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Vol. 3 No. 1, 2022

Corresponding author:
1 Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design, Ukraine
E-mail: bogkolesnik@gmail.com

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30525/2661-5150/2022-1-11

ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTIVENESS OF METHODS TO EXPAND 
THE AUDIENCE OF THE BRAND IN ITS OWN MEDIA

Bohdan Kolesnyk1

Abstract. Companies are turning to digital marketing to promote their brand and increase sales through various 
methods. Nowadays, thanks to social media, companies are able to attract the attention of consumers on the internet, 
attracting a certain part of the brand's target audience. Overall, it can be said that social media has had a huge impact 
on how companies find and communicate with their audiences. Thus, there is a need to explore strategies to attract 
more engaged brand audiences to companies' social media pages. The purpose of this article, as part of the scientific 
research, is to identify the essence of marketing management strategies in social media, which will include cost-
effective expansion of the brand audience, as well as comparing their effectiveness. Dialectical method of scientific 
knowledge, method of analysis and synthesis, comparative method, as well as the method of data generalization 
are used in the work. The results obtained represent the comparative effectiveness of brand audience expansion 
methods that can be applied in the areas of digital marketing and brand management. The need for a clear strategy 
for promoting a company on social platforms is dictated by their effectiveness, as well as the size of potentially spent 
budgets on ineffective digital campaigns. The results of the study allow developing a set of strategies for effective 
expansion of companies' own media, which can be applied both in Ukraine and all over the world. In addition, the 
results of the study help to determine the possible values of performance indicators and suggest audit methods.

Key words: digital marketing media, social network, influencer, blogger, brand management, targeted  
advertising, advertising platform. 

JEL Classification: M37

Problem statement. Over the past two decades, 
social media has become the most important channel 
for marketing communications, including digital 
marketing. It is known that almost 50% of the world's 
population uses social media, which is more than 
3 billion users worldwide (Kemp S., 2021). Each user 
spends an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes on social 
media and messaging (Mander J., 2019). Millennials 
participate in social media for an average of 2 hours  
and 38 minutes a day, while Generation Z uses this  
type of media for 2 hours and 55 minutes (World 
Economic Forum, 2020).

The main reason people follow company pages is 
to get more information about business products  
(25.6% of users). 26.3% of respondents hope to get 
useful information and news on the brand page; for 
21.3% the reason is funny or interesting content; 
another 15.3% want to be the first to know about  
special offers. This is the conclusion reached by the 
research company Boston Digital (Boston Digital, 
2020). Thus, businesses of all sizes need a social media 
presence. Of course, in order to attract more people 
and have a deeper impact on the market, the maximum 

number of followers converted into a target audience  
is necessary. Using digital advertising tools will 
accomplish this goal. The question is, which tools are 
more effective? This is a question that needs research.

Analysis of modern studies. The problem of 
measuring the effectiveness of internet advertising 
and promotion on social networks is being studied 
by scientists in Ukraine and all over the world in 
various aspects: banner and search advertisement 
(Morrissey Brian; McCambley Joe; Jansen B. J.;  
Mullen T. and others), social media marketing  
(Felix R ., Rauschnabel P. A.; Hinsch C.; Bowden J.;  
Deis Michael H.; Hensel Kyle and others), internet 
media efficiency analysis Rzemieniak Magdalena; 
Brodie R . J., Ilic A., Juric B., Randall Lewis, Justin M.  
Rao, David H. Reiley and others). At the same time,  
given the lack of systematic study of methods to  
increase an audience on social networks and of all 
the internet marketing instruments’ comparative 
effectiveness, the peculiarities of social networks 
marketing management need further research.

Presentation of the main material. Types of digital 
marketing media. Own media is any communication 

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms 
of the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0



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channel or platform owned by the brand itself;  
companies create and control them independently. The 
audience for owned media is all of the brand's existing, 
new and potential customers. The convertibility into 
customers of those visitors who were attracted by 
paid tools and platforms depends on the quality and  
relevance of the brand's own media content. Key  
features: indispensable in building long-term 
relationships with the target audience; cost-effective, 
versatile and can be sustained indefinitely.

