Social media marketing is facing three distinct challenges in 2024 and beyond. In this case study I will highlight those challenges. Plus, I’ll provide data from a recent client whose Facebook and Instagram profiles received over 260% growth last month.
In this case study, you’ll discover:
- How Ads Impact Organic Growth in Social Media
- How We Achieved 75% Organic Growth in a Single Month
- Insights that can be Applied to any Industry Vertical
Top Stats and Results from this Case Study
Lead Generation: Our increased organic reach + paid reach resulted in a net 267% increase in lead generation.
261% increase in content interactions.
Social media has become an essential tool for businesses to connect with their target audience and build brand awareness. However, in recent years, the organic reach of social media posts has been declining significantly1. This means that businesses need to explore other avenues to reach their target audience and achieve their social media goals. Paid advertising is one such avenue, allowing businesses to target specific demographics and interests. But how exactly do ads impact organic growth on social media? This case study will explore this question by analyzing data from a social media account we manage for a client.
Before we jump into the insights and growth techniques, let’s review the company profile and strategy that was used.
Tourism Brand with Primary Focus on Content Creation
This company is in the tourism and travel industry with a heavy focus on generating revenue from content creation. Additional revenue sources include membership services and travel packages.
Company Profile
- Size: Team of 2
- Monthly Website Traffic: 3,000-8,000 visitors (Seasonal)
- Primary Content Platforms:
- Blog
- YouTube
- Average Monthly Engaged Audience
- Blog – 2,500
- YouTube Channel – 10,000 followers
- Facebook – 2,000 followers
- Pinterest – 500 monthly views
Social Media Strategy
We used earned and paid media. Facebook was the primary focus for this campaign, and we used a blend of post types and ads to achieve the desired results.
- Post 3-5 times per week with a portion of the posts designed specifically for Instagram (not posted on Facebook) and vice versa.
- Run ads to boost the top-performing posts each week.
- Ad Budget <$20 per week.
Increased Reach and Brand Engagement Resulted in Organic Growth
From March 2024 to mid-April 2024 we grew the Facebook reach 75% and the Instagram reach 189%.
Many marketers make the mistake of focusing only on bottom-of-the-funnel conversions such as sales and leads. But we know that often the organic reach of such efforts is near 0 and the ad reach of these efforts are very competitive.
With a limited ad budget, we needed a plan to fuel organic growth. The rationale is simple. After ads stop running, is there enough organic interest and growth to maintain brand visibility, engagement, and traffic until the next round of ad campaigns?
Using our post schedule and ad boosting strategy, we saw 261% increase in content interactions.
Why are Content Interactions so Important?
Content interactions are a form of brand engagement.
Content interaction on social media refers to all the ways users engage with the content you post. It goes beyond just seeing your content and encompasses a two-way communication between you and your audience. Here are some of the key forms of content interaction:
- Reactions and Likes: These are the most basic forms of interaction, indicating a positive reception to your content.
- Comments: Comments allow for a deeper level of engagement, where users can share their thoughts, ask questions, or start discussions about your post.
- Shares and Retweets: Sharing content expands its reach by placing it on other users’ timelines, exposing it to new audiences.
- Saves and Bookmarks: Saving content indicates a user wants to refer back to it later, suggesting they find it valuable.
- Clicks and Link Engagement: Clicking on links in your posts shows users are interested in learning more about something you’ve shared.
- Mentions and Replies: When users mention your brand or reply directly to your posts, it creates a dialogue and fosters a sense of community.
- Direct Messages: Direct messages allow for private communication between you and individual users, which can be useful for customer service or personalized interactions.
We value these interactions as middle-of-the-funnel lead strategies.
They represent the portion of the brand’s audience that is accepting of the brand and likely wants more from the company.
That’s crucial.
Brand engagement represents prospects who want what the company is offering!
By utilizing this strategy we discovered which content types were valued most by the audience.
Often brands want a specific content type because they heard it’s the thing to do or they believe it makes the brand look a certain way.
Truth is, content needs an engaged audience to be valuable. Learning which content types the audience wants to see, is the quickest path to delivering organic results.
Our ad strategy allows the company to gather this data at an accelerated rate. And this data is guiding the next cycle of growth, social posts, and ads.
The big winner – organic reach.
Generating Leads without Spending on Lead-Gen Campaigns
Our increased organic reach + paid reach resulted in a net 267% increase in lead generation.
That’s organic results from ads focused on brand engagement and reach.
Let’s take a look again at how this equates into a lead funnel.
- Increase brand reach from ads.
- Content interactions from paid and earned media.
- Brand curiosity is piqued and prospects visit Facebook page and Instagram profile.
- Leads are generated via messenger apps.
These profile visits represent the highest level of engagement prior to generating leads or website traffic. The next steps include turning the visits into an audience and retargeting them with more/new content.
Actionable Data Regarding the Best Types of Posts on Facebook and Instagram
Using this combined paid and earned media approach, we were able to accelerate the data gathering process. In itself, this is worth the ad spend.
We now know precisely which content types are best for Facebook and Instagram.
But what’s more, this is unique to this business in this niche for their audience. It’s not some article on Forbes.com or some marketing guru telling us their opinion. It’s a matter of fact real-time data we can use to guide our next round of content.
Based on the findings below, is it clear which content types this business should use?
It could be that those posts were better quality or that the Instagram algorithm is favoring carousel posts. Let’s dig further by looking at Reach on Instagram per post type.
After looking at the reach, it’s clear carousel posts are standing out. They’re being fed to more accounts than other post types – even reels!
Wow, that’s great news.
Our recommendation for this brand will be to increase the number of carousel posts until the reach ratio dips. That is the threshold we’re seeking.
Three Challenges and Conflicting Data
The challenge of declining organic reach: Social media platforms have been steadily decreasing the organic reach of business pages in recent years. This means that even high-quality content may not be seen by a large portion of a brand’s followers, making it harder to achieve organic growth.
Instagram had an 18% decrease in organic reach as of 2024.
Source: Social Insider2
The rise of paid advertising: As organic reach has declined, paid advertising has become an increasingly important tool for businesses to reach their target audience. Paid social media ads allow businesses to target specific demographics and interests, ensuring their message is seen by the people most likely to be interested.
The question of impact on organic growth: There is some debate about how paid advertising impacts organic growth. Some experts believe that ads can actually help organic growth by increasing brand awareness and driving more people to a brand’s social media page. Others believe that ads may cannibalize organic reach, meaning that people who see the paid ad may not see the brand’s organic content.
While this case study is only one point of reference, it doesn’t provide guidance on how to increase organic reach on social media using paid ads.
- LinkedIn Article accessed 4/16/2024 https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-organic-reach-declining-2024-alternatives-vassi-rangelova-im7wf/ ↩︎
- Social Insider article accessed 4/16/2024 https://www.socialinsider.io/blog/social-media-reach/ ↩︎