RMIT Online Reveals Why Employees Don’t Want Free Lunches
Study reveals staff prefer training to free lunches. However, fat people did skew the numbers back in favour of lunch.

MAFS Teaser Trailer Accidentally Reveals Affair Spoiler
B&T does warn this comes with a MAFS spoiler alert. In so much as it includes randy, horrible people with bad tattoos.