Social media entices many small business owners with the dream of the next big viral campaign. The reality is organic traffic on social media is tricky to earn, and going viral is next to impossible to predict.
These days, nearly every business is on social media, and it isn’t hard to spot an ad on all social media platforms within a few seconds. According to Statista, impressions on advertisements have gone up 20% each year for several years in a row.
Despite this, the click-through rate of advertisements has decreased each year since 2018.
That data shows that the competition for attention on social media is fiercer than ever.
We’ve compiled a list of social media advertising tips to help you master your social media strategy. Keep reading to learn:
Benefits of Advertising on Social Media
How To Advertise Your Business on Social Media
2. Gather Data
3. Figure Out How Your Audience Spends Their Time Online
7. Understand Your Advertising Options
Final Thoughts: 6 Social Media Advertising Tips To Master Your Strategy
Benefits of Advertising on Social Media
Why advertise on social media?
Advertising on social media offers several major benefits. It boosts brand awareness, increases traffic, and offers insight into your current and potential customers.
Due to these benefits, social media advertising is cost-effective.
Creating a social media account and many content marketing efforts are entirely free. Paid options like ads are lower-cost than traditional advertising methods.
The cost per thousand (CPM), or the cost per 1,000 advertising impressions for social media, is just $2.50, compared to $16 for a newspaper or $28 for television.
Determining how much you should spend on your social media marketing efforts depends on several factors, including how large your business is.
According to Gartner, companies spend 11.3% of their revenue on marketing efforts. Of this marketing budget, it’s estimated that businesses will spend 24.5% exclusively on social media.
How To Advertise Your Business on Social Media
1. Set business goals
2. Gather data
3. Figure out how your audience spends their time online
4. Optimize your profile
5. Create engaging content
6. Understand your advertising options
7. Encourage interaction
1. Set Business Goals
You need to understand what you want out of your social media strategy before it can be effective.
When you create an ad campaign on a social media platform, you’ll often need to choose your advertising objective. Those can be divided into three main categories with subcategories:
- Awareness
- Reach
- Consideration
- Drive traffic
- Engagement
- Lead generation
- Downloads
- Clicks
- Conversion rates
- Make a purchase
Another important aspect of setting goals is determining a timeline for them. That’s where a social media calendar comes in.
Posting new content regularly keeps your audience engaged and improves your organic reach. Determine a posting schedule, and stick to it.
A useful social media advertising tip is to use a social media automation tool like SocialPilot to schedule your posts ahead of time.
2. Gather Data
Today’s social media trends rely on being relatable. To understand what your audience relates to, you’ll need to gather data. Social media should feel authentic but have concrete research.
Where can you gather data about your audience?
You can start with information from your website via Google Analytics. Take notice of when your audience is most active, the posts they engage with, and their demographics.
Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram’s integrated tools can also be a valuable source of data. You will need a business account to gain access to raw information about your engagement.
One social media advertising tip for gathering data is to use a social media analytics tool like Hootsuite. These tools can simplify managing your social media account by monitoring your brand’s engagement, clicks, and reach.
3. Figure Out How Your Audience Spends Their Time Online
It can be overwhelming to think about optimizing your business profile on every single social media channel.
Here’s the good news:
You don’t have to.
The best social media advertising tip is to focus on where most of your audience spends their time online.
Consider the kind of content that best serves your audience’s interests and your business. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest work well for visual content. Facebook and LinkedIn are better for longer information, and YouTube is ideal for videos.
Marketers should target different platforms based on audience demographics and age.
Be sure to take a look at the Pew Research Center’s 2021 demographics data of social media users.
4. Optimize Your Profile
One of the simplest ways to kickstart your social media presence is to fill out your profile completely.
A quick social media advertising tip for your profile is to create a business hashtag and include it in your bio so customers can find content relevant to your brand. You should also:
- Fill out all your information.
- Follow relevant accounts.
- Understand which hashtags are relevant to your business and which aren’t.
- Upload eye-catching and branded profile images.
- Send traffic from your website and newsletter to your social media posts.
5. Create Engaging Content
Social media can sometimes feel like a science, which is why it’s essential to remember that creating high-quality content is more important than obsessing over the exact time to post.
According to GoodFirms, 87.4% of people prefer to see photos on social media.
In addition to highly relevant, funny, and visual content, social media is perfect for interactive content.