At the same time, paid media is an effective channel 
for large-scale campaigns aimed at increasing brand 
awareness and attracting conversions. Earned media 
complete the classification, whose audience consists 
of those users who are currently targeted (segmented) 
by the advertising campaigns, as well as brand fans and 
those people who were previously involved through 
paid and organic Internet marketing channels. 

The limitations and opportunities of social media. 
Social platforms make it possible to organize brand 
management in such a way as to become the "Top-of-
mind" customer at the moment of purchase, i.e. the first 
brand mentioned by the target audience. What exactly 
do CEOs think of this concept? In a survey of nearly 
200 top marketing executives, 50% responded that they 
think the "Top-of-mind" indicator is very important 
(Farris P. W., Neil T. B., Phillip E. P., David J. R ., 2010).

Here and below we will analyze methods of expanding 
the brand's audience on Facebook and Instagram. 
Bloggers ("influencers") should be singled out as one 
of the components of earned media. Presentation of 
certain content is more typical for the relevant categories  
of bloggers; classification of bloggers by type in Ukraine 
is presented in Figure 1 (trendHERO, 2020).

Either way, the most interesting for business is the 
engagement rate of paid media, and therefore the 
engagement rate of bloggers, which is calculated as 
follows:

𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = �

𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟
𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟
𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑛𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟 𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜 𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑓𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟𝑟

� ∗ 100 

Average engagement rates of accounts in Ukrainian 
segment of Instagram are given in table 1. For other 
countries, market researchers point out that, for 
instance, in the United States, ER figures for million+ 
"influencers" are lower. This may be due to the fact that 
in developed countries the so-called "giveaways" are not 
so common, while there are significantly more bloggers 
(especially celebrities).

Table 1
An average engagement rate (ER)  
by account size and country

Account’s 
audience

ER (%), 
Ukraine

ER (%), 
Russia

ER (%), 
USA

1-2 ths. 8,9 5,7 7
2-5 ths. 3,4 2,6 4,5
5-10 ths. 1,6 1,5 2,7
10-100 ths. 1,2 1 2
100-1 mln 1,8 1 1,8
1 mln or bigger 3,4 2,1 1,9

Source: compiled by the author (Source: trendHERO, 2020)

The table shows that Ukrainian million+ "influencers" 
have higher ER rates than in other countries. It should 
also be borne in mind that these two social networks 
have different average level of audience engagement. 
In 2020, for Facebook this figure was 0,27% per post, 
while for Instagram it standed at 1,16% ( Jipa A, 2021). 
Moreover, advertising formats are significantly different.

For "engagement" campaigns on Facebook, there are 
types such as: "post engagement" (getting reactions 
to a post), "page likes" (getting subscribers to a "fan 
page", i.e., a company page), and "event responses" 
(getting subscribers to an event page). At the same time, 

 
Figure 1. Categories of Instagram bloggers in Ukraine



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"page likes" engagement campaigns are not available 
on Instagram. This means that there is no official 
advertising tool for expanding the audience of your 
Instagram account. Of course, other types of campaigns 
are used for this business purpose, but because their 
advertising models do not include payment for the 
required result (follower), planning and performance 
analysis are difficult, and the cost per follower  
increases. It is also worth noting that there are 
artificial technical limitations created by the Instagram  
platform. For example, promoting "stories" with a link 
to the account takes the user from the Instagram app  
to the browser; the account from the ad opens in the  
app only if that ad was created on Instagram itself  
(which lacks most of the ad platform features necessary 
to run an effective campaign).

Whereas advertising platform on Facebook allows  
to expand an audience using traditional tools of  
internet marketing, on Instagram, social network with 
a higher average ER , greater coverage of Ukrainians 
under 31, as well as greater number and voice of 
"influencers" (PlusOne, 2021), advertising platform’s 
tools are not enough. At the same time, the total  
audience of Instagram in Ukraine is only 1 million 
less (and this gap is narrowing) – 15 million against 
16 million Facebook users (PlusOne, 2021). These 
reasons lead to the study of other tools to expand an 
audience.

Methods of promotion of the account. 
To begin with, target advertising. Launching 

a campaign to attract followers on Facebook is fairly 
easy, and internet advertising experts consider $0.40  
per follower to be the baseline price. Of course, the 
amount may vary depending on a company 's budget, 
targeting settings (especially those made possible by 
analyzing existing audiences), and the industry in 
which the business operates. At the same time, the 

effectiveness of engagement campaigns like "page likes" 
on Facebook decreases over time (see Figure 2): after 
a few days or weeks, such campaigns bring worse results, 
so it is necessary to select new advertising materials, test 
the settings, and restart the campaign. 

