{"id":5537,"date":"2014-08-05T22:46:55","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T22:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=5537"},"modified":"2014-08-05T22:46:55","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T22:46:55","slug":"big-brands-and-the-mind-shift-to-social-paid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/big-brands-and-the-mind-shift-to-social-paid\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Brands and the Mind Shift to Social Paid"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Earlier this year, popular food delivery site Eat24 wrote the ultimate \u201cDear John\u201d<\/a> letter to Facebook, outlining all the reasons why their relationship could not stand the test of ROI. The deal-breaker: Facebook\u2019s new and improved algorithm.<\/p>\n

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\"break-up<\/a> Like Eat24 said, \u201cNot to be rude, but \u2026 You\u2019ve changed. A lot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Truer words have never been ranted. Facebook has changed a lot since its birth in 2004. The newest change is the metamorphosis from being a social platform to a paid platform.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brands have every right to feel slighted about the overall shift toward paid social. Reaching fans is becoming an increasingly difficult task for marketers \u2014 impossibly difficult.\u00a0Organic reach is at an\u00a0all-time low<\/a>, dropping by 50% from 12% per fan in Oct. 2013 to 6% in Feb. 2014. For pages with more than 500,000 fans, organic reach is at a measly 2% and careening toward 0%.<\/p>\n

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But while the decline of organic reach is unfortunate, it\u2019s not a complete shock.\u00a0Facebook\u2019s revamped algorithm is just one example of a larger landscape shift toward paid social. Facebook might have started it all, but even rising platforms like Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr are all moving toward social advertising.<\/p>\n

The golden age of organic is over.<\/h2>\n

What\u2019s a brand to do\u2026 slowly and begrudgingly move toward paid social or fully embrace the necessary evil? The answer is to rid of that mentality altogether. Paid social isn\u2019t a necessary evil; it\u2019s a one-of-a-kind opportunity for marketers. Sure, it\u2019s a heavy (costly) investment. But like all big endeavors, the results are so very worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marketers aren\u2019t facing an unfair situation where they have to pay for something that they once got for free. They\u2019re being presented with a unique opportunity to get the right messages to the right people and drive measurable results through social. And they can do all of this at scale.<\/p>\n

Paid social is the future of social media.<\/h2>\n

What does this paid social future look like?<\/p>\n

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The paid social landscape is growing, maturing and changing \u2014 at supersonic speed.\u00a0It now has an audience of 4.2 billion users across eight networks. At its current growth rate (doubling in size every two years), the paid audience is expected to reach 8 billion by 2016.<\/p>\n

Without a paid push behind organic efforts,\u00a0\u00a0reaching the billions of people active on \u00a0social networks will be next to impossible for brands.<\/p>\n

To help you understand the role of paid social and its future, we recently put together the ultimate brand guide to paid social. Within its pages, you\u2019ll see:<\/p>\n