Promoting Your Business with Social Media Advertising
More people are on social media than ever, and it’s time for your business to utilize social media if you haven’t done so already. These days users spend time on social media for more than just connecting with people. Consumers use social media to discover and shop for products they otherwise would never have access to. The most popular social media platforms have made it simple for businesses to use paid features to advertise their products to their users.
In 2019, more money was spent on digital advertising than print advertising for the first time ever. Social media advertising is one of the most popular ways businesses can promote their goods and services digitally. What separates it from social media marketing is that advertising involves paid promotion with a label such as “sponsored” or “promoted”. The growth of social media advertising can be attributed to the growing difficulty of businesses organically reaching new customers.
One reason businesses don’t run advertisements on social media is that they are unaware of how effective they are at reaching an audience wider than their current following. But there are other powerful benefits of social media advertising you might be unaware of.
Benefits of Social Media Advertising
1. Brand awareness: Gaining brand awareness is one of the most common objectives businesses have using social media. Paid media gets new users viewing your content and increased traffic to your pages and websites. When a consumer repeatedly sees your promoted content, your business becomes top of mind over your competitors.
2. Reach targeted customers: Another guaranteed benefit of social media advertising is having the ability to target ads to specific audiences. Social media platforms make it easy for marketers to select people in certain demographics, interests, and geographic regions to be shown their ads. Compared to other forms of advertising, businesses have a higher degree of control over how and when their ads are displayed. Targeting a specific customer group with a unique combination of traits and demographics means you get the best click-through rate (CTR) possible.
3. Unique ad formats: Social media advertising is unique in that there are always fresh ways for customers to see your content. For example, have you ever thought about promoting your product or launch with an immersive Snapchat filter?
4. Cost-effective advertising: It is easy for small businesses to see a high return on investment (ROI) even on a limited budget. There are a handful of different models to determine the cost of a campaign including cost per click (CPC) and cost per 1000 impressions (CPM). Depending on your business’s goals and the platform you use, you can spend a few dollars per day on ads and still see an increase in leads and conversions.
5. Gain consumer insights: Effective social media advertising isn’t possible without knowing your customer. Social media platforms track how users engage with your ads and provide insightful data based on user behavior and demographics.
It’s clear that social media advertising benefits businesses in any industry or of any size. There are several factors to a successful social media advertisement campaign and steps to ensure your ad meets the right audience.
Here are three steps to effectively promote your business with social media marketing:
Having a specific advertising goal
Different types of social media advertising campaigns are designed to meet different campaign goals. It isn’t enough to assert that you want your social media ad to bring in more business or see more conversions. Determine the marketing needs of your business that social media can resolve. Be specific about what conversions or engagement you want to receive such as increasing website traffic, email/newsletter subscriptions, or more visibility on your page.
Campaign goals help marketers track their progress by watching specific metrics tied to their objectives such as engagement rates and CTR. A clear goal will also affect key aspects of your ad such as your budget and the following steps to executing a successful campaign.
Choosing the Right Platform
Choosing which platforms to advertise your business on has everything to do with understanding your customer base and their behavior. While it’s wise to have multiple channels to maintain organic reach, you will want to narrow your campaign to platforms where your audience is most active. Analyze each of the most popular social networks, their demographics, and what advertising goals best match their ad formats. Users will not engage with ads that are not relevant to their needs.
Because of the changing landscape of algorithms and ad formats, there is no formula to a perfect social media advertising strategy. Successful marketers also understand that campaigns for different platforms require unique attention and planning.
Promote Quality Content
Even if your ad is targeted to a specific niche with a specific campaign goal in mind, if the content of the ad is lacking or low quality it will not be effective. There are three aspects of an ad to be mindful of: media, copy, and a call to action (CTA). High-quality images or videos should get users attention for them to stop scrolling. Your visual media needs to be paired with a brief well-written caption and CTA. CTAs should be easy to understand and access from the ad.
Your content must be mobile-friendly and responsive to different devices. According to the Digital 2020 Global Overview Report published by Data Reportal, 99% of total social media users access these platforms via mobile devices. You may want to experiment with posting your ad as organic content to experiment with how your audience responds. You can assume that if your followers engage well with your content, then similar users will respond well too.
