Wow... Russia contributed $125,000,000 to Trump's campaign

[zaj]

Russia generated Pro-Trump social media content that created 250,000,000 social media engagements. A measure of how wide spread the campaign reached.

I just looked up the estimated cost to buy social media posts when paying per engagement generated.

On average, it costs about $500 to buy 1000 engagements.

So, Russias investment in Trump was valued at $125,000,000.

That's unreal.

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R for exposure.

[pnwmom]

2. It's really 50 cent per engagement? That seems high. n/t

[femmedem]

3. It is high. I sometimes pay to promote my workplace's events on social media

And I can usually get 2000 engagements for about $40.

[zaj]

11. Engagements vs Impressions

There are better digital marketing folks than me, but I have some a lot of event marketing and $40 for 2000 impression feels about right for a boosted event post.

$40 for 2000 event engagements (going, interested, share or registration clicks) seems low.

Looking around, 2-5% engagement rate is normal.

So, if we assume you are paying $40/ 2000 impressions and getting 5% engagement rate, that's $800 for 2000 engagements or $.40 per engagement.

So I don't know the final answer, but I think we might be talking apples (impressions) vs oranges (engagements).

[femmedem]

13. You are correct! Thanks.

I just checked on the stats from my last boosted post, and for $20 I reached 1800 people, got 89 link clinks, ten shares and 8 comments.

On the one hand, I'm embarrassed I mixed up the two terms. On the other hand, it seems like my engagement rate is pretty good.

[Julian Englis]

16. Thanks. Your post was very informative. n/t

[zaj]

6. Per Buffer's estimates "$0.25 to $0.75 per average post engagement"

Source:
https://blog.bufferapp.com/influencer-marketing-cost

[Recursion]

8. We pay between $0.41 and $0.47 with fairly coarse targeting

That's definintely the ballpark, and the more finely you target the more it costs

[Stuart G]

4. K and R nt

[jcgoldie]

5. So I never have had facebook

What is an "engagement"?

[Recursion]

9. You just did an "engagement" with this post

On Facebook, you can respond to posts or ads in various ways: you might click that you "Like" it, or comment on it, or share it with a friend. Each of those is an "engagement". Engagements cost a lot more than "impressions", which is just whenever you passively see an ad but don't respond.

(There's similar measurements on different social networks; in general what makes something a social network is that you can read something someone wrote and react or respond to it in some way: so on Twitter you might retweet, on pinterest you might pin, etc.)

[jcgoldie]

10. Thanks

[eleny]

15. Could a "post" also be those by bots here at DU?

[Recursion]

24. It could, but DU isn't very monetizable

There's no native ad stream (that I know of) and, since DU's main goal is attracting paying users, it isn't architectured towards selling us to advertisers.

[eleny]

26. Thanks

I thought that the goal could also be a hearts and minds thing.

Btw, there are ads here at DU for non paying members. Those could be worth something to DU for the clicks. But I don't know anything about that arrangement so my random thought on that isn't based on knowledge.

[TrishaJ]

7. Not counting the Russian money through the

NRA......

[Volaris]

14. That's nothing compared to what they would have made if the sanctions had been lifted...

As it is, even if it's chalked up to a loss that yieled nothing, it was a smart risk. And 125M is nothing when you're robbing it from the Russian People, as Putin and his Crew are doing.

[zaj]

20. It surely didnt cost that much...

This just the value. I've heard an estimate of it only costing $25m to execute.

[Volaris]

21. I believe it.

If it had worked, it would have been a deal at the same level as the Louisianna Purchase heh. I suppose I can't blame them for trying...

[zaj]

23. They already won.

Sanctions are huge, but there is even a much was goal for Putin.

Hes trying to destroy the western alliance that defeated the authoritarian regimes of the former Soviet Union.

NATO and EU

We are likely to find out that they were also lobbying Trump to end TPP, NAFTA and any global relationship that strengthened global expansion of western style democracy.

[Achilleaze]

18. .

[zaj]

19. 5 billion views of powerful Russian propaganda

If 5% of views become engagements... that would mean this was the equivilant of 5 billion views of powerful Russian propaganda targeted at a very susceptible audience.

[Volaris]

22. And if 10% had the desired effect, there's the votes u need to steal the election

In the Electoral College, right?

[wiggs]

25. In addition to 30 million laundered through the NRA and who knows how many more

millions laundered through real estate or bank transactions or to the inauguration committee.

I take that back...there is someone who knows.

[dlk]

27. The Sanctions Must Be Painful

[DFW]

28. It's a hell of a lot cheaoper than sending an invading army

Putin wrecked our government without ever firing a shot or losing one soldier.
Sounds HIGHLY cost-efficient to me.

[triron]

29. And denial that we are at war continues unabated.

[DFW]

30. Well, sure. What could be more convenient than that?

Even if bombs are falling from the sky and exploding all around you, if you deny that you are under attack, then there is no reason to mount an air raid defense, is there?