Organic social media will NOT scale your online course sales

Organic social media will NOT scale your online course sales

January 12, 202318 min read

Growing an online education business effectively requires more than just frequent content posting on social media platforms. Over the past several years of assisting online educators with scaling their ventures, I've observed the limitations of relying solely on organic reach, which has become significantly constrained. To truly accelerate growth, the focus should shift toward leveraging paid advertising. It's about getting the valuable content, products, and services we've developed in front of a larger, more targeted audience. By doing so, I've witnessed businesses expand their reach, impact more lives, and substantially increase revenue.

Investing time in crafting new content and engaging with every comment in crowded social spaces—while momentarily rewarding—does not promise long-term growth. Time is our most precious commodity, and the reality is that it isn't replenishable. Redirecting energy towards strategies that align with how social media platforms operate can be more fruitful. These platforms prioritize sponsored content because advertising is their main revenue source. Understanding this paradigm allows for a strategic use of resources that not only respects the scarcity of time but also employs the abundance of investment capital to drive a business forward.

Key Takeaways

  • Paid advertising is more effective than organic social media for rapid business growth.

  • Time is valuable; redirecting efforts towards advertising maximizes this finite resource.

  • Aligning with social media platform algorithms through paid ads can significantly extend reach and impact.

Growing an Online Education Business

In the ever-evolving realm of online education, with my 7-8 years of experience in scaling these businesses, it has become apparent that organic social media growth is not the fastest path to expansion. From what I've observed, the once generous organic reach that social media provided is a relic of the past. Instead, the key to rapid growth lies in utilizing paid advertisements to shine a spotlight on the wealth of content, courses, and landing pages you have diligently created.

Marketing Allocation:

  • High Time Investment: Social media content creation, community management

  • High Return Investment: Paid advertising on relevant platforms

Maximizing Existing Assets: It's crucial to take the goldmine of resources – your meticulously crafted funnels, courses, and membership sites – and increase their visibility to the ideal audience. More eyes lead to more lives changed and, consequently, an uptick in revenue.

Content Creation Pitfalls:

  • Podcasts

  • Overactive Facebook groups

  • Multiple social media platform engagement

These activities, while seemingly productive, are deceptively time-consuming and often lead to a cyclical trap of content production with diminishing returns.

Time Versus Money:

  • Time is finite. The hours invested in content creation and engagement are irreplaceable.

  • Money is infinitely more abundant, especially as your online education business flourishes.

By choosing paid advertising, you're not only complying with the current design of social platforms but leveraging the 'unlimited' resource of capital to save the invaluable resource of time. This strategic move aligns with how social media platforms prioritize ad-driven content, enabling you to reach broader audiences effectively.

In my role, I focus on what truly works for online educators, devoid of any bias for particular tools or platforms. It is the results – the ability to impact more lives and achieve your business goals – that drive the strategy. Thus, my advice leans towards investing resources into approaches that offer scale and efficiency, as these will propel your business towards growth and success.

Limitation of Organic Social Media Outreach

In my extensive experience with online educators and scaling their enterprises, I've realized organic social media isn't the fastest growth path. This perspective is drawn from seven to eight years of witnessing what boosts business growth and what falls short. Putting effort into creating content and hoping it reaches a substantial audience is becoming increasingly futile. The reality is that organic reach on platforms like Facebook and Instagram is confined.

Let's consider the facts:

  • Creating Continual Content: Constantly churning out new social media posts, engaging in Facebook groups, and keeping up with other platforms can be a relentless cycle that consumes significant amounts of time.

  • Shifting Algorithms: These platforms are engineered to prioritize paid advertisements over organic content - that's how they generate revenue.

  • Limited Reach: Without investing in paid ads, even the most valuable, high-quality content may go unseen by the larger audience it deserves.

Time vs. Money: Time is the most scarce resource we possess. Investing money in paid advertising is advantageous because, as an online business grows and becomes more successful, the initial monetary investment is negligible in comparison to future earnings. Meanwhile, the time spent on organic efforts is a resource that’s irretrievable once used and should be allocated wisely.

