The Future Of Paid Social

Jeremy Goldman
@jeremarketer

Founder & CEO, Firebrand Group

Agenda
• Introduction 5. Effect of Video?
• Predictions 6. Roles Moving In-
1. Budget Reallocation? House?
2. Facebook Dominates? 7. Community Managers?
3. Death of Organic? 8. Shifting Objectives?
4. Ad Blocker Impact? 9. Effects of AI?
• In Closing
Defining Paid Social

Any type of marketing activity which:

• Touches upon any and all social media and social messaging
platforms, and

• Involves any budget expenditure, typically made directly to the

platform itself, but occasionally to a third-party provider.

• Does not include influencer marketing, in which influencers

are paid for a particular “organic” activity (organic activity
meaning unpaid engagement).
Our Paid Social Study

• 326 digital practitioners surveyed about their company’s

plans for Paid Social in the coming year
• 52.1% manage their company’s Paid Social directly
• 24.8% are involved with their company’s Paid Social
efforts
• Conducted numerous with hiring professionals, analyzed
large second-party data sets, included third-party data
observations
1 Prediction
Budgets will be reallocated towards
Paid Social.
Paid Social Spending

79%
Increase Paid
Social spending

2.1%

Decrease Paid
Social spending
Marketing Spending Plans for 2016
Budget Shift
▲ Increases for Email And
Online Display Ads

▼ Decreases for Trade Shows,

Print Advertising, And Radio &
TV
2 Prediction
Facebook will continue to dominate, but other
platforms will carve out niches.
Fastest-Growing Paid Social Platforms

• Over 1 in 3 respondents chose Instagram as fastest-

growing platform for Paid Social content

• 23% picked Facebook

• Snapchat (17%): a significant share, but not a great sign

for a company about to IPO

• Twitter (9%): in line with expectations for a platform often

used as a tool for community management
3 Prediction
The “death” of “traditional organic social” will
result in new organic opportunities.
26%
Paid campaigns are 13%
more effective if they use
owned media, but 26% more
effective using earned media.”
The Drum
Taco Bell FTW

Called for the creation of a

Taco Emoji for iOS:
generated thousands of
signatures

Also used an “unstaged”

organic approach on
Snapchat to launch its new
breakfast menu, offering
followers exclusive previews
of new breakfast menu,
creating millennial-driven
stories such as “Taco Bell
Menu Hacks”
INBOUND15
Data-Oriented
In order for PR to survive, the
industry will have to become
more data-oriented.
4 Prediction
As ad blocker usage increases, advertisers
will increasingly turn to Paid Social.
40%
Although 26% of the
respondents blocked ads on
their computers, an additional
40% thought they were using
ad blockers but were in fact
using anti-virus software.
IAB
Platform Agnosticism

Paid Social accessible on both desktops and mobile phones;

with 16% of the world’s 1.9 billion smartphone users blocking
mobile web ads, that’s a significant advantage
Diplomatic Immunity
Most social media apps are less impacted by ad blockers. Facebook has
engaged in a software war against big players like Adblock Plus

Facebook has:
• Redesign its advertising experience to make it more personalized and
less disruptive for users to de-incentivize use of ad blockers
• Changed the code on its site to prevent ad blockers from functioning
properly, prompting a contentious battle with Adblock Plus
5 Prediction
Boosting video will become more competitive; as a
result, budgets will be found lacking and brands will
move to livestreaming.
Why Livestreaming?

• Livestreaming is relatively cheap, which makes it easy for

brands to get into it

• Doesn’t require any fancy equipment

• Less reliance on human capital (directors, production

assistants, other support staff

• Only mandatory needs: smartphone or web-connected

device
63%
of businesses said they were
using video as part of their
marketing strategy.
The State of Video Marketing 2017 (Wyzowl)
 82%
of those spending money on
video said they would be
spending more money on
video in the coming year; 83%
said that video continued to
show a good ROI for their
company.
The State of Video Marketing 2017 (Wyzowl)
Video & ROI

In Firebrand’s own survey, 27% of respondents said that they

promoted video- based content more than any other type, and
another 35% reported moderate promotion

These statistics suggest video is a strong investment in the

short term…
…but ROI is only
going to shrink
as more
companies pile
into what is
already a
saturated
market
6 Prediction
More brands will bring Paid Social roles
In-house.
Hiring Trends
In 2015, companies hired an average of 4.7 marketing professionals;
more permanent hires (5.2/year) over non-FT (4.1/year).

Top hiring areas: digital marketers (39%); marketing strategy (37%);

general marketing, data analysis, and communications (32% each)

Over half of hiring managers indicated hiring plans for 2016; 28% planned
to hire more marketers, 19% less
(McKinley Marketing Partners)
RSW/US
Question

For digital marketing roles: Would you hire internally, use an

agency, or both internally and with an agency?
7 Prediction
Brands will prioritize Paid Social Managers over
Community Managers.
Community Managers
• Focus on engagement and growth
• Give a sense of community and purpose
• Help community members interact
• A personal connection between consumer and brand, acting
as a voice for the brand
• KPIs:
• Community growth
• Engagement
• Retention
• Response rate
• Troubleshooting
Paid Social Managers

• Should have a keen grasp of analytics in order to measure

the effectiveness of their work

• This means knowing key numbers such as the cost per

click (cpc) for ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the
like, as well as the potential ROI

• SEO, Conversion, CPE, Opt-ins…all valuable terms

Question

You directly manage a

Community Manager and a
Paid Social Manager.
Unfortunately, you have to
cut one of the roles. Who
do you cut?

INBOUND15
8 Prediction
Paid Social will be applied to all parts of conversion
funnel.
10%
Organic tweets only reach
about 10% of a brand’s
following.
Bitly
 2.27%
The typical Facebook page
with one million or more likes
averages a paltry rate of
2.27% organic engagement.
Bitly
87.5 Posts
Marketers published an
average of 87.5 social media
posts per channel per month,
with average engagement
dropping to 2.19 interactions
per post per brand.
TrackMaven (as of 10/15)
Social Media Goals

AWARENESS LEAD CUSTOMER CUSTOMER

SALES
GENERATION LOYALTY SERVICE
 Awareness

Interest

Consideration

Conversion
9 Prediction
Artificial Intelligence will change the way
brands target consumers.
Artificial Intelligence

AI at its most basic is an intelligent agent, capable of acting

rationally to produce the best possible scenario in a given
situation
Machine Learning

A type of AI that allows computers to learn by mining data for

patterns and adjusting behavior accordingly, instead of being
explicitly programmed to perform a specific function in a
particular way
AI & Machine Learning Benefits

• Tedious tasks can now be automated, freeing marketers up to

apply their talents and brainpower elsewhere
• This includes Paid Social audience targeting; at the moment,
it’s up to brands to identify the audiences they want to target
specifically, which involves a lot of research and campaign
modification
• It may soon be possible to hand over these time-consuming
processes to programs able to customize advertising
campaigns based on breakdowns of age, gender, and ethnicity
In Closing

1. Organic is dead(ish)
2. Secure your advertising budgets
3. Facebook, Facebook, Facebook
4. Don’t underestimate ad blockers
5. Video: hyper competitive
6. Community Managers: update your skill sets
7. Hit all parts of the funnel
8. Make sure you stay abreast of AI
To get the full paper:
bit.ly/Paid-Social
Thank You!