Make Paid Media Part of Your Digital Strategy

Today, nearly all employees, regardless of age, profession, or industry, use social media for personal and professional purposes. Moreover, now more than ever, employees rely on social media to improve communication with their employer – and vice versa. That’s why it’s important for organizations to optimize their digital strategy to include a mix of organic and paid media tactics they can leverage to effectively communicate and connect with employees. Plus, understanding paid digital media and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can round out a digital strategy, optimize employee communication, and address potential workplace issues. 

Paid Digital Media & SEO – 101 

Digital strategies that prioritize paid media are important because they help organizations maintain control of the narrative and improve their message without filtering through a third-party, such as the media.

Paid digital media is used to boost pieces of content to specific audiences online, and includes a variety of types, including paid search (keyword-based bidding, typically on a pay-per-click (PPC) model that can also be geotargeted), paid social media (paid ads or sponsored content), display (banner and visual ads), and/or influencer marketing (endorsements and product mentions from popular social media users). 

Meanwhile, SEO refers to the process of increasing a website’s search engine visibility, both through optimizations made on the website itself (known as “on-page SEO”) and by creating links to it from other credible sites (known as “off-page SEO”).

Paid Digital Media Benefits

• Targeted Reach: Paid media allows businesses to target their ads to specific demographics, interests, and online behaviors. This ensures that their ads are seen by the right people.
• Measurable Results: Paid media campaigns are easy to track and measure, so businesses can see how their campaigns are performing and adjust as needed. This also allows for a more data-driven approach.
• Quick Results: Paid media campaigns can start generating results almost immediately, making them ideal for businesses that need a quick boost in traffic or leads.
• Brand Awareness: Paid media can help businesses increase brand awareness by placing their ads in front of a large audience. This can lead to increased brand recognition and recall.

SEO Benefits

• Improved Organic Traffic: SEO helps businesses improve their organic traffic, or the people who come to a website from search engine results pages (SERPs). This is important because organic traffic is free and can be more sustainable for long-term brand building.
• Increased Brand Credibility: When a website ranks high in SERPs, it signals to potential customers that the website is trustworthy and authoritative. This can lead to increased brand credibility and a better reputation.
• Long-Term Benefits: SEO can provide long-term benefits, as the effects of SEO can last for months or even years. This makes it a more cost-effective solution than paid media in the long run.
• Improved User Experience: SEO can also help improve a website’s user experience, as it encourages businesses to create high-quality content that is relevant to their audience. This can lead to increased engagement and user satisfaction.

You can think of paid digital media as a sprint and SEO as a marathon, both working in tandem to drive traffic, build credibility and trust, and engage and interact with online audiences effectively in the short and long term. After all, the goal of any digital strategy is to get the right message to the right people at the right time. 

Using Digital Engagement in Labor Organizing Campaigns 

There may be times when organizations are interested in shaping the online conversation while limiting the potential for virality, maybe during a labor organizing campaign or other workplace crisis where engaging employees is vital. In these situations, organizations can share tailored messages with specific audiences by: 

• Leveraging low-cost social media advertising, including promoted posts and pre-roll YouTube ads to quickly reach internal and external target audiences
• Elevating specific articles and headlines through content marketing to drive targeted traffic to key messages
• Deploying targeted paid media and search engine marketing campaigns to amplify the reach of key messages to their intended audiences
• Crafting spam-compliant text campaigns to reach employees with custom messaging and calls-to-action to drive traffic to other digital assets
• Establishing informative and interactive campaign-ready employee-facing websites, ready to go live at a moment’s notice

IRI’s multi-disciplinary digital team has the experience and the expertise to help organizations effectively advance their digital footprint and create a multi-platform communications strategy to reach employees wherever they might be online.

At IRI, we help organizations better understand what’s happening online to translate that intelligence into actionable assets. We believe every business is different, and each requires its own holistic and customized approach to communications and employee engagement. Whether you need an internal communications or engagement assessment, guidance in developing your internal communications or engagement strategy or social media strategy, digital media intelligence, crisis communications services, media relations, or media training, we have expert communications and engagement consultants who can quickly provide a specialized solution. Contact us today to discuss the next steps, or give us a call at (313) 965-0350.