Efficiency of Paid Ads: By directing resources toward paid ads, you put more 'eyeballs' on existing high-value assets – courses, landing pages, and memberships. This deliberate approach yields better returns than hoping organic efforts will pay off.

From my perspective, I've realized it's critical to play the social media game as it's designed to be played. This means using funds, a replenishable resource, to amplify visibility and reach - an approach that both conforms to platform design and respects the finitude of time available. This strategic investment can lead to greater business expansion, more life changes for clients, and amplified revenue generation.

Advantages of Paid Advertising

In my experience helping online educators, I've discovered that organic social media strategies are not the most efficient for business growth. For over seven years, I have worked with educators to scale their businesses and noticed a clear distinction in the effectiveness of different approaches. Paid ads hold a significant advantage because they quickly get your high-quality content, courses, and educational products in front of a larger and more targeted audience.

Immediate Exposure: Unlike organic reach, which is limited, paid ads can significantly broaden your visibility. This immediate exposure allows your existing content and carefully crafted assets to be seen by a larger audience that aligns with your ideal customer profile.

Time Efficiency: Time is our most precious resource, and investing in paid ads saves considerable amounts of it. By steering away from the endless content creation cycle required for organic growth, you can utilize your time more effectively and focus on other aspects of your business.

Leveraging Assets: With paid advertising, you can maximize the utility of your existing funnels, landing pages, and educational content. You are able to continuously reach new prospects without the need to create additional content for organic growth.

  • Funding Scalability: Money, unlike time, is a replenishable resource. As you become more accomplished in your field and your business grows, the financial investment in paid ads becomes comparatively minor, given the revenue you generate.

Compliance with Platform Algorithms: Paid advertising aligns with how social media platforms are designed to operate—they prioritize revenue from ads over organic content. By investing in paid advertising, you are playing by the rules that social media platforms set, which in turn benefits your business.

In conclusion, paid advertising is a powerful tool. It's clear that utilizing paid channels is not only conducive to faster growth but also ensures that the content already developed reaches the right audience, all while conserving the invaluable resource of time. I've seen firsthand the transformative power of paid ads in online education, and consistently recommend this approach for sustainable business expansion.

Time Management in Content Creation

Efficiency Over Volume: My experience over the last 7-8 years has shown that organic social media is not the fastest route for growth in the online education industry. The limited reach of social media requires a more strategic use of time.

  • Focus on Paid Advertising: Rather than spending excessive hours creating new content, a more viable strategy is to invest in advertising. This brings more visibility to existing content, funnels, and products to the right audience.

  • Utilize Current Assets: It's essential to leverage all current resources — courses, memberships, and landing pages — to attract and serve more students effectively.

Avoid the Content Creation Trap: Many content creators get caught up in a constant cycle of content production, which can be overwhelming and unsustainable.

  • Prioritize Time: Acknowledging that time is a finite resource, I recommend minimizing time-intensive activities that offer little return on investment.

  • Consider Business Growth: As an educator and business owner, the goal is to improve products and services, which should result in increased revenue, contrasting sharply with the unreturnable time investment of content overproduction.

Understanding Platform Dynamics: Platforms prioritize paid content because that's how they generate revenue. By recognizing this, I advocate for aligning strategies with platform incentives to maximize reach.

  • Invest Wisely: Early monetary investments in the business can contribute to significant benefits in the long term, whereas time once spent cannot be reclaimed. This perspective highlights the value of capital over time in business scaling strategies.

In summary, my keen observation has proven that careful investment, rather than continuous content generation, aligns with the ultimate goals of serving more students, changing more lives, and increasing revenue. This approach plays into the hands of social media algorithms and propels the business using a seemingly limitless resource — capital — to save the most precious one: time.

