How to Get Started with Social Media Advertising
Millions of people use at least one social media platform every day -- many of them use it for a few hours a day . . . ok, fine, actually it’s like a full-time job with people on it 8+ hours a day. If your brand is trying to reach new customers, social media platforms are THE place to get in front of eager audiences. Many brands already know this and have a solid social media management strategy in place.
But, you have to know it’s not enough to simply post from your social accounts.
If you want to break through the millions of pieces of content posted every day, and at the same time satisfy the platform algorithm to even show your content, you may need to incorporate social media advertising in your strategy.
The Benefits of Social Media Advertising
Paid social media advertising helps you cut through the noise on social media and get your content in front of the audiences most likely to be interested in your brand and messaging.
Here are a few reasons why we love the power of social media advertising.
While social media advertising helps to reach new customers, we’ve found it to also work extremely well at nurturing smaller audiences.
Compared to other advertising channels (like traditional print or television ads), social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram are very low cost.
You can use social media advertising to both increase brand recognition and learn about your audience.
Social media advertising offers powerful hyper-targeting tools that allow you to reach your ideal audience across many different placements and formats.
While not all advertising methods allow you to see the exact results of your efforts, social media advertising delivers clear results on how many people saw your ad and took action.
Related: When and How to Use Online Advertising to Amplify Your Marketing
How to Get Started with Social Media Advertising
The key to getting started with social media advertising is taking time to see how it fits into your larger marketing strategy. Don’t simply start boosting posts and expect to see meaningful results. Be intentional from the start.
1. Define your primary goal
Your social ad strategy and approach will depend on your goals so start by identifying your primary objective. What do you want to accomplish with social media advertising?
Brand awareness
Sales and revenue
Reputation management
Re-engage existing customers
2. Identify your target audience
Next, determine who you want to target and how you can group your audiences. Use social media pixels and targeting features to create custom audiences.
Create a custom audience by targeting people who are already engaged with your brand. Build the audience by uploading your email list and using pixels to target people who visit your website or interact with your social pages. These audiences don’t have to be huge. If you have at least 1,000 in this group, you are good to go.
Create a custom audience by targeting characteristics of your ideal audience, such as demographics, job titles, interests, etc. Since you are opening up to those who may not have heard of you yet, keep this group small, 50,000 or less.
3. Create your ad content
When you know what you want to accomplish and who you want to reach, it will be easier to create ad content that will attract your ideal audience and drive conversions toward your goal.
To create effective ad content, focus on branded graphics and images that showcase your key differentiators. Consider starting with existing content that is already performing well and using video to stand out. Video is quickly becoming a must-have marketing tool. Use it to create short branded videos that you can put in front of people scrolling through Instagram and Facebook stories and reels.
4. Set up your ads
When you launch social media ads, go through all setup options. As mentioned earlier, don’t just boost a post. Use the detailed settings that are available to you.
Tie your social media ad campaign to the goals outlined earlier in this process. Social media ad platforms ask for your goal so they can optimize the ads to help you reach your desired results.
Ensure your conversion path looks good. Don’t drive traffic to your homepage. Set up a more specific path from your ad, and optimize the entire process. From the landing page to the form, make sure each step of the journey is aligned with the ad content and messaging.
Don’t set ads to show everywhere. Facebook and Instagram will prompt you to post ads in a dozen or so different locations. Don’t go with the default. Choose the locations where you think your target audience is most likely to see it.
5. Measure and review your results
One of the best things about social media advertising is the detailed reporting. You can review clear results for each of your campaigns.
Track and review the marketing analytics that are produced through each of your campaigns. Assess what worked, what didn’t, and what you can adjust to future campaigns to make them more effective. Try new audiences, ad content, placements, and conversion paths to continue to test and see which ads produce the best results -- and then put more investment into promoting high-performing ads.
Related: Online Advertising - What's Right For Me?
Setting Realistic Social Media Advertising Expectations
When you go into social media advertising, it’s good to have realistic expectations about the results you can achieve. If you need to back into a daily/monthly spend and set expectations for results, look at benchmarks to give you an idea of what to expect.
Here are a few examples of Facebook advertising benchmarks.
Click through rate (CTR): 0.9%
Cost per click (CPC): $1.72
Conversion rate (CVR): 9.2%
To set a budget, consider your goals and look at benchmarks to determine what you will need to spend to reach your target goals.
For example, if you want to drive 100 new website visits from Facebook. Consider that the cost per click is $1.70. You will likely need to spend roughly $170 to drive 100 clicks. Knowing goals and benchmarks will help you determine what you need to spend and if your efforts are working effectively.
Related: How to Win at B2B Social Media: 5 Steps for Success
Ready to Start Social Media Advertising?
If your brand is ready to start social media advertising, SpotOn Digital is here to help. Our team of social media and digital marketing experts can help you with social media planning, management, and advertising to ensure your entire strategy is set up to work for your brand and support your other marketing efforts.
See how we can help you get the most out of social media advertising. Contact us today.