Public relations in social media is referred to as social media marketing. If a company builds its own Facebook page, this is already a marketing measure that serves to make the company more visible in social media. If a company places advertisements or advertises its company presence on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or another social media platform, this is also part of social media marketing.
As an abbreviation for social media marketing, SMM or SMO (Social Media Optimization) occasionally appear, but these are not as well-known and therefore less clear and less common than, for example, SEA or SEO from the field of search engine marketing.
Organic reach via social media
Similar to search engine marketing, social media also speak of organic and purchased reach. Organic reach is created in social media by building free (or better: unpaid) content. The classic is a Facebook page or Facebook group. Unpaid is better in this case, because even behind these organic social media measures there is a lot of effort, so they are not given.
In order to build organic reach in social media, means from content marketing are indispensable: the advertiser must create content that interests his target group. The content must be produced steadily and regularly. In addition, reactions of the target group must be answered promptly. This results in some points that should be planned in advance:
- The regular effort of an organic social media campaign should not be underestimated.
- In order to look after the followers, the community management, human resources must be planned.
- For the creation of the content, a planned procedure should be taken (example: editorial plan, needs group analysis).
Precisely because of the considerable effort, there should be a strategy to transfer the target group and content into their own channels. Because should there ever be problems with the respective social network, you have to remain master of your own data and the previously built up prospect base. Experienced online marketers therefore understand a company’s social media assets primarily as a communication and traffic channel.
Social Media Advertising
Social media advertising creates paid reach in social networks. It is called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) or
Advertising on social media tends to follow the evolution in search engine marketing. This can be seen in the fact that organic reach in both disciplines (both in search engines and in social networks) is scarce by the providers. As a result, as well as the increasing competition among advertising companies, organic reach in social media is becoming a scarce and hardly scalable commodity. Paid advertising promises a lucrative way out for providers and is now part of every comprehensive social media campaign.