Struggling to make a name for yourself in the social media world with organic content? No matter how much time and effort you invest in growing your followers on social media platforms, you might feel stuck. Moreover, your engagement may be going down by the day. This is where social media advertising comes in!
Smart business owners know that it’s almost impossible to expand their reach with organic posts alone. The competition is too tough for that now. You should be willing to invest some money to strengthen your digital marketing strategy.
Advertising your business on social media is an excellent way to reach your target audience where they are and enjoy remarkable returns on investment. To make things easier for you, we have prepared this beginner’s guide on social media advertising.
What You Need Before Getting Started with Social Media Advertising
Ready to run paid social media ads and take your business to the next level?
Let’s discover what you’ll need before embarking on this journey.
Facebook Pixel
First and foremost, you need a Facebook pixel on your website. A pixel is a piece of code that brings visitors back to your website or attracts users who may be interested in buying your products or services. In simple words, it helps you generate quality leads.
Additionally, a Facebook pixel allows you to reach potential customers via social media ads. It connects you with visitors who added items to their carts, clicked on a specific product page, or checked out when browsing through your website.
Moreover, a pixel helps you create a unique audience using your website traffic. This bridges the gap between your business and people with similar ages, locations, and interests.
Target Audience
The best thing about social media advertising is that you can create a custom audience for each platform. You can benefit from the particular demographics and interests a channel has access to when defining your target audience. This is the ultimate way to maximize the value of your paid campaigns.
On Facebook, you can go to “Facebook Ads Manager” to create a series of custom-tailored audiences for different promotional campaigns. These audiences can be based on your website visitors or promotional email lists.
To make the most of your social media ads, you must conduct thorough research to determine the ideal age and interests of prospects. The more effort you put in when creating a target audience, the more you’ll benefit from your ad spend.
A Convincing Ad Messaging
To win at social media advertising, you need to ensure that each ad has a purpose. Your intent behind the campaigns should be clear. Modern-day customers appreciate and reward honesty, transparency, and straightforwardness.
Furthermore, ad messaging should be different for all social media platforms. You should decide which ads will hit the chords with your Facebook and Instagram audience and which ones are geared more towards a LinkedIn group.
Social ads are a powerful tool for promoting a new product, announcing an exciting event or promotion, and sharing an important update or a free resource. You get endless options to showcase your creativity and passion.
That being said, make sure your ad messaging is easy to understand for everyone. This includes your existing customers as well as people who don’t know anything about your brand. Your ads are supposed to educate them and improve brand awareness.
An Irresistible Call-to-Action (CTA)
No paid social media advertising campaign is complete without a kickass CTA. You can’t expect your ads to perform well and gain traction if you don’t include a strong and convincing CTA. The idea is to give your prospects something to take the desired action.
Your CTA will vary from campaign to campaign. Sometimes, it may just be a simple sentence. Other times, you can go for a CTA button with a clickable link or a well-executed graphic. To generate a greater return on investment, always go with something clear, concise, and direct.
Focus on what you want your prospects to see. Also, make sure there are no distractions.
Landing Page
Once you have a solid CTA in mind for your social media advertising campaign, go through your website to see if there’s a web page that aligns with your ad messaging.
For example, the CTA invites people to sign up for your weekly newsletter with the promise of sending them a free e-book full of insider tips and market insights. In this case, you should look for a web page with a quick form for visitors to subscribe to the newsletter.
On the other hand, if you want to share a link to your product page, make sure the process is simple and your website is easy to navigate. In case you want prospects to get in touch with your team for additional information on your services, make sure your contact page is all set to offer an exceptional user experience.
Think your website needs a total upgrade?
If you can afford it, that’s great!
If not, you can set yourself up for success by creating a new landing page for the social media ads. On this page, you can include all the valuable information you want your target audience to have about your brand. Again, make sure taking action is super easy and convenient for them!
Visuals, Visuals, Visuals
While CTAs are a critical component of a successful social media advertising strategy, you need eye-catching visuals to grab the attention of your target audience in the first place. You must know that videos rule the world of organic content marketing.
For paid social media ad campaigns, carousel ads are the name of the game!
These ads allow you to post a series of photos to attract prospects and get them hooked on your ad messaging. If you want to announce a special promotion or introduce a new product or service, static image ads are your best bet.
Ready, Set, Go!
Ready to move up the ladder of digital marketing?
Social media advertising will open the doors to opportunities for your business. If you do it right, you’ll be able to increase the quality and quantity of customers in no time. It’s time to leverage your creativity and imagination to set your brand apart in the crowded industry.
