“Ad” Value to Your Social Media Marketing Strategy
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We have talked about the importance of a strong e-commerce presence and how to adapt your e-commerce strategy to the changing world around us. One important aspect of your e-commerce, and overall digital marketing strategy is social media advertising, or “paid ads”. It’s been estimated that around 4.55 BILLION people used social media in 2021 and that number is only expected to increase this year. Leveraging the power of social media advertising could make a significant difference to your business, client retention, and brand growth.
The average internet user has 5 social media accounts and spends about 2 hours per day across their social media presence.
After doing some research and with our own personal experiences with ads, here are the top benefits we have found to incorporating or increasing your paid ad strategy on social media.
1. Improves Brand Awareness
We love organic content! It’s amazing, and in a perfect world, you would be able to grow your brand organically month after month. But we’ve all heard the phrase, “it takes money to make money”. While this isn’t always true, it is a lot of the time, especially with a new business or unknown brand identity.
Social media advertising introduces your business to people who might not hear about it otherwise. It helps reach people who are potential customers and within the demographic of your client base, but aren’t following your brand just yet. This exposure to new people will usually bring new customers to your business. In fact, social media advertising helps bring 3x more non-customers to your platforms.
Bottom line: paid ads bring more awareness to your brand, and improves your reach and impressions on social media, creating the potential for a whole new customer base.
46% of consumers think brands that engage their audience are best in class on social. It’s important to explore new ways to bring people in.
2. Reach Target Audiences
Social media ads help you reach people who would be interested in your product or service. With a paid ad strategy, you are able to market directly to people in your target demographic. Using factors as general as age, gender and location, or as specific as interests and behaviours, social media ads will bring in quality leads and drive traffic from your client base to your business. The more specific you can get, the better results you will get from your ads.
55% of marketers use social data to understand their target audience.
3. Reduces Marketing Costs
When you think about the investment between mass marketing, or marketing to a target audience, targeted social media marketing will come out ahead every time. When you’re advertising directly to people who match the demographic you’re trying to reach, you’re only spending money talking to relevant people. You will see a more favourable ROI spending $500 on social media ads vs traditional marketing.
Read our blog post about staying relevant on social media
Another financial benefit of social media marketing is cost-effective A/B testing of your ads. It’s shocking to us - sometimes we create a visually flawless ad, and it doesn’t perform well. That’s why we always try to do an A/B test of ads. This means we’ll launch 2 ads with different creative options, demographic targeting and locations. After a day, you can see which ad is performing better. While Facebook prefers you not to stop an ad until it has run for 3-5 days, you can shut it off early if the cost-per-click is running too high. When we launch A/B testing, it’s a low-cost way of giving your ad the best chance to reach relevant audiences and bring you conversions through social media.
Did you know it can take 6-8 times for someone to see your ad before it creates a conversion?
The Possibilities Are Endless
With frequent updates and new features on Social Media platforms PLUS the emerging popularity of new platforms for businesses, the possibilities for social media advertising are virtually limitless. Facebook and Instagram (the Metaverse) still remain the most popular platforms for social media advertising. But, with the rising popularity of businesses posting on TikTok and Pinterest, it’s no wonder that these are becoming important social media platforms to leverage for advertising.
In fact, since we’re always learning so we can provide the best service to our clients, our team has been taking extensive training on TikTok and Pinterest advertising. We want to support you by providing the best and most well-rounded ad strategy, no matter which social media platforms you’re on.
91% of retail brands use at least 2 social media platforms to communicate and market to their consumers.
Let’s Grow Together
If you’re looking for new ways to grow your business in 2022, it could be time to look at your social media advertising strategy. Get in touch with us today at hello@thesmallsocial.com to book a strategy call. Let us support your growth online this year!