Financial Perspective on Investment

Investing in paid advertising is a pivotal strategy I've leveraged to scale online education businesses, minimizing time spent and maximizing growth. Over seven years of experience has proven the ineffectiveness of relying solely on organic social media reach. Here's why:

  • Limited Organic Reach: The current landscape of social media platforms offers very limited organic visibility, making it difficult to grow quickly through traditional content posting.

  • Effective Use of Assets: By directing funds into paid ads, the valuable content, funnels, landing pages, and educational products you’ve developed gain increased exposure to your ideal audience.

Investment Comparison: Time vs. Money| Resource | Availability      | Investment Focus  ||----------|-------------------|-------------------|| Time     | Limited           | High Cost         || Money    | Essentially Unlimited | Revenue Growth |
  • Long-Term Benefits: While time is irreplaceable, the money invested in advertising in the early stages of a business can be seen as minimal when compared to the benefits and revenue reaped later on.

  • The Power of Paid Ads: Structured ad campaigns enable you to reach a substantial audience quickly, aligning with social platforms’ preferences to prioritize paid advertisements, as they generate revenue for them.

In my journey of helping online educators, it’s become evident that generating content or engaging in every new digital trend is labor-intensive and often bears only temporary results. Meanwhile, using investment for ads is like steering the ship with precision and speeds up growth significantly. Utilizing financial resources for ads not only complies with the social media ecosystem but also safeguards your most precious resource—time.

Remember, as your business improves and the quality of your offerings increases, so will your income. With strategic investment in advertising, you're poised to expand your reach, impact more lives, and enhance revenue, without sacrificing irreplaceable time. It's a straightforward, yet powerful approach for online educators seeking efficient growth.

Effective Strategy for Online Educators

In my years of experience helping online educators scale their businesses, I've learned quite a few things about growth in this digital landscape. One fundamental truth stands out: organic social media growth is not the most efficient way to expand your online education business.

My observations have made it clear that the once powerful organic reach of social platforms has significantly diminished. Instead, I advocate for a strategic shift towards paid advertising. By investing in targeted ads, the valuable content, courses, and other resources you've already developed can gain increased visibility among your ideal audience. This approach often translates into more substantial growth and, consequently, higher revenue.

Key Components of a Paid Advertising Strategy:

  • Investment in Ads: Direct resources into paid advertising to amplify reach effectively.

  • Focus on Conversion: Ensure that existing content and digital assets are optimized for conversion before scaling with ads.

  • Audience Targeting: Use the data available from ad platforms to show ads to individuals most likely to engage with your offerings.

Here's what I've come to understand: while creating endless content can seem productive, it consumes the one resource we cannot replenish—time. Education entrepreneurs like myself often fall into the content creation trap. Whether it's managing interactive Facebook groups, producing podcast episodes, or learning the latest social media tricks, such as Instagram Reels, they're all time-intensive tasks with limited long-term returns.

In comparison, money is a replenishable resource. With improved offerings and refined business acumen, an online educator can expect increased revenue over time. This reality has led me to prioritize financial investment in strategies with proven returns, like paid advertising, rather than sinking countless hours into content for diminishing organic reach.

Remember, social media platforms design their systems to prioritize paid content over organic content because ads are their primary revenue source. Recognizing this and aligning your growth strategies with the platform's design can greatly benefit your business. By playing the game according to these digital giants' rules, you stand to maximize the benefits of their global reach.

In conclusion, the key is not to avoid spending time on your business but to allocate it wisely. The objective is to leverage the expendable resource of money to save your priceless time, thus propelling your business forward. It's about working smarter, not harder, and ultimately, it's a no-brainer for those looking to make an impact in the online education space.

Understanding Platform Algorithms

In guiding online educators, I've accrued extensive experience over seven to eight years in the field. My observations have cemented the understanding that organic social media growth is no longer the quickest path to business scale. Let's break down some vital points:

  • Organic Reach Limitations: Most content posted organically on social platforms like Facebook or Instagram suffers from limited visibility due to the current algorithmic structures that favor paid content.

