Chantelle Evelyn
Chantelle Evelyn is a certified AdWords Specialist and Search Engine Marketer at Vovia. She was born in Barbados but moved to Calgary to experience all 4 seasons in one day. She enjoys running with her dog, getting out to the mountains, and her own jokes.
Simplifying Social Media Advertising
Should Paid Social Be a Part of My Plan?
28% of time spent online is Social Networking; nearly one third! This fact coupled with the perpetual decline in organic reach on social has made paid social media a necessary component to any online marketing strategy; however, a few considerations must be taken into account:
- Budget – Will you see a positive ROI?
- Audience – Do you have a refined target audience or are you targeting a broad set of individuals?
- Inventory – Do you have social content that can be used in advertising, or only static images that can be used for text ads?
- Objective – What do you really want to achieve?
Use Platforms with Purpose
When considering this, it is crucial that you know what each platform offers in order to find the right fit for your business. Today I will be providing a description of what, where, and why you would incorporate social media advertising into your marketing mix, but for a full list of the specific ad units available on each platform, please feel free to check out my last post.
67% of all internet users are on Facebook and Facebook knows A LOT about these users. This is mostly because its users provide their personal information willingly within their profile and through their behaviour on the platform. This personal information can then be applied as audience targeting for advertising including: age, gender, family status, likes, and interests or behaviours. Facebook is the leader in social media advertising and the advertising options and possibilities are leaps and bounds above the other social media platforms.
Advertising on Facebook can help you achieve lead generation and social engagement goals. There are many objective-based ad units that are likely to satisfy you marketing needs such as: clicks to website, conversions, page post engagement, page likes, and the list goes on. Bottom line, Facebook has very attractive social advertising options and advanced audience targeting that no other platform can currently match.
Twitter does not have as much information about its users as Faceboook does; however, the sheer volume of users can be motivation enough to be on this platform. There are more than 6 million Twitter users in Canada alone, and 84% of companies use Twitter to market their business (according to Statista 2015). Globally, Twitter has 284 million monthly active users and has the ability to target their advertising to users based on interests, location, language, gender and device type. This platform can also be used to achieve both your lead generation (website clicks or conversions, lead form completions, etc.) and social engagement goals (followers, tweet engagement, etc.).
LinkedIn is geared toward B2B advertising and boasts a network of over 300 Million working professionals. This allows you to target employees, job titles, seniority level, and more! The basic advertising options are limited to display and text type ads that are displayed on the right column (similar to Facebook right column ads) and sponsored content (similar to promoted posts on Facebook). On the other hand, the premium advertising product offers many more placements and more attractive ad specifications (more prominent placements and larger images). In order to take advantage of these ad units, you have to commit to a large amount of spend, which can be a barrier for using this platform. That said, if your target audience is found on LinkedIn, the investment could be more than worth it.
Pinterest & Instagram
Switching gears now, Pinterest and Instagram are completely different when compared to the other platforms mentioned previously. Both of these aesthetically pleasing platforms focus on lifestyle oriented imagery in a way that allows the customer to relate to the product and to envision themselves purchasing or interacting with the product. Advertising on these platforms is great for generating brand awareness and engagement. The main difference between these platforms and other social media advertising options is that you are not allowed to use a call-to-action or pricing in your ad units. Therefore, the approach is much more subtle and less “marketing and sales-centric”. The primary objective of both Pinterest and Instagram campaigns are to generate awareness for your brand. Wither of these options can provide great opportunities for your business if you are very active on social and have high quality, engaging images.
Socialize!
If any of these options sound like a good fit and can help you achieve your business goals, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We offer an array of social services from strategy formulation and to full on execution of social media advertising campaigns. Whether your goals are awareness, engagement, or lead generation, we want to set your business up for success!