Planning better always on content on social media

With over 10 years of experiences in marketing field in Myanmar, my understanding on the difference between always on and campaign content has come to a summary finding. Working in client sides and having few years of experience in marketing agencies, my realization for always on content has changed. In simple way to understand always on content, it is a type of content which will be posted always in every month. Since 2017, local top notch creative agencies charge around 100 to 300 USD in average for a moving visual. Usually, it is created by having product photos to blend into a shutter stock image and put some texts on it.

So, let’s say, you will have 30 content a month on Facebook, your creative budget will be 3,000 USD as a minimum. Does it worth to invest? Has it return you your expected goal in marketing and commerce? If those questions are not answered well, investment in always on will just be a liable spend for your business.

Understand the Facebook is just a touchpoint

Usually, brands must understand that Facebook is just a part of consumer touchpoint. And those consumers are not using Facebook to just watch our ad content. Facebook is also not delivering all contents to audience. Reach percentage for an organic post is too low. It is as low as 3 to 7% of total followers. In that case, brands must understand and explore more platforms and identify which touchpoints should have brand’s content. Instagram and TikTok are good to be explored. Since Facebook is just a touchpoint with low reach dependency, we have to consider reducing content as much as possible and investing high media spend. For example, you create 30 posts a month and invest 100 USD each for 30 posts. So, the media budget is 3,000 USD. There is another way to invest. You create 3 posts and invest 1,000 USD each for three posts. The answer is very clear for reach performance. The second method will hit higher in reaching to target audience.

Some people might still have a wrong perception that a brand should have a lot of content on Facebook to stay relevant with audience and target consumers. Foundation thinking is important. 30 content is not a goal. The goal to achieve what business and marketing goal you have. To achieve that, how many content with how much of media spend are needed? It is the right way of thinking. A content without media spend on Facebook is more prone to name as a waste.

Understand media and creative spend ratio

The golden marketing principle for big brands is following the right marketing spend ratio in between media and creative. For global fortune 500 brands, Media spend is usually 70% to 90% of the whole marketing budget. Creative budget is usually in between 10% to 20%. If the spend is not following that ratio, the marketing activities will not be effective. So if you are spending 3,000 USD on creating content, 7,000 USD should be spent as a media budget in general. Unless your activities will not have a significant impact on business. By understanding that, always on contents are to be questioned. Do you really need it? If you need it, plan annually and fix it. Let’s say you want to make your brand relevant with seasonal activities in local. You can plan it a head and treat as campaign for whole year always on content with your goals. If you are posting happy mother day or happy father day content just to get relevant with seasonal activities, it is not worth to invest the media. Facebook users do not usually need happy father days appreciation post from a restaurant Facebook page to appear on his news feed unless it gives discount for bringing father to dine in. So, by thinking rationally in planning annual always on content and offers, the always on content will be worth to invest. Therefore, this understanding will also help to save the cost in your hiring digital creative agencies for your marketing activities.