Before you start your social media campaign, take a minute to develop an advertising strategy to make sure you get the most from your social media accounts!
It’s estimated that social media advertising will grow up to 48 million in investments by 2021. The U.S. alone spends more than 15 million in social media ads every year.
And it’s no surprise to see why more and more marketers are churning out huge amounts on social media. Social media advertising has seen the growth of companies and has proved to be an effective digital marketing tool when it comes to customer retention.
But even with its success, 38 percent of marketers are still not sure if they can make substantial ROI from social media advertising. However, for a positive ROI, you need a successful advertising strategy.
Use the tips below to realize the benefits of social media for your business.
1. Identify Your Campaign Objectives
You first need to ask yourself what goals you seek to achieve with your social media advertisements. There are hundreds of marketing strategies to choose from, thus, ensure you find a strategy that not only aligns to your vision, but also gives you consistent sales.
Setting marketing goals will allow you to see the viability of a particular marketing strategy. Targets like web referrals, leads generated, and conversion rates will help you know whether you’re making real value.
2. Research on Your Audience
Knowing your audience will help you create content that users comment on, like, or share. To do this, you need to create a buyer/audience persona to help you visualize on the content to deliver to them. You can use an email autoresponder to help you segment your target audience.
Once you’ve identified your target audience, look for the most favorable social media platform to deliver your message.
3. Select Your Social Platform
Currently, there are six popular social media channels where you can utilize proven social media advertising strategies to generate positive ROI.
This platform is excellent for generating leads. With over 2 billion active users, its social reach and awareness make it perfect for both B2B and B2C transactions. Nonetheless, it’s advisable to keep ad testing every two weeks and post different types of content to keep your audience interested.
This platform will help you grow awareness and drive clicks to your website. It provides several useful advertising options that allow your brand to amass new followers for your products or services.
What’s more, it enables you to reach your followers for little or no money.
This is also an ideal channel to use when seeking to increase web traffic sales. If you can manage to display engaging content, you’ll undoubtedly get high B2B and B2C conversions.
When using Instagram, hashtags and photos are more significant. Thus, ensure to take advantage of that in order to attract and connect with your audience.
This online platform can help you generate immediate sales for your products and services. There’s usually high engagement on the platform that helps users find and buy useful and original products.
It’s recommended to be creative with your posts and keen on linking pins so that you can adequately turn clicks to sales.
Snapchat
It works best for B2C transactions, especially for the younger audience because of its pure engagement metrics. The sponsored lenses and filters allow sellers to have fun, engage, and promote products.
If you want to spread awareness while delivering visibility, Snapchat ads will certainly come in handy.
LinkedIn’s specific demographic makes it more ideal for B2B transactions. Nonetheless, your LinkedIn ads will help you generate leads, visibility, and traffic to your web pages via thought-provoking and authoritative content.
4. Carry Out a Social Media Audit
It’s essential to examine your efforts so that you can identify where you need to improve. Try conducting a social media advertising audit so that it can give you a clear picture of the account’s purpose and if it’s worth keeping.
Ask yourself questions like:
Is everything working as planned?
Is your audience connecting with you on social media ads?
How does your social media presence compare to that of your competitors?
Is your audience using your preferred platform, and if so, how are they using it?
These questions will help keep your strategy focused and on track with your goal.
5. Blend in with the Organic Content
One of the best advertising strategies to use when creating content is linking it to your timelines, feeds, and walls on different platforms.
People who have seen an ad for too long may unfollow it, so you need to avoid being too spammy. To do this, ensure you learn about the different ad formats so that you can know how to use them with your organic content.
It’s also advisable to understand the pros and cons of each ad format before posting.
6. Have a Social Media Content Calendar
A social media calendar will help you know the dates, times, and what to post on each channel. It will also assist you in scheduling your message in advance rather than constantly posting bland posts.
You can try using the posting calendars below:
The 80-20 Rule
In this rule, 80 percent of your content goes into informing, entertaining, and educating your audience. The 20 percent left directly promotes your brand.
The Rule of Thirds
Here, a third of your content converts readers, generates profit, and promotes business. Another third shares stories and ideas from like-minded companies in the industry. The final third is for making personal interactions with your users.
7. Continually Test and Evaluate
Once data starts flowing in, use it to re-evaluate your strategy. Use the information to test different approaches, campaigns, and posts against one another.
Alternatively, you can use surveys to ask your website visitors and your followers about their experience with your social media engagement, products, and services.
Always make sure to deliver on what you gather from them.
Get an Advertising Strategy That Works for You
In the current online social sphere, things are changing fast. Therefore, ensure that your advertising strategy is a living document that you continuously review and adjust as needed.
Refer to it as often as possible to keep track of your performance. Don’t forget to make necessary changes so that they can reflect your new goals and plans.
If you need help with your social media advertising strategy, don’t hesitate to contact us at Trigger Media Digital. We’ll help create a customized plan that’ll reach your online target online and improve your online presence.
