Social media platforms to advertise on
Last year we created a series of newsletters about social media and how platforms such as Facebook and Twitter can help your business to grow. Now your platforms are up and running, are you wondering what else you can do to get your message out there? If so, it’s time to look at paid social media advertising which involves creating ad campaigns to achieve your marketing and branding goals.
One of the principal benefits of social media advertising is that you can reach a targeted audience, fast. Your adverts can be shown to the most relevant people for your products and services. You can reach them based on their age, location, interests, what they post about and much more.
Every major social media platform offers paid advertising options that can help you reach your target audience. For this newsletter, we're going to look at four of the biggest.
The world's most popular social media network hosts more than a quarter of the planet's population, providing unparalleled opportunities for businesses. With Facebook ads, businesses can target potential clients by job description, location, interests, past consumer behaviours such as previous purchases and device usage, as well as other criteria. You can also set your daily spend, so you do not go over your budget.
Twitter is where people meet to microblog and communicate with small messages known as Tweets. Twitter ads come in several forms, such as promoted Tweets, promoted accounts and promoted trends. It is a good place for marketers because Twitter users are keen to discover new ideas, trends and products.
With Twitter Ads, you can target people by their interests, age, gender, brands they follow and much more.
Promoted trends allow brands and organisations to generate mass awareness about any #hashtag for 24 hours. They are visible to all users, occupying top spots on the trends list, and are useful for the launch of new products or services.
Promoted accounts are designed to increase the number of followers at a faster rate than organic methods. Also, for a monthly fee, you can sign up to Twitter Promote Mode, where your Tweets and accounts are automatically promoted.
With LinkedIn ads, you can reach a large audience consisting primarily of professional people. You open a Campaign Manager account where you select your budget, objectives (awareness, consideration, conversion), your chosen goal, such as impressions, clicks or video views, and your targeting criteria (including skills, member groups, business size, job title and more). The next step is to choose the ad formats. You can select Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, or a mix of all four. LinkedIn ads appear in the LinkedIn feeds of the audience you are targeting.
Instagram is a photo and video sharing platform that's predominantly used by younger generations, but its popularity with other age groups is growing. To advertise on Instagram, you don't even need to open an account if you are already on Facebook.
Instagram's advertising formats include video ads, photo ads and the carousel ads format, which lets you post more than one image for people to scroll through.
Getting noticed
In a crowded online world, it can be increasingly challenging to get your message seen and heard. However, you can make a big impact with social media advertising because you can engage with clients and prospects at every stage of their buying journey.
Recap…Social media advertising can help you get more traffic and sales by targeting specific audiences who need your products or services.
PS: If money were no object, you’d probably want to advertise on all social media platforms your target audience and potential clients are to be found. In reality, most budgets are finite, so when deciding which platform to invest in, think of your desired outcome. Is it to increase brand recognition? Do you want to engage in conversations with your audience? Do you need lots of new leads?
