CASE STUDY

by Marissa Karahuta

Combining Organic and Paid Social Media Strategy

PCG Digital is constantly evolving and looking for ways to advance the techniques and strategies we use every day. Social Media Specialist Marissa Karahuta is a shining example of that, taking on Home Furniture Plus Bedding and connecting their organic social media posting with paid social media advertising.

Challenge

Home Furniture Plus Bedding began doing social media advertising during the summer of 2019. Our paid social media strategy was an immediate success, totaling over 3 million impressions and reaching over 500,000 people in the first two months.

Shortly thereafter, Home Furniture Plus Bedding reached out to us about handling their organic social media strategy, and we knew it was a challenge we wanted to take on!

Despite Home Furniture Plus Bedding having a strong organic strategy on their own, we needed to come up with a plan that would help connect their paid and organic strategy to drive more traffic to their website and increase brand awareness.

Strategy

The first step to creating a strong social media strategy is to understand what efforts a business is making outside of digital marketing.

Home Furniture Plus Bedding provided PCG Digital with their content strategies for other realms of advertising including radio and television. We began working with their marketing team to create content calendars for their organic social media strategy that reflected what we were doing in paid social advertising and what they were doing in traditional advertising.

After creating a strategy for their organic social media, we built their paid social media advertising around it to include specials and monthly themes for the furniture company to ensure that their marketing messages were delivered consistently across all platforms.

Results

By combining organic and paid social media strategies to take on the same brand voice, we saw marked growth from Quarter 4 of 2018 (prior to PCG Digital) to Quarter 4 of 2019.

From Facebook:

By combining organic and paid social media strategies to take on the same brand voice, we saw marked growth from Quarter 4 of 2018 (prior to PCG Digital) to Quarter 4 of 2019.

From Facebook:

  • Paid Advertising reach in Q4 = 945,850 and impressions in Q4 = 5,264,403
  • Organic advertising engagements = 201,138 and impressions in Q4 = 5,928,103 (totaled between 9 Facebook pages)
0
Paid Ad Reach in Q4
0
Paid Impressions in Q4
0
Organic Ad Engagement in Q4
0
Organic Impressions in Q4

* collectively totaled from 9 Facebook pages

From Google Analytics:

Quarter 4 2018 before pcg

0
New Users From Social Ads
0
Total Sessions From Social Ads
0
New Organic Referral Users
0
Total Organic Referral Users

Quarter 4 2019 with pcg

0
New Users From Social Ads
0
Total Sessions From Social Ads
0
New Organic Referral Users
0
Total Organic Referral Users
  • During Quarter 4 of 2018 (prior to working with PCG Digital), Home Furniture saw 6,311 new users to their website from social media advertising. There were a total of 8,599 website sessions from social media advertising.
    • For organic social media, there were 192 organic referral users and 165 new organic referral users
  • During Quarter 4 of 2019 (while working with PCG Digital), Home Furniture saw 37,099 new users to their website from social media advertising. There were a total of 76,761 website sessions from social media advertising.
    • For organic social media, there were 2,973 organic referral users and 2,252 new organic referral users.

Throughout this process, we learned that consistency is key for social media strategies. Engagement and reach are dependent on showing the right message at the right time with the right creative. Staying organized with content calendars keep you on the right track for social media success, and breaking out of the marketing silos that many businesses aren’t even aware they put themselves in to connect all of your messaging is the key to a robust digital footprint.

"After consulting and training with PCG, it was evident that there is not a better agency for us. PCG Digital has a team of experienced digital marketers working on our SEO, SEM and Social Medias. Our monthly communications are frequent and our reports calls are very informative. During our 1st year with PCG we have seen tremendous growth and success in our digital marketing efforts – without increasing our marketing budget! We have never been more confident in our digital marketing strategies than we are with PCG Digital."
Karen Holston
Marketing Director