Social media is used in advertising through paid social media actions. The role of social media advertising is integral for to your business strategy. Social media advertising offers several benefits, including raising awareness for your brand, obtaining a better understanding of your audience, boosting results and revealing new audiences and lead opportunities.
Social media advertising includes running paid ads on various social media platforms. These ads can include banner ads, native ads and efforts such as boosting campaigns and specific posts. Most often, social media ads are charged on a “pay-per-click” or “cost per impression” basis. The main advantage to using social media in advertising is that it gets your brand, products and services in front of an audience who is looking for what you offer right now. Social media marketing is often used when you want to reach a new audience quickly. This strategy ultimately fosters sales generation, lead generation and engagement as an effective way to target your audience.
When developing a social media advertising strategy, think about your desired outcomes. For example, do you want impressions or engagement? Focusing on one over the other can help keep your budget under control. While both impressions and engagement campaigns are valuable to your marketing efforts, it is important to choose the one that aligns with your business goals so that your investment generates a return. When creating the ads, identify what messaging is most relevant to your business goals to ensure that the ads you are paying for are effective.
What are the different types of ads?
Social Media advertising can range from a variety of types of ads. The type of ad you implement for your campaign will depend on several factors including your intended audience, your advertising goals and guidelines/restrictions of your chosen platform.
Advertising on social media can be a direct and effective way to reach the audience you want. Using the right ads for your target audience is extremely important to achieving your advertising goals. All the major social media platforms offer advertising, but that doesn’t mean you should use all of them. Choose based on your social media advertising strategy and targeted audience. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter are among the most popular apps for social media advertising. Each of these apps offers a range of different ad styles that are sure to get your message across.
While these efforts may grow your audience, it is important to choose the best style of ad for your goals. When choosing which platform to focus your brand’s advertising on, research which networks perform well organically for your brand. Is there a platform that naturally reaches users and fans? Go for that one first when beginning to advertise on social media. Once you have a sense of which social networks are right for your goals, decide what style ads you want to use.
Each social media ad must have a goal. Typical goals include generating awareness, consideration and conversion.
Awareness focuses on building brand awareness and increasing reach,.
Consideration aims to send traffic to your website, increase engagement and generate leads.
Conversion is used to increase purchase leads via your app or site and drive traffic to your website.
Once your overarching advertising goal is determined, the next step is to start creating the ads in different formats. Each social media network offers many ways to advertise. For example, Facebook offers video ads, story ads, carousel ads, banner and messenger ads. All of these ad styles are effective. When setting up your ad, take note of the suggested creative sizes and customization options offered on the platform in order to optimize results and reach your target audience.
Who uses social media marketing?
Social media marketing is being utilized across industries, with its role in creating successful brands more important than ever. Since 2017, the industry has grown twenty percent per year, meaning there has been at least a one hundred percent growth in the last five years –– in social media alone. With the continuous growth and expansion of social media advertising, it is now the quickest and most effective way to reach your target audience and achieve your goals.
Some of the largest, most successful brands are those that are aggressive in social media advertising. Nike, GoPro, Wayfair, AirBnB are examples of consumer brands that focus heavily on social media advertising. Their consistent social media efforts and strategy help maintain their position among the most successful brands in their industries. In the construction industry, construction and equipment rental companies also do a great job of utilizing social media advertising.
Now is the time to start or expand your social media advertising strategy.
AOE has years of experience in different types of social media marketing with a variety of different clients. We believe that social media advertising is an important aspect of a marketing strategy and we are here to help you and your goals. Contact us today to get started on expanding your reach and your target audience!
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