How do you stand out and compete with companies that competitively offer similar products and services as you? You need to get creative.
One way companies have done this is through paid advertising - where you create ad content and target a specific audience while setting up an ad campaign. Research shows that this method is losing its efficacy for one of two reasons:
- People develop “banner blindness,” a habit of directing their attention to the content they’re trying to enjoy rather than paying any mind to the advertisement banners.
- Targeted audiences dismiss the ads they see as being arbitrary, and therefore irrelevant to them.
Alternatively, you can invest in creating branded content, but this often takes a lot of time and resources, which most small businesses don’t have.
Enter sponsored social posts. This rising digital marketing strategy is perfect for brands that want to promote their business on the sly. By this, we mean that you don’t have to make your audience or potential audience members feel like they’ve been targeted by an advertisement.
How does it work? Let’s take a look.
What Are Sponsored Social Posts?
Sponsored social posts make up a recent trend in the way businesses are able to reach new customers. Instead of creating expensive branded ads, sponsored content is crafted to look like the environment in which it appears and is often based on a collaboration with another business, figure, or influencer. Of course, you typically pay for the promotion since they’ll publish these sponsored social posts on their own pages, but this can often cost less than the cost of creating branded content and losing a great deal of valuable time to do so.
A sponsored post rests somewhere between a blog post and a traditional advertisement. It tends to be more educational than a typical ad and has more credibility because it’s coming from an influencer. That influencer can be an individual, or it can be a respected blog or publication.
Your sponsored social posts are the content you initially made in your account (this can be long-form or any in-depth assets and content such as a blog post or a video) that is then distributed by your partner influencer to their audience on social media.
To sum up, sponsored social posts have three elements:
- The sponsor: This is the brand that creates the content and pays for its distribution.
- The content: This is the actual post getting distributed. This content can be a video, blog, image, or podcast.
- The partner: This is the influencer or business that will spread the sponsored content.
Sponsored social posts are critical components of successful digital tactics today. You can no longer rely on just social ads for your marketing to work.
Your sponsored content can add a layer of credibility to your brand since the promotion is done through established figures within an industry or niche.
Platforms With Sponsored Social Posts 
Now that you know what sponsored social posts are, it’s time to know which platforms offer this functionality. You can find social posts on several social networking platforms. After all, these are sponsored content distributed through your brand partners' social media accounts.
Some platforms you can find sponsored social posts lingering on include:
- YouTube
Since sponsored content can still take time and money to create, it’s essential to know who your audience is and which platform and content format they prefer.
Take note that your sponsored social posts should sound like regular social media content and not like social ads. Otherwise, you’ll turn off readers and fail to maximize one of the most subtle digital marketing tactics.
Sponsored Content vs. Native Advertising
So, what’s the difference between native advertising and sponsored social posts?
While both digital marketing tactics greatly resemble specific social media content, sponsored content is just a type of native advertising. Other types of native advertising include:
- Paid social ads
- Promoted listings
- Content recommendation widgets
However, sponsored social posts will look like regular in-feed content, which is excellent if you want to make your target audience feel like they’re not reading a promotion. Those bulky widgets and annoying videos of someone trying too hard to be funny used in advertising can be immediate deterrents to the human eye.
Examples of Sponsored Social Posts
Here are some of the best sponsored social posts that we found. See if any of them give you inspiration:
- Taco Bell and Snapchat: Taco Bell created a Snapchat filter that anyone can use. This filter was viewed 224 million times which is more than what traditional advertising could give them.
- UEFA Champions and Heineken: Heineken knows how big the UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Champions League is. So they took advantage of it. But instead of a long-form post or a disruptive ad, they just partnered with UEFA to promote their company through the League’s Instagram story.
- BlackRock and NowThis: NowThis is a popular news site, giving BlackRock ample opportunity to promote its brand. Their partnership involved a series of videos explaining investment and finances.
As you can see, there are many ways to promote your content through sponsored social posts. So unleash your creativity and find the right partner for your brand. Be thoughtful about it and try to find partners with whom a truly symbiotic relationship can not only bloom for this one campaign, but blossom for many more to come.
Should You Use Sponsored Content?
Unlike other social ads, sponsored social posts are non-disruptive, making them the perfect tool for building trust, enhancing credibility, and reaching new audiences. Additionally, since you’re working with well-known companies and influencers, it’s easy to see why creating sponsored social posts can be one of the most compelling digital marketing tactics.
Enhance Your Digital Marketing With Connection Model
Unsure how to start and who you should collaborate with? Don’t worry. At Connection Model, we’ll help you connect with the right brands and create the right content to grow. Just schedule a call with our team today to get started.
Written By: David Carpenter
