By Natasha McGarrell
Facebook and Instagram are there to make money. Fact. So how do you do the same as a brand on social? You gotta spend money to make money. Here’s why and how you can stay ahead of the game.
It’s getting harder for organisations to reach their fans
Thanks to the sheer volume of content published online, getting your brand to appear in your customer’s social newsfeed is becoming increasingly difficult. In fact, only 2% of your brand’s audience sees your organic (non-sponsored) posts on Facebook, compared to in 2012 when it was 16%[i]. A combination of organic and paid social content is absolutely necessary to reach your audience. Social marketers have already cottoned-on to this fact, with spend on social ads doubling in the last two years. We’ll see this trend continue in 2017, with 80% of marketers saying that they have or will have invested in social ads by the end of the year[ii].
Social ads trump traditional display ads
Social ads are proving to be more successful than traditional web ads. On desktop, social ads are eight times more likely to attract click-throughs from potential customers. On mobile devices, that rises to nine times.[iii] On Instagram, 75% of users take action such as visiting a website after seeing an advertising post in their feed.[iv] Not only do social ads have a high click-through rate, but they are also more effective at targeting an audience due to the sheer amount of personal data available to advertisers on social media.
Social video advertising will be a key strategic force in 2017
Static images in social ads is so 2016. Social videos are where it’s at in 2017. Short, shareable videos hosted on social video platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are the preference over traditional video platforms including Vevo and YouTube. Facebook continues to be the go-to for social video advertising.
How to integrate social ads into a broader marketing strategy
Before spending thousands of dollars on social ads, it’s important to first set out a marketing strategy to ensure you’re getting bang for your buck. When you are building your comms strategy:
- Define specific business goals. Setting objectives will ensure that you’re staying on track with the campaign. Make these SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely).
- Learn about your audience. The more you know about your audience, the more you can tailor your content for them (and encourage sharing) and create effective targeting parameters. Ask yourself questions like: who are they? How do they find content? What motivates them?
- Build in digital. Think about how you can incorporate social ads into your digital marketing strategy to drive your business objectives. Identify the pros and cons of using different social channels and determine the one(s) that will be the most effective. Also, be realistic about resourcing available to manage these channels.
- Measure results and learn. Regularly measure performance across channels to determine trends and insights into how successful your digital marketing campaign is. Take these insights and learn what worked and what didn’t so you can apply these learnings mid-campaign and also for future campaigns.
[i] Source: Locowise
[ii] Source: Gartner Inc.
[iii] Source: AdRoll
[iv] Source: Locowise