Seven social media advertising tips
Social media advertising continues to grow as more and more brands seek to reach, engage and activate audiences through social networks. Part of this is driven by the networks as they look to monetise their services. This means that businesses increasingly need to invest in their social media marketing. So how do you get the most from these channels? Our quick guide provides some key social media advertising tips to follow.
1. Know your objectives
Key to any successful marketing campaign are clearly defined objectives. Social media advertising is no different. You can use ads to reach new audiences, boost brand engagement, drive visitors to your website or to get app downloads. There’s plenty more options but its vital to consider why you’re doing it and what you want to achieve. Setting goals and KPIs is important too.
2. Follow your audience
Where should you advertise? With limited budgets it’s not always possible to invest in all social networks. Your objectives should help determine which social networks you should be advertising on. Most of the ad modules give you access to good insights on who uses the channels as well as sophisticated lifestyle targeting options. Use these to your advantage.
Don’t just focus on networks where you’ve built a large, owned social channel. Make sure you’re not missing opportunities to target like-minded audiences on other channels.
3. Test and refine
Any business small or large can advertise effectively on social media. Key to success is to test different ads gauging what images, copy and combination work best for your brand. You’ll quickly see from the data and metrics what’s working and what’s not letting you switch resources to the best-performing ads.
4. Be creative
Push the boundaries with your creative routes. Images work well but so do videos. Adding simple animations to static images can result in higher engagement, clicks and views all of which drive better ROI from your social media advertising spend.
5. Don’t be afraid to experiment
Take advantage of the options available to experiment with new ways to reach, engage and activate audiences. Twitter Cards and Facebook Lead Ads are some of the new tools available to businesses to create new, more impactful ad campaigns.
6. Evaluate constantly
Evaluation is key too. You can’t assess the impact of your strategy without monitoring. Most social networks provide excellent reports. It’s vital to monitor activity daily to ensure that you pick up on changes in responses or rising prices. This lets you make changes to improve results or pause campaigns if it becomes too competitive (and therefore expensive).
7. Take advantage of their expertise
Social media advertising and the sheer range of options can be daunting. However, all of the networks offer great support and resources for advertisers. Facebook provides some great case studies and Twitter’s Flight School shows potential advertisers how they can leverage Twitter’s ad platform.
Social media advertising is a powerful addition to a brand’s online communications toolkit. And with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and LinkedIn all offering paid solutions there’s plenty of options. Used well it can deliver great results: brand engagement, reaching new audiences or driving visitors (and sales) to your e-commerce site. Brand’s that are strategic, creative and experimental can get even more from their investment.
Want to know more? Give us a call and we’ll help you kick start your social media advertising campaign.
