Mastering Paid Social Media Advertising

In 2020, you really need to up your game when it comes to social media advertising. The techniques for targeting customers are everchanging, and your business is going to want to stay on step ahead of the competition if it’s going to succeed. Social media advertising is the fast track to getting more visitors clicking onto your site. However, many businesses are still guilty of only focusing on attracting visitors to their sites and forgetting about a key component: conversionA conversion is a desirable result on a website that leads to an action such as completing an order, filling out a form, or simply clicking on a link.. At the end of the day, it doesn’t necessarily matter how many new visitors your site attracts; if you cannot convert them into loyal customers, then you’re not helping your brand. You want to be seen as the go-to expert for your target customers, but to achieve this, you want to be targeting the customers who are ideal for your product or services. That’s why your business needs to start implementing paid social media advertising.

If you’re not familiar with this form of social media marketing and want to know how it can benefit your business, keep reading.

What is paid social media advertising?

In a nutshell, paid social media advertising is all about narrowing down your audience, so your brand only focuses on its target customers. The difference between paid social media advertising and organic advertising is that paid advertising will allow you to monitor who sees your content. While some companies might think that it is better to generate organic trafficOrganic search traffic (sometimes called natural or unpaid search) is the traffic that's driven to a website because of unpaid placement on a search engine results page., that is easier said than done; with so much information now accessible online, it can be hard for potential customers to navigate their way through and find the content that is relevant to their search.

Paid social media advertising is when you receive ads in your social media feed, with calls-to-action such as ‘like’ or ‘share.’ These ads are paid for by your business, but they will only generate conversion through clicks. For instance, Pay-per-click (PPC), also known as cost per click (CPC)CPC, or cost per click, is the amount of money an advertiser pays every time somebody clicks on their advertisement., is a form of paid social media advertising that many companies use to attract more visitors to their websites. They pay search engines, or site owners, only when a customer clicks on their ad (hence the name pay-per-click). PPC is a useful tool, as it is cost-effective and can measure online traffic. Social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, regularly use PPC.

Some of the social media platforms you can use paid advertising for include:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Snapchat
• Pinterest

To help customers and brands find their way to one another, companies are focussing more on social media advertising techniques. Just last year, 90.4% of millennials were active social media users, followed close behind by Gen X (77.5%) and even some baby boomers (48.2%), according to this source. This means that, realistically, if you are not jumping on board on the social media bandwagon, then you are going to get left behind. Traditional marketing methods aren’t going to be your friend moving forward, as they may generate a small percentage of customers, but nowhere near the amount that are going online.

How does paid social media advertising improve my business?

As mentioned before, paid social media advertising is a great cost-effective marketing method, so if you’re worried about staying within your budget, this is an advertising strategy that is worth testing out.

The advantages of using paid social media advertising include:

Provides valuable insight into your target audience

You will only pay if people click on your ads, so you aren’t losing out if they scroll past. And, remember, by paying for ads, you will be able to boost your targeting. For example, if you’re currently struggling to generate clicks, look at your target audience and take note of their hobbies and likes. If your demographic focuses on millennials, then it is worth paying for ads on Instagram. The ads on Instagram are all about visual content – since millennials are used to scrolling quickly through their newsfeed – so you’ll need something captivating to stop them in their tracks. This is why many online stores put their video ads on Instagram; if you have been scrolling through your feed, you will have come across numerous video ads, related to everything from fitness to beauty to fashion. In contrast, a platform like LinkedIn is more suited to business-based demographics, so the ad content needs to be marketed more towards B2B (business-to-business interactions).

Increases your website traffic

Once you have narrowed down your target audience, you can figure out new ways to boost your online traffic. You can take your business across the globe and turn it into an internationally recognised brand. Engage with your audience by making the content more relevant to them, enhance your site’s customer service and even open a Q&A forum. This will not only help you engage with customers more, but it will paint you in a positive light and can encourage your customers to market your business through word-of-mouth. All this will result in increased organic traffic to your site, and soon your company will be viewed as an expert in its field.

If you want to know more about how this social media marketing can help your brand, then it is worth reaching out to a paid social agency. Here at Click Intelligence, we have a team of experts on hand who can tailor-make the perfect paid social campaign for your company. They will be able to optimise your content to suit all types of social media platforms and ensure that your brand receives optimum exposure.

Using Facebook for paid social media advertising

According to a study in 2019, 86.8% of marketers in the US used Facebook for social media marketing. If you think that Facebook is the right platform for your brand, then you can learn more about how to market your ads with the help of a Facebook advertising agency.

As mentioned earlier, Facebook uses PPC techniques, and it is ideal for measuring data that can help you better understand your audience. On Facebook, you can see all the personal data of its users – if they decide to share it – like their age, gender, race, occupation, etc., which all goes towards market research. You will also be able to see their hobbies and interests and any content they may have shared. By using paid social media advertising on Facebook, you can create ads that are tailored to users and can be shared to all their Facebook friends. This generates a great ROI (Return on Investment).

After you experiment with paid advertising on Facebook, you can then move onto other platforms such as Twitter or Instagram.

Is paid social media advertising better than organic advertising?

It is not that paid advertising is necessarily better than organic advertising, but it is better for e-commerce business owners, and business owners wanting to expand their reach. This is because, if you run a small business or a business from home, you will struggle more to attract customers through means of traditional advertising. And if you are a small business just starting off, then you can’t really afford to wait for organic traffic to come to you; so, in this case, it really does pay to pay for advertising. Back in 2018, almost all small businesses (92%) planned to invest more time and money in social media

Paid social media advertising is also worthwhile if you are an established business seeking to expand your reach. Even if your company is doing reasonably well, you don’t want to grow complacent, so by conducting market research and finding new ways to appeal to a wider audience, you can generate more revenue. Paid social media advertising will also be able to help you keep track of your company’s data, so you can see which methods are working for your brand. You can use Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and other measuring tools.

Paid social media advertising trends to watch out for in 2020

Video Content

As mentioned before, Instagram is ripe with video ads, and this trend looks set to continue its dominance in 2020. Video content has slowly been gaining merit in the marketing world, as more people rely on visual content to engage with audiences. Instead of traditional TV adverts, video ads on platforms like Instagram and Facebook are proving to be strategic. Just look at the popularity of Instagram stories.

Chatbots

Businesses want to humanize their approach to customer interaction, and the best way to do this is with chatbots. Chatbots are perfect for customers looking for some human interaction and quick answers; they can resolve any customer issues and improve the overall customer experience on your business site.

Micro-influencers

A micro-influencer is someone who is considered an expert in their niche, and they can help promote your brand and increase customer awareness. By partnering up with a micro-influencer, you can pay them to promote your product/services to their followers.

It is good to thoroughly understand what goes into paid social media advertising before you dismiss it. The benefits far outweigh any concerns, so what are you waiting for? Contact our experts at Click Intelligence today to learn more about how they can create a bespoke social media campaign that will take your brand to the next level.