Most of us can’t go a day (let alone a couple hours) without scrolling through our newsfeed of choice to see what our friends, family, colleagues or social influencers are up to. Because the popular social media platforms are free for users, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram rely on advertising for support. Based on feedback, most up-to-date platforms have seamlessly integrated ads into the user experience of the medium.
The beauty of social media is that almost everyone is connected to one site or another, regardless of job-title, age and interests. Out of the Internet’s 3.17 billion users, 2.3 billion are active social media users. Of these social media users, each person has an average of 5.54 social media accounts. From a 2016 Brandwatch report, its has found that there are 1.65 billion Facebook users, 400 million Instagram users, 320 million Twitter users, 300 million LinkedIn users and 100 million Pinterest users.
Depending on what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to, there are certain paid advertising opportunities that are better than others. Below is a quick overview of the five most common social media advertising platforms:
Facebook:
Facebook has a plethora of advertising options, depending on your desired call-to-action. Some of the most common types of ads encourage users to “like” a company’s page, visit their website, claim an offer, increase conversions on your website or raise attendance at an event. You set up your campaign based on what you are hoping to get out of it.
Facebook ads can specifically hone in on your target market, no matter how niche or how broad. With targeting options based on geography, gender, language, age, interest, demographics and behaviors, you can tap into all the data Facebook has stored on its users to promote your products or services to a custom audience tailored to your business. You can choose a daily budget or lifetime budget to best suite your advertising spend.
Facebook is also constantly upgrading its creative advertising features. Current trends includes getting the word out about your business through a video, and utilizing its carousel feature so users can swipe through multiple products or images within one ad.
Instagram:
To run an ad on Instagram, you’ll need a Facebook business page. Facebook acquired Instagram back in 2012, and has recently integrated an Instagram ad component to its Power Editor. When you create a Facebook photo ad, video ad or carousel ad, you will find that it also shows a preview of what your ad will look like on Instagram. When you publish your ad to show on Facebook, it will also post on Instagram.
Instagram uses the same targeting metrics as Facebook. When you select the location, demographics, interests and actions of your Facebook campaign, it will also target the same criteria on Instagram.
Twitter:
Twitter is a great advertising platform for business-to-consumer organizations and non-profits. If you regularly use Twitter for business, you understand how small your organic reach is per tweet. Because of the nature of Twitter, the more followers one has, the less likely they are to see your tweet. Promoted tweets sit at the top of the Twitter feed when someone first pulls it up.
To select your target audience, you can choose specific interests, geography, gender, device or users similar to your followers. You can even target specific keywords in people’s tweets. Set your budget and only pay when someone interacts with your post.
Creative for Twitter promoted tweets is the same as a regular tweet. Use your 140 characters creatively!
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is primarily a business-to-business organization platform. LinkedIn ads help you to reach the decision-making head honchos and is a great way to get directly in front of business owners or executive leaders. There are two types of ads: text ads and sponsored posts.
LinkedIn text ads sit on top of your newsfeed, above your profile information. They are easily overlooked. LinkedIn sponsored posts, however, show up right in one’s newsfeed gaining a lot of exposure and interaction.
LinkedIn sponsored posts are just like any other update on LinkedIn - consisting of text, photos and/or links. The genius lies in the precise targeting features that LinkedIn offers. The social media platform can specific target based on job title and function, industry, company size, seniority and more.
Pinterest:
Pinterest is a great advertising platform for retailers. When scrolling through your Pinterest feed, have you noticed the occasional post that seem to come to life? Similar to a flip book, Pinterest has invented this eye-catching way to capture its audience’s attention. Static promoted pins are also common for this medium.
Choose who sees your ad by compiling keywords that describe what you are selling. You can pick around 150 keywords for each promoted pin. You can also specify language, location, device and gender.
A majority of brands, both small and large, are utilizing social media to market their business. Paid advertising is a great way to engage with your target market and to ensure you stay top of mind when they are in need of your product or service. If you are interested in social media advertising, contact TRIO today!
