Has your organic content been less effective lately? You’re not alone. A study by BuzzSumo found that brand posts on Facebook have declined by 20% since January 2017. That’s why lots of businesses are now jumping on the social media sponsored post bandwagon. Advertising can be costly, so make sure you approach it the right way by following our step-by-step guide.
Developing a social media advertising strategy
Identify your objectives
What’s the aim of your social media advertising campaign? Don’t just go in blindly. Think about what you want to get out of it. Common objectives include increasing traffic back to your website, reaching more customers, generating more engagement and increasing your sales. It helps to brainstorm your objectives before you begin anything.
Select a social platform
Once you’ve got a clear objective, your next step is to choose the right social media platform for your advertising campaign and to build your brand. at each platform and consider its primary demographic, its market performance, how its users interact with content, how your competitors are using the platform and its advertising format. For example, Instagram is highly visual, which is great for retail businesses that want to showcase their products.
Each platform has a unique offering. Some are perfect for your business, others aren’t. It’s best to choose the 2 platforms that really align with your objectives and the representation of your business.
Choose an ad format
It’s time to choose the type of content you want to advertise on your platform. But wait; there are different kinds of ads to choose from, and not all of them will work for you. So how do you pick? Do some research into the different ads on offer. Take our previous example of Instagram. Due to its highly visual nature, using text ads won’t get your business any exposure because it doesn’t fit the organic content on Instagram.
Take your time to evaluate each advertising format before committing to one.
Develop a marketing funnel
A marketing funnel refers to the way you get ad users to purchase from your business. Begin by deciding how you’ll attract audiences.
After this, consider what type of customers they are. Are they a new or returning customers? Give your ads more relevancy by individually retargeting each audience group. The last thing you want is for your ads to be spammy.
Once this is done, your final goal is to convert your audience with sales-driven content. Just note that your content must be catered to users based on their position in the funnel.
Optimise your bidding
If you’ve already come this far, it’d be a waste to work with low bids. So, adjust your bidding strategy to be competitive yet cost-efficient. There’s a bidding structure in place to give every marketer a chance to be seen. This process is a little complex, so we suggest you look into Google Help to get some background. Basically, to come up with a smart bidding strategy that’ll suit your aims and budget.
Experiment with content
One of the worst things you can do is advertise stale content. Keep changing your advertisements to attract new audiences and retarget previous customers. You can do this by evaluating the results of using different words or images. Don’t be afraid to experiment. The best marketers are constantly testing new methods to see what works best for them.
The most important thing is to focus on the advertising strategy that you do best. Identify your strengths and hone in on them. There’s no one strategy that caters for every business, so it’s up to you to personalise your marketing and make it work for you.