These processes can be explained by the fact that the 
minimum required auction price increases over time, 
targeted advertising becomes less effective because of 
the new privacy policies of some technology companies 
(see ID for Apple advertisers), or simply ineffective 
advertising layouts. 

Launching similar targeting ads on Instagram is more 
complicated. There are two options: launching a "traffic" 
campaign through a single advertising platform or 
launching a similar campaign using the Instagram 
app. Here and below the advertising campaigns in the 
building and construction sector will be considered, 
using the example of a large manufacturer in the 
plumbing equipment industry (company "A"). The 
results of the "first option" campaign are presented in 
Table 2. 

The total number of followers is 371, but the average 
daily natural increase on the Instagram account of 
company "A" is at least 5 followers, i.e., the actual 
result is no more than 301. Since the actual total cost 
was $327.8, the price per follower was $1.09 (at the 
same time, Company A had worse campaigns with the 
same settings). Thus, this is a much higher price for  
the company in question than on Facebook: the price  
of a subscriber on the second of these two social 
networks corresponds to the industry average (which 
is $0.40). There was also an "option 2" advertising 
campaign (using the same advertising layouts), less 
controlled, but with links opening on Instagram itself. 
The results are shown in Table 3.

The actual total cost was $210, and the price per 
follower was $0.78. In the absence of appropriate 

 
Figure 2. Example of "page likes" type of engagement campaign with declining results and prices per result rising



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settings, with automatic targeting to a similar audience 
(users similar to the current audience of Instagram-
account of company "A"), the effectiveness of the 
advertising tool remains quite low.

If the effectiveness of advertising is unsatisfactory, you 
should first try to use the methods of popular accounts 
(mostly bloggers), namely contests and giveaways. It is 
clear that in order to attract an external audience, the 
draw (giveaway) should be promoted with a standard 
advertising campaign. At the same time, in order to 
minimize the impact of giveaways on the reputation 
of a "serious account," the prizes should always be of 
value, related to the nature of the company 's activity  
and aimed at attracting attention to a particular 
product. The raffles themselves on the official account 
representing the company in social networks should  
be conducted sparingly and cautiously, screening 
out with special conditions "prize hunters," not 
radically changing the type of content and not raising  
expectations of prizes among the target audience. 

Let's consider an example of a raffle conducted on 
the Instagram account of company "A". The object 
is a large international company in the sphere of  
plumbing equipment (15 000+ Instagram subscribers 
in Ukraine). Product X with an invoice price of  
114$ was raffled off by randomly selecting one winner; 
to participate, it was necessary to leave a comment 
mentioning two people who may benefit from product 
X (anticipating viral distribution). The budget of 
advertising campaign support stood at 130$. The results 
are presented in table 4. 

Similar raffles on Facebook are possible but require 
a huge own audience and coverage of the external 

ones. For instance, a raffle on the company’s "A" owned 
Facebook account (70 000+ followers in Ukraine) of 
the more expensive and prestigious product Y with 
an invoice worth 239,26$ brought only 566 followers. 
Although this figure may be overstated too, as  
Facebook statistics on followers is more difficult to 
calculate accurately. Given the campaign budget of 
92,84$, the cost of a follower reached 0,58$, which is 
bigger than the optimal 0,35-0,40$. 

If one needs a wider reach, partners can always be 
involved. For the reviewed company, this includes 
importers of plumbing equipment and retail chains. 
However, it should be noted that such a partnership 
may need to be paid for: for instance, Epicenter 
retail chain (monopolist in Ukraine among sellers of  
building materials under DIY retail system, 350 000+ 
followers on Facebook) requests 200-1000$ and more 
for publishing something about a brand on their social 
networks. At the same time, Rozetka, which is the 
largest marketplace in Ukraine (750 000+ Facebook 
followers), create posts with raffles for brands free 
of charge, according to an agreed schedule. The 
company "A" initiated several such cooperative 
raffles on the Rozetka page, the results are set out  
in table 5. 

