Social content marketing is a great opportunity for businesses today. But many wonder when to up the ante and try paid social media advertising. Whether your customers are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instagram, or somewhere else, paid social can be a smart move in the right situation. If you’re wondering when to make paid social part of your content marketing strategy, read on to find the five situations where you should consider integrating paid social advertising.

1. When You’re Just Starting Out

New startups, e-commerce shops, and brick-and-mortar businesses may find the traffic doesn’t always just begin come in as soon as you set up your Facebook page and Twitter handle. Even if you have a top-quality blog, a great product, and a first-rate marketing team, it can take as long as six months to gain traction organically, and longer to generate a profit from free social.

Therefore, this is one situation where paid social advertising is the better strategy option. In this case, paid social can help your organic reach and send prospects to Google to find out more about your business. Plus the granular targeting options of the big social networks can let you reach fresh customers who aren’t fans or followers of your brand.

2. When You Launch a New Line

Another good opportunity to try out paid social content marketing is at the launch of a new product or service. This assumes that you have a profitable business model, with a loyal customer base, who would be interested in your latest offering. Though that’s not to say new social users couldn’t also find you through your campaign.

With this paid campaign, you are leveraging what you’ve already built and taking it to the next level. With the right ingredients such paid campaigns can bring in thousands of new email list members and good ROI more than significant ad spend.

3. When Your Organic Reach Is Stalled

Another good time for paid social is when you notice your organic social media reach leveling off, stalling, or even declining. Such metrics don’t necessarily indicate you’re doing anything drastically wrong — organic reach, in general, has been “dying” for a couple of years now. The problem is mainly that more businesses are advertising their wares to the same audiences, and there’s only so much attention to go ’round.

With a paid campaign, you’re in a sense paying for more of that audience pie. There are an astounding 1,500 data points you can target social users though on Facebook, meaning you can be very particular about what slices of audience pie you’d like to buy. And of course, beyond upping engagement with your existing fans and followers, paid campaigns can reach brand new users who become loyal fans and customers.

4. When You Find the Perfect Target Audience

Speaking of targeting, paid ad spend can be a smart investment when you find the right recipe for a target audience. Narrowing down your demographic, behavioral, and keyword targeting to an audience that works while providing a good ROI is not easy.

So when you find the right mix, experiment with more paid campaigns. As long as you’re seeing success, you can expand your efforts. When something shifts, or it’s time to branch out, consider using smaller paid targeting campaigns to test the waters and find the right audience for this new environment.

When You Have the Perfect Content

One final opportunity that shouldn’t be ignored is when you’re sitting on a great piece of content. Whether a new infographic, a ground-breaking industry white paper, or a high-value blog post that your email list and organic social followers can’t get enough of, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Your content marketing strategy should always aim for great content, but your paid social content marketing efforts should ideally be reserved for stuff that’s taking off with your audience. Sometimes, there an opportunity to newsjack or gain media mentions for your content, other times you may be able to entice thousands of potential new customers to enter your funnel.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re new to the block, promoting your latest product, looking for more engagement from your existing audience, or trying to build a better brand audience, paid social media advertising can help you accomplish your goals. As with all digital marketing, strategy, goals, budget, and tracking should be worked out ahead of time, before you reach for the credit card. But done well, the results from social campaigns could amaze you.

Still, have questions about paid social media advertising? Call 313-338-9515 or email hello@kaleidico.com to learn how our full-service digital marketing agency can help you reach your goals.