Strategy Reach Time Consumption Organic Social Media Posting Limited High Paid Advertising Extensive Relatively Low

  • Efficiency of Paid Advertising: Allocating budget for advertisements can amplify the exposure of high-quality assets such as courses, landing pages, and membership materials.

  • Content Creation Cycle: While creating fresh content is important, focusing excessively on this cycle without reach can be a misallocation of time – a precious and finite resource.

  • Time vs. Money: Money, purportedly an abundant resource, should be strategically invested in amplifying what's already working. The time lost in less effective strategies cannot be regained.

  • Platform Design: Social media platforms are designed to monetize through ads, hence, they prioritize content backed by advertising dollars over organic content.

  • Playing by the Rules: To grow an online education business effectively, recognizing and adapting to the inherent rules set by platform algorithms is essential – invest in advertising to truly expand reach.

Through diligent application of these strategies, I help educators maximize their impact and achieve their goals, without being bound to any specific promotional methods. The objective always remains clear: use available resources wisely to nurture and expand your online educational venture.

The Role of Ads in Social Media Platforms

In navigating the online education business, I've gained considerable experience over seven to eight years, particularly in scaling these businesses. Through this time, my observations have been clear: organic growth on social media is not the fastest route for expansion. The truth? Social media platforms have significantly reduced organic reach. So what should an online educator prioritize?

  • Investing in Paid Ads: It's about putting what's already valuable—the carefully crafted content, efficient funnels, engaging landing pages, and quality courses or memberships—in front of more eyes, specifically those of the ideal audience.

  • Maximize Existing Assets: The effort placed into creating those assets should not go unseen. Paid advertising ensures that the great content already created receives the attention it deserves.

Social media can create a cycle of constant content creation, from posting updates to managing groups, which can become a time-consuming task with limited reach. The quest for the latest tactics to boost engagement, such as Reels or social gimmicks, often only offers short-lived gains and overlooks the value of one's time - an irreplaceable resource. In contrast, money – though it may seem substantial at the start – is something you can earn more of over time as your business and skills improve.

The platforms themselves are designed to prioritize monetization through advertising. They are businesses, and their revenue flows from ads, not from allowing free organic growth that doesn’t benefit their bottom line.

Knowing this, I focus my strategies on what is quantifiably effective. Invest early in paid advertising, and while initially it may seem substantial, in the long run, it's minuscule compared to the returns when your business flourishes. This approach is not just about playing by the rules of social media platforms; it's about cleverly utilizing available resources to save your invaluable time and expedite reaching your ambitions.

Maximizing Reach and Revenue

In my years of experience helping online educators scale their businesses, I've discovered that relying solely on organic social media posts is not the most efficient way to grow. Despite the effort put into creating fresh content, the limited reach on social platforms hinders rapid expansion. This realization has steered my approach towards a more effective strategy.

Investing in paid advertising ensures that the valuable content, courses, and membership sites already in place get the exposure they deserve. By targeting the ideal audience with paid ads, the assets that have proven successful can be showcased to a larger crowd, resulting in increased business growth, more lives changed, and greater revenue generation.

Key Strategies for Maximizing Reach:

  • Leverage Paid Ads: Allocate budget to paid advertising as a means to boost visibility and drive engagement with the target audience.

  • Utilize Existing Assets: Focus on promoting existing content, funnels, landing pages, and products to maximize return on investment.

  • Refine Targeting: Concentrate ad spend on well-defined audience segments to ensure that marketing efforts reach the most receptive viewers.

Comparison of Time Investment:

Activity Organic Content Creation Paid Advertising Time Investment High – constant need for new material Low – set up once and optimize as needed Audience Reach Limited by platform algorithms Potentially limitless with proper targeting Long-Term Benefit Diminishing due to algorithm shifts Sustained with strategic investment

By acknowledging the truth that time is a finite resource and shifting focus from time-consuming tasks to strategic financial investments, I guide online educators towards sustainable growth. Platforms like Instagram and Facebook are designed to prioritize paid content; understanding this allows us to play by the rules of the game, using unlimited financial resources to compensate for our limited time.