Based on our observations, it can be said that the 
effectiveness of raffles on Rozetka’s Facebook page is 
decreasing over time; this may be due to an extraordinary 
number of raffles and regular posts (10 per day or 
more). One way or another, the company "A" failed 
to agree on cooperation with Rozetka on Instagram. 
To test the hypothesis of whether cooperative raffles 
always attract more external audiences, the company 

Table 2
Instagram "traffic" campaign with expanded control

Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Clicks (opening account) 111 112 83 89 142 112 91 55 162 171 158 140 142 69
New followers 36 27 17 29 35 26 20 17 43 26 28 24 16 27
Established budget/day, USD 25 25 25 25 25 25 25 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Actual expenses, USD 19,98 20,16 19,09 19,58 25,56 24,64 23,66 11,57 29,64 30,30 30,24 29,89 29,55 11,81

Table 3
Campaign "traffic" in Instagram with automatic settings

Days 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Clicks (opening account) 214 273 298 271 206 262 246 37
New followers 40 43 52 43 42 57 31 3
Established budget/day, USD 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 30
Actual expenses, USD 25,85 29,91 31,04 30 28,31 31,21 29,50 4,18

Table 4
The results of the "A" company’s own Instagram page raffle

Comments 
(participants)

Reposts
Reach (people 

covered)
Impressions 

(views)
Frequency New followers

Results 5 267 536 50 390 74 583 1,48 690

The cost of a follower was 0,35$



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"A" also approved a raffle on the Instagram page of Leo  
Ceramics chain stores (27 000+ Instagram followers). 
Results of the raffle are in the table 6.

Together with the product X invoice price of 114$, 
the cost of a follower was no less than 0,38$, which 
is much higher than the price on the Facebook page 
Rozetka (although at the level of targeted Facebook 
advertising). It can be concluded that the size of the  
paid media audience, and not the source of this  
audience, has a decisive role. However, unlike targeted 
advertising, the use of partners as paid media is 
limited: large account holders often charge a payment 
amount that makes the cooperation itself economically 
impractical. Moreover, the number of accounts of this 
size, which are somehow related to a brand thematically  
or have commercial relations, may be limited in some 
areas (which is also relevant for manufacturer of 
plumbing equipment – the company "A"). 

Consider interacting with bloggers, also known as 
"Influencers. Company "A" had experience working with 
Instagram-bloggers in the past, but no specific goals 
were set. The results of the collaboration, which took 
the form of a post and a short one-time "story " about 
the products given to the bloggers, are shown in Table 7.

Accordingly, the cost of attracting 1,000 Instagram 
users (not necessarily the blogger's subscribers) was 

$7.95 and $3.25, respectively. However, are these 
costs economically justified? It is necessary to analyze 
the results by comparing the cost per thousand with 
alternative means of online advertising, namely search 
ads and Google Display Network. For the imputation  
of the search network, let's take 9 transactional 
keywords and 1 brand query, such as "plumbing to buy ", 
"plumbing brand A", "bathroom faucet to buy ", etc.; for 
the display network, let's take "plumbing" and "home 
repair" as the audience's interests conditionally. An 
approximate calculation of the media plan made using 
Google Ads tools is shown in Table 8:

It is estimated that the approximate cost to reach 
1,000 people with search advertising is $1.30 and 
$0.37 on the display network. This is much lower than 
the cost of outreach achieved through social media 
"influencers. Note that it is unknown which channel 
(blogger post or Google ad) will have the highest value 
on the conversion path (in this case, the purchase of 
plumbing equipment), that is, will have the greatest 
impact on the decision. However, usually a search query 
on Google (especially a transactional one) indicates 
a certain level of interest in a purchase, unlike casual 
users on social platforms. As for display network 
banners, their relevance depends on the relevance of 
the product to the sites where the banners are posted 

Table 5
The results of a raffle conducted on the Rozetka page

Comments 
(participants)

Reposts New followers
Invoice price of the 

prize, USD
Cost of a follower, 

USD
February 5 300 2 500 3 500 122,92 0,04
April 3 600 1 800 900 122,92 0,14
September-October (2 raffles) 3 700 2 000 1 350 114+31,42 0,11

Table 6
The results of a raffle conducted on the Leo Ceramics page

Comments 
(participants)

