SkillRary

Introduction to Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising, or social media targeting, are advertisements served to users on social media platforms. Social networks utilize user information to serve highly relevant advertisements based on interactions within a specific platform.

The importance of social media advertising

1. Social media advertising allows you to connect with the people who need your service or product

According to a 2016 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of online adults use a relatively a diverse array of social networks, which is defined as more than one of the five social media platforms measured in the survey. Additionally, as 65 percent of U.S. adults admit to using social media, it is to your brand’s benefit to be there as well.

Simply put, the first step to making a sale is awareness, so you want to advertise in the places where everyone’s eyes are. Products exist to alleviate a person’s pain point and to improve their quality of life. Advertising allows you to remind consumers of their unmet needs; the first step, though, is finding where they are and that place is social media.

2. Social Media provides varied platforms and numerous advertising formats

One of the beauties of social media advertising is that it offers something for everyone. If you want to reach middle-aged adults and older you can use Facebook. If you want to target millennials there’s Snapchat. You can even break it down to content. If your ads primarily rely on visual aesthetics, then try using Instagram or Pinterest. Whatever your goals, there is likely a social media platform to support them.

 

3. Social media platforms allow you to create specific target audiences

Advertisers and social media platforms have a sort of symbiotic relationship with one another. Advertisers need the platforms to be able to raise awareness about their product, service and company. And the majority of the platforms need advertisers to fund them. As such, social media platforms provide a multitude of services to aid advertisers in their efforts to reach users. For instance, you can target consumers as broadly or as narrowly as you like to craft the right message for the right person. Such highly customized targeting options are great reasons to advertise on social media.

4. Social media platforms drive targeted traffic to your website or landing page

When it comes to measuring the success of your advertising campaign, click-through is one of the most important metrics. The click-through rate for all social media platforms is reportedly increasing, as shown by Facebook’s quarter over the quarter rise in click-through rates from 0.18 per cent in Q1 to 0.36 per cent in Q4 (2013 statistics.) Ad engagement also continued to improve during the same period, as advertisers became more sophisticated and social media platforms improved targeting options and desktop and mobile experiences.

5. Social media marketing will get you more sales

What matters most at the end of any advertising campaign is whether or not it can turn engagement into sales for your business. You’ll be happy to know that social media is proving to be a successful sales channel for many brands. According to a 2015 Feedback Systems report, 61 per cent of socially engaged organizations reported a positive impact on revenue growth. Additionally, in a 2014 survey by Aberdeen, 46 per cent of social sellers reported they hit their quota as compared to 38 per cent of sales reps who did not meet their expected sales.

6. The ROI on social media ads is unbeatable

For the most part, it’s more cost-effective to advertise on social media platforms over other digital sites. The average cost per click on Google Adwords is $2.32 across all industries, but for a targeted boost post on Facebook or Pinterest, you can pay as little as $0.12 per click. Social media makes earning traffic quick, easy and affordable.

7. Advertising on social media offers insights into your customers

Perhaps the most awesome thing about advertising on social media is that you can gain real insight into how your ads are performing and how they resonate with your target audience. No more projections or having to conduct surveys as services like Facebook Analytics provide you with stacks of data to help you understand how your ads are performing with consumers. Even beyond those analytic features, you can see how well an ad is socially performing by looking at the number of likes, shares, or comments on your ads.

Setting goals and selecting ad types

Setting social media goals is a key step toward proving (and improving) the value of your social media work. Writing your goals down and regularly reporting on your progress also significantly increases the likelihood that you will achieve what you set out to do.

Goals help you chart a course for improvement and success. They allow you to see how effective your efforts are. They give you purpose and direction, in a documented way that you can share with others.

How to set social media goals in 3 steps

1. Conduct a social media audit

A social media audit will help you record all your existing social media accounts and programs in one place. You’ll also get a sense of your current level of performance, which you can use as a baseline.

 

2. Decide what’s important

Once you’ve completed your audit, look through the information you’ve gathered. You’ll start to see which social channels are performing well, and which might need a different focus.

Next, start to think about what’s really important for you to achieve with your social media goals. Sure, vanity metrics are fun to track. But can you tie these simple measures directly to business goals? Is Will increasing your likes lead to real business value? (In some cases, it very well might. But put in the time to really think about this upfront.)

Take a look at your overall business strategy and your social marketing plan and look for ways to better align the latter with the former. Once you decide what kind of growth or improvement can really help improve your business, it’s time to start crafting some specific social media goals.

3. Choose your goal-setting framework

Established goal-setting frameworks help you put in the work upfront to create meaningful social media goals that will support your business in the long run. Here are a couple of our favourites.                                                                                       

Benefits of Advertising on Each Social Network

Again, each network has its own benefits to paid advertising. But you do not need to use every platform. For starters, try choosing one or two networks that best align with your goals and objectives.

To make your process a little easier, let’s take a quick look at each major social network and see what type of content and ad play works best:

Facebook: The plethora of Facebook ad formats make it perfect for business-to-consumer campaigns. But its ability to make scaleable audiences is also great for B2B. These formats are ideal for getting deeper into your audience and uncovering potential customers through awareness and social reach.

Instagram: Increasing web traffic sales and driving awareness is ideal for Instagram ads. Highly-visual content gets users to engage with the content and show off products in the best light for high B2C conversions.

Twitter: Twitter’s various advertising options let brands work on getting new followers for a product launch or simply starting a new social channel. Twitter ads help grow awareness and drive clicks to your website.

LinkedIn: With a very specific demographic, LinkedIn is more ideal for business-to-business interactions. Your LinkedIn campaigns help gain visibility, generate leads, and boost traffic to your web pages through thought-leadership content.

Snapchat: This B2C platform works best for pure engagement metrics, especially for younger audiences. Its sponsored filters and lenses are built to get users to engage, have fun and promote the product. Visibility and awareness are high markers for Snapchat ads.

Pinterest: The ads on Pinterest is often used to generate immediate sales of your product or services. Your paid content blends with other pins, allowing your brand to work as another avenue for your web store.