Companies can spend a lot of time and money with posting on social media platforms multiple times a week, but that content isn't being used to its fullest if very few people even see those posts. This is when advertising and effective paid media marketing efforts come into play.

Read on for our take on the importance of paid social media and responsiveness in garnering optimum reach.

Paid Facebook

According to Socialbakers, organic reach for Facebook Pages has dropped from seven percent to two percent in the last few years. This means that the share of audience attention has dropped as more businesses get into the market. Because of this, it is important that brands are marketing themselves "smarter, not harder" on social media to gain the highest reach possible. This means promoting posts on Facebook is critical to spreading your message. This can be discouraging to companies who do not currently have a budget set aside for promoting posts, but it doesn't necessarily take an astronomical amount of spend to show a marked difference in your Facebook engagement. If a brand is not able to create a budget to promote posts, it can look into targeted posting so that only certain people in a particular area are served the post.

Paid Instagram

Hootsuite found that 75 percent of Instagram users that see an advertisement take action. This is an incredibly significant statistic when it comes to gaining the most possible reach to Instagram's generally young audience. This action could include visiting or liking that brand’s Instagram page or visiting its website. This shows how effective Instagram advertising can be—it's a platform more brands should look into when planning their paid media efforts.

The same study from Hootsuite found that posts with at least one hashtag receive 12.6 percent more engagement than those without hashtags. Before you post on Instagram, be sure to search relevant hashtags to your content. Check the number of posts associated with different hashtags in order to use them most effectively, as well as to ensure there are relevant posts using the hashtag you intend on using.

Twitter Responsiveness

According to Brandwatch, 80 percent of users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet at one point or another and 77 percent of those users say that they have better feelings toward said brand when it replies to one of their tweets. With this information in hand, it is crucial that brands stay active on Twitter and that they reply to tweets to breed customer loyalty. It's also important to reply to customers in a timely manner—within an hour is ideal, but within a day is expected and sometimes more reasonable for staffing purposes. 

Remember

Although promoting posts and advertising on social media is important, there are ways, such as audience targeting, using hashtags and simply replying to mentions, that all contribute to reaching a larger audience and creating brand loyalty with minimal investment. In the end, remember it is important to establish an official social strategy so that you are posting relevant information that will reach your followers and impel them to take action.