Study reveals impact of paid search on Facebook brand reach

Facebook's most recent paper, "Understanding Paid and Earned Reach on Facebook", reveals how paid media can amplify a brand's reach while also attracting an audience that has a greater likelihood than average to buy online.

Even large brands with millions of existing Fans can benefit from paid media on the social network.

"Even brands with some of the largest Fan bases can reach on average 5x more people using paid media in addition to organic publishing," says Facebook in a recent post about the study.

Of the top 100 Pages on Facebook (in terms of Likes and organic reach), those that added paid media to existing organic publishing efforts reached an average of 5.4 times more Facebook users.

Other findings from the study include:

- Analysis of three large brands - Samsung Mobile USA, a major financial services firm and a major retailer - revealed they were able to extend their reach by 5x in one week using paid media;

- The above three brands also extended the reach of a single piece of content more than 100 times via the use of paid media;

- Audiences reached via paid media and organic publishing are of similar age/demographics;

- Paid media was found to reach less active Facebook users while organic media was more effective at reaching heavier users.

"And why is maximizing reach so important for marketers? Because reach is a significant driver of ROI," says Facebook. "As announced at Advertising Week, campaigns that maximize for reach have on average a 70% higher return-on-investment."

Tags: brand awareness, brand marketing, earned media, Facebook, paid media, social marketing, social network