Reposts
Reach (people 

covered)
Impressions 

(views)
Frequency New followers

Results 3 394 208 7 583 8 365 1,1 up to 300

Table 7
Company A's collaboration with bloggers without setting a goal
Expanding the brand's own audience

Blogger
Own 

followers
Category

Invoice price 
of the prize, 

USD
Reactions Comments

Reach 
(people 
covered)

Impressions 
(views)

Frequency

lidiya_kosharska 470 000 lifestyle 591,38 8 078 34 74 386 96 403 1,30
yuliyasholudko 425 000 lifestyle 711,91 22 236 915 219 398 243 901 1,11

Table 8
An approximate media plan with Google Ads tools used

Advertising campaign Clicks
Cost per click 
(CPC), USD

Click through 
rate (CTR), %

Impressions 
(views)

Duration, 
days

Impressions 
per day

Total budget, 
USD

Search advertising 5 700 0,13 1 570 000 31 36 774 739
Google Display Network 1 000 0,08 0,5 200 000 31 6 452 75



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(while the relevance of bloggers' posts depends on the 
relevance of the main topic of their accounts).

From the author's point of view, unless it is 
a new product awareness or direct sales campaign  
(e.g., a review of a new smartphone model, a "challenge" 
with a candy bar, etc.), it would be a mistake to build 
relationships with "influencers" just for the sake of 
coverage and mentions as such. A more appropriate 
way is to expand the brand's own media audience,  
being able to influence consumer demand in the long 
term, which is especially important for products of 
irregular or deferred demand with a long purchase cycle.

Company "A" began cooperating with bloggers in  
a new format: a barter agreement with the condition 
of a prize draw. For legal reasons, "A" cannot pay 
a partner directly, so it is much harder to find bloggers 
than necessary: "Influencers" are reluctant to consider 
barter offers from brands, even with expensive 
products or direct benefits for their subscribers. 
Company A chose several bloggers with sufficient  
reach (100,000 subscribers or more), offering them, 
among other things, barter for several X products  
(for the bloggers themselves and raffles among 
subscribers), free installation of products, as well as 
a special link to the promotional page of the plumbing 
store with discounts on all products (for subscribers). 

As an example, consider working with the Instagram 
account alina_lalisea, agreeing on the following terms:
– making video reviews, posts and "stories", barter  
for product Z (invoice price 168,81$);
– providing product X for the raffle (invoice price 114$);
– not mentioned during the negotiations gift of  
product Y (invoice price 31,42$) engraved with 
the blogger’s nickname – in anticipation of a better 
relationship and additional free mentions.

Performance of the published content and the raffle 
are given in table 9.

Thus, the cost per subscriber was $0.86. Obviously, 
the results depend on the relevance of the content for 
the audience of the account (the analysis of this factor 
will be given below), as well as on the implementation 
of the integration with the blogger. Here's a comparison 
of the effectiveness of methods for expanding a brand's 
account audience (Figure 3).

It can be concluded that the most effective method 
of attracting social media users in terms of the number 
of subscribers and average cost is cooperation with the 
accounts of partners, whose audience is approaching 
a million. At the same time, given the limited nature 

of such offers, as well as the gradual saturation of 
subscribers with standard draws from such pages, for 
Instagram pages businesses can consider integrating 
"prizes from bloggers" as well as their own draws. 
For a company 's Facebook page, the most effective 
is targeted advertising on Facebook, such as a "page 
likes" campaign, the effectiveness of which is virtually 
unlimited and easier to predict.

Analysis of contributing factors. For a complete 
analysis of the effectiveness of attracting an audience, 
in addition to price and quantity, there is another 
important factor to consider – the quality of the 
follower, i.e., its relevance to the brand's target audience. 
Thus, the worst positions by this parameter are taken  
by affiliate pages on Facebook, because their audience 
can be analyzed only superficially (Unbox Social,  
2021) and even, for example, the terms of a raffle are 
often drawn up by the affiliate. 

A slightly more complicated, but technically  
possible way is to analyze the audience of bloggers' 
accounts (especially on Instagram) with the help of 
special services. It is necessary to consider this process 
on the example of the Ukrainian service trendHERO, 
which is considered one of the most functional  
solutions on the market. Along with an integrated 
assessment of the "quality " of a blogger's account, 
which includes an analysis of the follower base, types 
of followers (real, suspicious, fake accounts), audience 
growth or decline patterns, and more, the demographic 
profile of the audience, its interests, and lists of other 
accounts followed by that audience are also available. 
Such a system makes it easier to find potential partners 
and study the offers coming in. 

