Social media has become such a powerful tool in communication over the past decade; not only in our personal lives, but in the business world as well. If you aren’t utilizing multiple social media platforms to reach your target audience, you need to be. Not sure which ones are right for you? We’ve got you covered. Not sure when you should/how to respond to comments on your page? Take a look at this. What kind of content should you post? Start here. But what about taking advantage of paid advertising on your social media accounts? Are they effective and worth the money? Definitely! In fact, according to Sprout Social, non-customers are 3x times more likely to click on a social media ad than current customers. How’s that for effective business development?
During your marketing planning budget process, be sure to include a budget for social media advertising. Relatively inexpensive, this type of advertising will create a greater ROI than traditional advertising alone. Before you leap into purchasing your first ad, you should know what the most effective types of ads are and how to use them.
- Place an ad on the platform most popular with your audience. When setting up your social media platforms, you likely decided which would be best for your business based on your target audience. From there, you can narrow down which is the most popular by reviewing your analytics. Keep in mind, you may have more than one platform that resonates with your audience. The good news is that each platform has their own advertising system in place that you can take advantage of.
- Boosting your content. This can be called different things, but the common term is “boosting.” This means that you put money behind a piece of content or photo to “boost” the reach. Choose a new announcement, a new project, event, or something big that is happening with your business for these types of posts. Like other forms of advertising, this will run for the specified time period so if the post is time sensitive you will want to make sure the ad does not run past the chosen ending date. In addition, if you see that a specific post is organically doing well, you could opt to boost this to extend the reach and engagement even further.
- Share out your social media account. Doing a general call to action such as “liking” your social media account will increase awareness to your social media page. Again, you can target your audience here to gain the right kind of followers you want to connect with. This type of ad will appear as a featured photo, video or slideshow that you choose and your account name with the message you have chosen to share a little about your business. This is a great, inexpensive way to grow your social media audience.
- Video ads. Currently trending, video ads give you more creative flexibility to showcase your business or product. According to Facebook, video ads create a 19% higher return on ad spending than ads without video. As more people start to respond to ads with video, this is a great way to jump on this trend and get more bang for your buck.
- Carousel ads. Choosing a carousel ad will allow you to share multiple services, products or projects in one post. Keep each photo in a similar theme so it is easy to follow and not all over the place. This type of ad will give your target audience a quick glimpse of the areas or products your business focuses on and entice them to click the ad to learn more.
There are many different ways to advertise on social media, so do your research and choose the right one for you. Once you create your first ad, record how it performs, make adjustments and start a new one. Creating a consistent social media ad schedule will not only help your target audience grow, but will help it grow exponentially.