Organic Growth vs. Social Ads

One of the side benefits of doing campaigns on Facebook using social ads, is that if the ad copy and image and headline are crafted properly, and the landing page is relevant, and the fans are engaged by what you're doing, you can actually grow a fan base

marketing your campaign.

The graph above is my approximation of two curves relevant to this discussion. The first is ad spending, and this can be across all campaigns, regions and internal stakeholders, as long as the ads are all going to the fan page.  The second is showing the growth of the fan base.

Stage 1) You have very few fans. Your social ads are targeting lots of different groups for various campaigns and of all these people, a percentage will stick around and become a fan. Anything you put in your news feed (and thus push out to your fans) is generic, because you don't have very many fans.

Stage 2) You're starting to get a fan base. You are targeting ads more and more, but your existing fans are still seeing everything you push out to them.

Stage 3) Fan base is starting to take off. Now you are starting to target your posts so that you push more relevant offers, events, etc.  You still have some generic content for everyone, but that's brand-building stuff, and only engages on the surface.  You're still doing highly targeted ads, but your fan base is starting to cover almost all of your market (who are on Facebook anyway...)

Stage 4) This is where you want to be. You have a huge fan base now, and can get a huge lift in sales or community engagement for event (or any other action) just by targeting posts in your feed.  Almost everything you're doing now is targeted. (You're using a spreadsheet just to keep track of what your posting, because there are some many stakeholders and groups involved.  Ad spending can now start to be scaled back (see graph). You're reaching so many people (who are telling their friends, who tell

friends) that you only need to spend on social ads to get the buzz started, or to launch something out of left field, or to find a new audience (for example when Dove started marketing

to men: Their existing base was likely a high percentage of women).

We all want to get to my Stage 4.  Huge fan base. Lots of eyeballs, lots of engagement, comments, interaction and conversation-- but to get there, organic growth isn't enough.

Consider your next marketing campaign, and examine the marketing mix. How much are you allocating to digital, and of that, how much are you spending on clicks from

.  It really puts it in perspective when you compare what kind of conversion you can get from $5000 in social ads vs. that same $5000 spent on the radio...  

Agree? Disagree?  Let me know.