Throughout my career, I've remained objective, always looking for the most effective methods to achieve goals. If you're looking for accelerated growth, remember that it's more prudent to use money, an expandable resource, rather than time, which you'll never regain. Adopting this mindset has been a pivotal aspect of my approach to scaling and impacting the online education ecosystem.

Long-term Business Growth

In my years of experience assisting online educators in scaling their businesses, I have observed varying strategies for growth. Social media organic reach has significantly declined, meaning that relying solely on organic posts is not the most effective strategy for rapid expansion. Instead, I've found that investing in paid advertising can substantially increase the visibility of your educational content, landing pages, and courses to your target audience. This approach can lead to more substantial business growth, more lives changed, and increased revenue.

Investing time in content creation, managing Facebook groups, and mastering every new social media trend can be cumbersome. Throughout my career, I've seen how such practices can consume an educator's most finite resource: time. Time, unlike money, cannot be replenished. As you gain expertise and improve your offerings, revenue increases. Therefore, it's prudent to utilize money—a more abundant resource—to leverage the growth of your business.

With this perspective in mind, focusing energy on strategies that work within the constructs of social media is key. Social media platforms are designed to prioritize paid advertisements, as this is their primary revenue source. By leveraging paid ads, you are aligning with how these platforms operate, thereby optimizing your reach and potential to connect with a global audience.

Having worked with a myriad of online educators, I've adopted a platform-agnostic approach. My priority has always been to guide educators to achieve their objectives swiftly and efficiently, regardless of the marketing medium. Through strategic investment in advertising rather than excessive time consumption, educators can play the long game effectively, utilizing resources to propel their businesses forward in a highly competitive digital landscape.

Conclusion

Key Takeaways:

  • Through my extensive experience of seven to eight years supporting online educators scale their businesses, I have identified effective growth strategies.

  • Organic Social Media Reach:

    • Is not the fastest path for substantial business growth.

    • Organic reach is notably limited in the current digital landscape.

  • Paid Advertising:

    • A strategic investment in paid ads propels business visibility.

    • Valuable assets like content, funnels, landing pages, and courses receive higher exposure leading to increased impact and revenue.

  • Content Creation Cycle:

    • Consistent content creation is time-intensive and may not garner desired organic growth.

    • The cycle includes podcasts, social media engagement, Facebook groups, and learning new platform features.

  • Time Vs. Money:

    • Time is the most precious and finite resource, unlike the regenerative potential of finances in business.

    • The effort invested in organic reach strategies consumes time that could be more effectively utilized.

  • Platform Design and Advertisement:

    • Social media platforms prioritize monetization through ads, diminishing the benefits of free organic reach for businesses.

    • Paid advertising aligns with the platforms' business models, offering broader reach and growth opportunities.

As I guide online educators, my approach is pragmatic and goal-oriented; I focus on what will most effectively meet their objectives. Utilizing financial resources for paid outreach saves time and is a tactical move for any serious business looking to scale in a competitive digital ecosystem.

No-BS Facebook Ads & YouTube Ads Consultant

Paid traffic specialist. Marketing Mentor. Agency Owner. Traveller.

Originally from tiny (but beautiful) Slovenia, I currently live with my German wife and UK-born daughter on a Portuguese paradise island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean.

Here, I parent, ride my quadbike in the mountains, paddle my kayak in the ocean, study business & most importantly, use paid traffic to add $10k-$100k/month in sales for entrepreneurs like you.

Janez

No-BS Facebook Ads & YouTube Ads Consultant Paid traffic specialist. Marketing Mentor. Agency Owner. Traveller. Originally from tiny (but beautiful) Slovenia, I currently live with my German wife and UK-born daughter on a Portuguese paradise island in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Here, I parent, ride my quadbike in the mountains, paddle my kayak in the ocean, study business & most importantly, use paid traffic to add $10k-$100k/month in sales for entrepreneurs like you.

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