Invest In Traditional Media To Produce Non-Traditional Social Media Results

I’m noticing a bit of a trend;

What I’m noticing is that with an increasing number of business owners and marketers buying into the power of social media, that there is also a bit of a trend away from traditional media.

And by traditional media, I’m including online ads, mobile ads, and other similar media options, not necessarily just newspaper, print or other such archaic media.

Are you noticing this as well?

Clearly, there are some really simple explanations for this occurrence. Budgets are budgets, so if you increase your spend toward your social media efforts, you’re going to have fewer dollars for traditional media. Also, you have limited capacity to think about and focus on your business – there are, after all, only 24 hours in a day – so if you’re focusing your attention on social media, you have less attention to give to media and advertising. I’m sure there are more, but I’ll stop there.

This said, planning and investing in social media and traditional media shouldn’t be mutually exclusive. In fact, there can be huge benefits to planning the two in tandem. Even if your focus has dramatically shifted toward your social media and content marketing efforts, I urge you to consider how traditional media and advertising can help you achieve your social media goals, which remember, should be linked to real business goals.

Promote your content

You can be producing the best, most relevant and meaningful content imaginable, but if nobody consumes it, it will have literally zero impact. Promoting your content with traditional media can drive incredible traffic to your content, and can probably be more targeted and efficient than you might think.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION: When developing creative to fill your media placements, be sure to showcase or clearly indicate the value that you are offering in the specific piece of content you are hoping to promote. Pair this with a compelling call to action and you’ll be well on your way to generating a huge influx of traffic to your content.

Establish your business’ positioning and grow your communities

Advertising through traditional media can be an amazing way to establish your business’ positioning. If your positioning is meaningful to your targeted consumers, this can increase the conversion of your media impressions to social media community growth.

Additionally, a result of the investment required to purchase media space, for many businesses a proportionate investment in advertising creative is also justifiable. The benefit of this is that with a few dollars at your disposal, you might find that you’ve got production options available that will help you further solidify your business’ positioning, thus increasing the aforementioned conversion even further.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION: Try to think of your business’ advertising in the same way you think about social media content. Make sure it adds value to your consumers by making them feel something, think something, or learn something. If you can accomplish this with your ads, you are again going to be able to increase your conversion of media impressions to social media community growth and exposure.

Increase the ROI of your social media efforts

Social media marketing is an investment. For many businesses, they are lured to social media with dreams of overnight international fame and wild success. The reality, as you know, is that it takes an incredible investment of time and resources to build and sustain meaningful activity on social media.

Driving traffic to your social media properties with traditional media can be a great way to put the growth of your audience into overdrive, which will give you more people to engage with, to share your content, to provide their input and feedback, and generally it will make it easier to accomplish your goals. Yes, you will be making an investment in traditional media, but your existing investment in social media will yield greater returns.

IMPORTANT CONSIDERATION: Ensure that your traditional media dollars are being spent wisely by creating a media plan that is laser focused on your target demographic. You can broaden the reach of your media, but if the audience you are advertising to falls outside of your target demo, overall efficiency will be low and returns on the influx of traffic to your social media properties will be hurt.

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So, don’t discount the value of traditional media and advertising just because you’re having a bit of success with your social media marketing. As discussed, traditional media can contribute significantly to your social media efforts by promoting content to broader audiences, establishing your business’ positioning, and can increase the ROI of your social media marketing efforts.

Don’t think of social and traditional media as being mutually exclusive. They are, in fact, incredibly complimentary, and when used together properly, can yield results greater than what will be possible independently.

How do you use traditional media and advertising to enhance your social media marketing efforts?

It would be amazing to discuss this with you further in the comments, or on Twitter @RGBSocial