Social media marketing is a very odd thing. On one hand, social media is a medium that allows brands to dazzle and delight users in an effort to build trust, loyalty, and evangelism. On the other, it’s the most sophisticated aggregation of data for marketing purposes in human history. The dichotomy between “warm and fuzzy” and “tactical business value” is a hard thing for most brands to comprehend.
From our experience, the scale usually tips too far to one side or the other. When that happens, social media marketing often disappoints in terms of business results. Since I am a firm believer in using the fun aspect of social media to support tactically driving business, social media advertising fascinates me.
With the right strategy, social media advertising can help support almost any business goal for almost any industry. However, a few key elements must be correctly in place. While these items aren’t overly complicated, they are immensely important. Here are four simple elements of a successful social media advertising campaign:
Knowing who you want to reach with social media advertising is the first piece of the puzzle. Studies show that 76% of U.S. consumers have purchased a product they’ve seen in a brand’s social media content. With the right targeting, you can make sure you hit the right audience at the right time with the right message. There are a few key targeting parameters to be aware of when crafting a social media advertising campaign:
Unlocking the power of social media advertising begins with using the right targeting parameters. Be sure to research your target audience as much as possible when building out your targeting!
Once you know who you are going after, it's really important to think about what kind of social media advertising creative will make them stop scrolling in their feeds long enough to absorb your ad messaging. This is critical, since the average human attention span is roughly eight seconds.
Your creative will need to be intriguing, engaging, and enticing if you want users to stop browsing other content and spend some time with yours. Sounds easy right? WRONG! Getting social media ad creative right is tricky. Luckily, I am here to help 😉. Here are some social media advertising creative best practices:
When you layer the right social media ad creative onto the right social media ad targeting, magic happens. Be sure to test different images and videos to see exactly what performs the best! Video is all the rage right now, but how will you know if your target audience responds to it if you don’t test it?!
In talking about social media advertising, the discussion about landing pages is almost always forgotten. This is crazy considering the landing page is the place where the users you paid good money to target will convert. Without a proper landing page optimized for conversion, you are wasting time, money, and effort with your social media advertising.
Many brands think sending ad traffic to the home page is sufficient; however, doing so is not ideal. Here are a few tips to ensure your landing page complements your social media advertising campaign:
Now the fun part! What good is a social media advertising campaign if you don’t have proper tracking in place? We recommend making sure that your site and all relevant landing pages have Google Analytics set up, social pixels installed (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), and as many of the lower-funnel standard events and custom conversions established as make sense.
If this sounds like a foreign language, don’t worry. Implementation is tricky, but not impossible. By having all these tracking items set up, you will be able to see how many people interact with your social media ads, what they do on your landing pages, and if they end up converting on a subsequent visit. The more data, the better. Here are the recommended social media advertising key performance indicators (KPIs) you should be tracking:
Easy peasy, right? Running a social media advertising campaign the correct way takes experience, patience, and a willingness to undertake a certain amount of risk. However, when you are tracking the right data, you can almost always find your way to a winning campaign that drives business!
While the four elements outlined above are pretty straightforward, there are a lot of considerations to account for once you put these tips into action. If you get stuck on any aspect of managing a social media advertising campaign, the team at THAT Agency is always here to help. Contact us today!