Social media advertising is an effective way of getting your business to reach a new, targeted audience—fast.
Social networks utilise user information to target people with relevant advertisements based on interactions within a specific platform.
It’s important to understand all of the options that are out there and how to use them so that your advertisements are effective.
In this blog, we cover the best practices for social media advertising on some of the most popular platforms:
With more than 2.2 billion monthly users, Facebook provides your business with a huge opportunity to virtually reach anyone and everyone.
There are a variety of different targeted advertisements that you can create on the social media platform. These include image ads, video ads, poll ads, carousel ads, and many more.
The more targeted you become on Facebook, the better your chance of capturing your share of those billions of monthly users.
How to set up a Facebook ad:
- Set up your Facebook business account
- Choose your marketing objectives
- Determine your budget and schedule
- Decide which advertisement format you would like to use
- Know who your target audience is
- Create your ad
- Track and measure your results in the Facebook ad manager
Today, Instagram has over 1 billion global users, meaning advertisements on the social media platform are a powerful tool when getting your brand’s message across to your audience.
Instagram advertising is used to grow brand exposure, website traffic and generate new leads. With it being a visual platform by-nature, ads are limited to be in the form of images, a set of images, or a video.
This also means that you need to choose your text wisely to connect with your audience and motivate them to click your CTA button.
In comparison to Facebook, Instagram has a younger audience on average as recent demographics indicate that users of the site are predominantly under the age of 34. This is important to note when deciding if advertising on instagram is right for your business.
How to advertise on Instagram:
- Set ads up directly in the Instagram app or alternatively, head to Facebook Ads Manager
- Set your marketing objective
- Configure your target audience
- Set your budget and schedule
- Choose your advertisement format
- Create your promotion
- Monitor performance in Facebook Ads Manager
If B2B is your audience rather than B2C then LinkedIn may be the most effective social media advertising pounds you can spend.
LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager lets you set a budget, select goals (clicks vs. impressions), and have complete control over your campaign’s timeline.
The most commonly used objectives used in LinkedIn advertising are lead generation and job applications.
Based on the objective you choose when creating an advertisement on LinkedIn, you’ll be given different ad types to explore.
These include: sponsored content, message ads, dynamic ads single image ads, video ads, carousel image ads or text ads.
How to advertise on LinkedIn:
- Set up a Campaign Manager account.
- Select your targeting criteria
- Choose your ad format
- Set your budget and schedule
- Measure and optimise your campaign in the Campaign Manager.
With over 300 million monthly users, Twitter offers a plethora of advertising options.
If you’re particularly active organically on this social platform, Twitter ads can help you increase your reach, drive more brand awareness and boost engagement with your audience.
Considering there are many simple Twitter ad formats and no minimum advertising budget, now is a great time to consider running your first Twitter ad.
With only 280 characters, make sure to create copy that is clear and concise. This also applies to your CTA – which should be straight-forward and engaging to ensure click-throughs.
How to advertise on Twitter:
- Create a Twitter ads account
- Choose your objective
- Set up your ad group
- Target your audience
- Choose where you want your ad to appear
- Launch your campaign
Using Pinterest for your business is useful when showcasing products and services. This is because Pinterest often acts as an information resource for so many users preparing to make a purchase.
There are over 200 million monthly Pinterest users worldwide, all seeking and sharing helpful, inspiring ideas on the platform.
Pinterest ads offer marketers the chance to earn awareness and consideration from Pinterest’s 250 million users. What’s more 98 percent of Pinners say they’ve tried new things they found on Pinterest so it’s the ideal space to target new audiences.
Types of pinterest ads include: promoted pins, one-tap pins, promoted carousels, promoted video pins and buyable pins.
How to advertise on Pinterest:
- Get a business account.
- Install the Pinterest tag – this allows you to track the actions people take on your website after seeing your Pinterest ads.
- Choose your goal
- Determine your budget
- Create an ad group
- Select your target audience
- Add interest and keywords to your ad
- Pick your promoted pins
- Monitor your ad performance
TikTok
TikTok is the fastest growing social media platform with more than 2 billion downloads to date.
The social media platform has a young audience with 67% of users reportedly being under the age of 29.
TikTok advertising is structured in three layers: ad campaigns, ad groups, and ads.
How to advertise on TikTok:
- Create a business account
- Name your campaign and budget
- Set your objectives
- Select an ad group
- Create your TikTok ads – this is the part where you have to create your video. But fear not, TikTok is also a great platform for user-generated content
- Set up billing and payment
We hope that this blog has provided you with some useful knowledge and tips so that you feel prepared to start advertising your business on social media.
Keep an eye on our blog for more useful guidance to maximise your content marketing.