Did you know that more than half of the population uses social media? With people taking to social networks to research more about their interests and interact with businesses, this presents a fantastic opportunity for brands to increase their reach and drive online engagements by using platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. One way to do this is by exploring paid social media, a form of digital marketing where posts are promoted with advertising budgets. Stay with us as we talk more about this method and how brands can get it right on social media.
History Of Paid Social Media
Over the years, Facebook has been dubbed the ‘targeted ad pioneer’ for being the first social media platform to explore digital advertising back in 2006. The purpose of this strategy was to increase the company’s profitability and reach its desired online audience. Since then, paid social media has become the second biggest market in digital advertising with a growth expectation of $252 billion by 2026.
Without any further delay, let us look at how brands can make use of this strategy on each social media platform.
With Facebook being the most popular advertising channel for business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies, here are four tips that can help you promote your brand on this platform:
- Rebuild your business page
Ensure that you are using an official business page and not your personal page on Facebook. This will give you access to Meta Suite (formerly known as Facebook Business Suite) and allow you to tap into the latest trends and customer analytics needed to tailor your content to the right audience.
- Choose the correct Facebook ad and placement
Facebook boasts a variety of advertisement types with image, video, stories, and messenger ads to name a few. Give each of these formats a try and see which works best for your brand. In addition to this, you have the luxury of tailoring your paid advertisements to either work well on mobile, desktop, or even other platforms owned by Facebook such as Instagram.
- Know your Facebook ad target market
Before creating exciting content, get to know your target market first. Here are three audience options to consider:
- Core audiences are used to gain new customers based on their interests, location, and demographics.
- Customer audiences work well for retargeting customers who are already interested in your brand.
- Lookalike audience targeting can help you reach individuals who share similarities with your current customers.
- Do not be limited by budget
If you are looking for a high return on investment, you need to think about your brand’s goals and objectives and how much spend is needed to achieve them. Creating a budget plan can help you establish how much you are willing to spend on paid ads and if possible, you can set aside more money to further connect with potential audiences.
Read more: Building A Social Media Strategy: Top Tips to Get Started
Are you ready to tap into the potential of 849.3 million Instagram users? Give the following best practices a try:
- Showcase your brand’s product offering in the first three seconds
Audiences have a short attention span. Therefore, using the first few seconds to introduce your brand and product offering can increase their viewing time and drive interest which could lead to a conversion.
- Create native advertisements
Native advertising is paid content that matches the look and function of the platform that it appears on. Since Instagram favours content that is not directly selling anything to online followers, this form of advertising can help you reach more customers.
- Write actionable captions
What better way to draw customers to your brand and encourage them to make the first move than by adding a strong call-to-action? Make certain that your call-to-action is in line with your brand objectives as well as your customers’ needs.
- Use video ads to tell your brand story
Take customers on an emotional journey by using video advertisements to create a memorable experience of your brand’s products and services in their minds.
More reading: Visual Storytelling: Exploring Content Marketing From A Different Lens
The time that people spend looking at advertisements on Twitter is 26% higher than all the other social media channels. See how these tips can help direct some of that time to your brand:
- Set a goal for your Twitter ads
Knowing what purpose you want your advertisement to serve is essential. Fortunately, Twitter has multiple options to choose from such as gaining followers, increasing engagements, or raising awareness. Choosing any of these options enables brands to be specific about what they intend to achieve at the end of their advertising campaign.
- Choose a location for your Twitter ad
This entails specifying where you want your advertisement to be seen on Twitter. The most common options include the users’ feeds, Twitter audience channels, or even the search tab. This is done so that your advertisement can be seen by your target audience.
- Make use of visual ads
The main aim of this is to grab customer attention and leave a long-lasting impression. Visual content such as GIFs, videos, or edited photos can help facilitate interactions between customers and your brand, resulting in a reputable online presence.
- Leverage content marketing in your ads
Sharing external brand resources and links can help you provide customers with high-value content. Since you will be sharing quality content for free this can also increase your customer loyalty and drive traffic to your brand’s website.
Further reading: Social Media Marketing: A Copywriting Guide
79% of content marketers attest to the fact that LinkedIn advertising produces positive results. Draw some inspiration on this platform with the following tips:
- Keep your LinkedIn Ads short and concise
Creating short-form advertisements can help you pique your potential customer’s interests. Ask a question that is related to customers’ needs or, if you have done your research on your target market, share a benefit that your product or service can provide to them. Couple that with a strong call-to-action so they can click on the relevant link to learn more about your brand.
- Avoid hyper-targeting
Targeting a larger audience can be overwhelming for brands that are trying to establish themselves on LinkedIn. This is why you should place more focus on the long-term benefits and start small instead of trying to get a lot of customers in the initial stages of your campaign.
- Use LinkedIn campaign groups
Campaign groups can help you separate and manage your brand’s advertising objectives. This also includes allocating different budgets for different objectives and setting them to run at a specific time of the day. Overall, this can enable you to use different advertising variants and tailor them to each campaign.
- Implement Sponsored InMail
With a 58% open rate, this is an effective way of targeting high-profile customers such as industry leaders and brand decision-makers. You can send personalised messages to customers who have a high chance of needing your products and services.
Last reading: The Power of Paid Social Media
Next Steps For Exploring Paid Social
With exponential opportunities for growth in online traffic and reach, paid social media is an avenue that should not be left unexplored. The time is now to harness the power of paid social and put these best practices to the test in your next social media strategy.