In addition to checking the quality of incoming 
audiences, it is also necessary to record their expansion. 
While substantial statistics are available in Facebook 
targeting ads, in Instagram only clicks are recorded as 
results for "traffic" type campaigns. Therefore, in this 
case the only technically possible solution is to monitor 
the number of subscribers. Numerous technical 
limitations of Instagram manifest themselves in the 
inability to know the sources of followers, inaccurate 
statistics and lack of links in posts. However, there are 
several ways to account for the sources of followers on 
Instagram when interacting with partners or integrating 
with "influencers:

1. Tracking links. UTM tags, common for web  
analytics systems, will not work because it is not the  
site's traffic that is tracked, but the social network 

Table 9
Established a partnership between Company A and a blogger to expand the brand's own audience

Blogger
Own 

followers
Category

Invoice 
price of the 
prize, USD

Reactions
Comments 

(participants)

Reach 
(people 
covered)

Impressions 
(views)

Frequency
New 

followers

alina_lalisea 118 000
family and 
relations

314,23 1 169 240 25 286 37 329 1,48 up to 365



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account. Instead, you can provide bloggers or partners 
with shortened links (e.g., bit.ly) that have traffic 
tracking built in. Limitations of the method: links 
can only be provided in "stories" or in the profile  
description; Instagram may block redirected links.

2. Instagram "Branded Content" tools. They allow the 
blogger to specify a partner – an account of a company 
that is marked as a "paid partner" of the publication. 
Posts created by the blogger using this functionality  
give the advertiser direct access to statistics, as well  
as the ability to approve or send the posts for revision 
directly to Instagram. The advertiser can also run an 
advertising campaign on the Facebook advertising 
platform using the blogger's posts or "stories". 
Limitations of the method: the tag "paid partnership 
with" may be undesirable for parties, practically not 
used in Ukraine.

The last important aspect of any audience expansion 
method presented here is the actual content to be 
distributed. For successful integration with bloggers or 
partners, it is essential that the content be as "native" 
as possible, i.e., that it blend naturally with existing  
media content. In contrast, targeted ads need to stand 
out, attracting the attention of "feed eaters"-users who 
scroll through their newsfeeds very quickly. Brands are 
more likely to use standard product photos, partners 
can rent a photo studio for their own photos, and 
"agents of influence" tell a story in the form of a review, 
trip or game, not necessarily with studio-quality  
photos or video. 

Texts written for bloggers should also express the 
"author's" own opinion, emotions and be somewhat 

 
Figure 3. Comparative effectiveness of brand audience expansion methods

illiterate (in most categories, such as lifestyle bloggers, 
an unmistakable text and concise narration will raise 
suspicion). Content creators need to be controlled, 
although sometimes unexpected, suggested formats by 
bloggers can benefit the brand. 

Key findings. A brand needs its own media to 
build long-term relationships with its target audience; 
social media representation will help the company 
stay in touch with customers, keep them informed 
of important news and be "Top-of-mind" to the 
customer at the time of purchase. A brand management  
strategy should include specific goals, one of which  
is to expand the brand's in-house media audience. 
Facebook and Instagram are characterized by different 
audiences, content types, levels of engagement and 
advertising opportunities, so a company 's account 
promotion strategy differs significantly from one social 
platform to the other. Internet marketing tools that 
can be used to achieve the goal of promotion: targeted 
advertising, interactive formats on the company 's 
own page, interaction with partners, interaction with 
bloggers. In terms of the number of subscribers and  
the average cost, the most effective method of  
promotion is cooperation with partners whose pages 
have a very large audience, as well as interaction 
with bloggers in the format of draws, contests, and 
"challenges". The price per subscriber is inextricably 
linked to its quality, which must be analyzed for each 
method separately. Understanding the difference 
between types of content and controlling its creation 
will help increase the effectiveness of actions to achieve 
the goals of the promotion strategy. 



Three Seas Economic Journal

92

Vol. 3 No. 1, 2022

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