6. Encourage Interaction
Building relationships with your audience is a major benefit of social media. Interaction on your content is also a positive sign to social media algorithms, which can help your posts get discovered organically.
To gain followers and increase your engagement, try an interactive post like a giveaway, a contest, or a poll. Don’t underestimate the power of the age-old social media advertising tip of ending your post with a question. This call to action (CTA) subtly prompts users to comment and boosts engagement.
Interaction is a powerful aspect of social media because it empowers you to learn more about your audience’s likes and helps you improve as a business.
Don’t forget to share followers’ content, especially when they mention or use your brand. That increases engagement and makes your brand more relatable.
7. Understand Your Advertising Options
Once you have a solid understanding of what works organically on your social media, it may make sense to dive into paid advertising options. Let’s take a look at several social networks:
Facebook Ads offers highly targeted advertising options, as it tracks 86% of audience data. Many businesses already have a Facebook page, so users are familiar with interacting with brands there.
Facebook advertising offers several types of ad formats. These include photos, videos, and carousels that appear in a Facebook user’s news feed. Messenger ads appear in a user’s messages app, and story ads appear alongside their friends’ stories.
You can target an audience based on several metrics like behavior, demographics, and interests. Facebook pioneered a method called lookalike audiences, which lets you target ads based on a known audience.
To advertise on Twitter, choose or create a tweet that you’d like the platform to show to people who aren’t following you. You can select an audience to target based on demographics, behavior, interests, device, or who they follow.
For a more hands-off option, Twitter Promote will advertise your tweets for a monthly fee.
Similar to Facebook, Instagram also offers highly targeted advertising, along with similar ad formats.
You can advertise photo posts, videos, carousels, and Instagram stories. Instagram also offers IGTV advertisements.
TikTok
Due to TikTok’s younger target audience, this platform is ideal for businesses with a target demographic of 24 and under.
TikTok’s ad offerings include video ads, branded hashtags, and brand filters.
TikTok also offers automated creative optimization, which tests combinations of your images, video, and copy to find the most effective ads for you. That type of A/B testing on a large scale can be very effective for your social media marketing strategy.
Another common form of social media ad is working with influencers, which involves paying a user to post about your product or service. Influencer marketing is becoming more popular, and the market size is expected to grow to $13.8 billion in 2021.
Final Thoughts: 6 Social Media Advertising Tips To Master Your Strategy
Social media advertising is an important digital marketing strategy for every business, no matter the size or industry. With these social media advertising tips, you can leverage your social presence.
If you’re new to the social media advertising landscape, start with just the platforms you need, and use insight about your business and audience to focus on the most effective strategies. Create quality content that engages your users, and select the best-performing content to create paid ads.
If you’re ready to start sending traffic back to your website, ensure you’re set up with reliable and fast website hosting from Bluehost.
FAQ on Social Media Advertising Tips
Define your audience’s demographics, interests, and behaviors. Use platform-specific targeting tools to tailor ads to their preferences. Regularly analyze results to refine and adjust your targeting strategy.
Successful campaigns include clear objectives, compelling visuals, concise copy, a strong call-to-action, and a landing page optimized for conversions. Align these elements with your audience’s needs and preferences.
Craft concise ad copy focusing on benefits, solutions, or emotions. Use power words, urgency, and a clear value proposition. Address your audience directly and include a compelling call-to-action.
Eye-catching images, short videos, carousel ads, and animated GIFs can engage users effectively. Choose visuals that resonate with your message and fit the platform’s specifications.
Different platforms cater to various audiences. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn each have strengths. Choose platforms aligning with your target audience’s demographics and interests.
Key metrics include click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, engagement rate, cost per click (CPC), and return on ad spend (ROAS). Analyze these metrics to gauge your ad campaign’s effectiveness.
Avoid irrelevant targeting, neglecting mobile optimization, overloading ads with text, and ignoring analytics. Regularly assess and adjust your strategy to enhance performance and avoid wasting resources.
2 Comments
Great tips! Consistency and targeting are key. Posting regularly keeps your audience engaged, and precise targeting ensures your ad money are well spent. Personalization and storytelling really resonate with our audience, and tracking metrics has helped us fine-tune our strategy.
Great tips for small businesses! Targeting the right audience and creating engaging content is key. Consistency is also crucial in social media advertising. Don’t forget to analyze metrics to refine your strategy.