Photo by George Pagan III on Unsplash
Social advertising continues to grow at an accelerating rate. As recently as 2015, traditional advertising was still king. Big companies spent twice as much on TV, radio, and print as they did on social advertising.
However, in 2019, for the first time ever, social advertising has skyrocketed all over the world and is expected to propel higher than traditional channels.
As of the summer of 2016, there were 2.13 billion active social media users. Over 1 million new users are joining social media networks each day. That works out to 12 social media users each second. With 91% of retail brands engaging customers on at least two social media platforms.
Thus, it is clearly impossible to ignore the massive growth and impact of people-based media as more consumers have adopted the use of tablets and smartphones. It is clearly evident that consumers are digitally connected unlike any other time in the history of advertising.
Social advertising is a must if you’re looking to reach a new, targeted audience — fast.
Social advertising, in a nutshell, is the process of creating and deploying clickable ads to reach specific audiences through social media platforms, messaging apps, news feeds, and even outside apps and websites.
Social advertising is a paid version of promoting your content, may it be, an image, a video or a blog post.
Companies use social advertising campaigns to build brand awareness, generate leads, and/or capture sales revenue.
Since the start of 2019, spending on social advertising has already topped $100 billion - a 37% increase over this time last year. And it is expected to grow at an annual rate of 25%.
Unlike with organic form of promotion, social advertising has been shown to generate higher and more successful leads and conversion mostly due to its accuracy.
The powerful thing about using social media advertising is they store knowledge about all of their users, though nothing really specific as to knowing their pin numbers in their bank accounts.
Another thing is, social advertising is really accessible to all types of businesses, may it be a start up business, or a billion dollar business.
Social media advertising provides you the opportunity to drill down into the exact customer base that you currently have and produce tailored promotions specifically for them.
The production of totally customized and explicit promotions improves your chances of seeing victorious results and therefore moves you closer to your ultimate objectives.
Social media advertising is utilized when a particular message needs to be pushed out in a timely manner.
So, if you have a seasonal promotion running or a limited edition item out of stock, paid posts help to ensure that this information is at the forefront of your follower’s minds at your chosen time.
For those businesses looking to retarget past customers or even those looking to find similar users to their own customers, social ads offer the ability to capture groups of audiences in a way that traditional advertising could not.
In this manner, social advertising can be highly beneficial to all aspects of a business – from content strategy through conversion rate.
People often interchange social media marketing for social advertising. Though they are related and social advertising is also a form of marketing, social media advertising actually yields greater and better results when it comes to reaching the right audience.
Social media advertising is any action you take on social media that is paid while social media marketing is simply any social media action you take that is unpaid.
Social advertising is an extension of social media marketing and works as an extra yet the best tool to help marketers better reach their real customers. It is a much faster way to spread brand awareness and promote their products.
Although, of course, social advertising cannot and should not exist without social media advertising as well. They both go hand in hand. It would be great to incorporate both into your overall brand marketing strategy.
Depending on your social advertising goals, it would certainly generate website traffic, drive conversions, get subscriptions or posts shares and clicks.
Social advertising is particularly effective at driving engagement and conversions because social media platforms offer a treasure trove of highly specific and actionable user data.
Audiences can be defined based on past behavior, purchase history, and/or how well users match up with target persona demographics and interests.
Targeted audiences may be completely unfamiliar with the brand and/or product being advertised. But the message has a good chance of resonating and getting an immediate response in a data-rich and highly personalized social media environment.
By virtue of how and where social advertising appears, and how precisely it’s targeted, it’s less likely to trigger people’s natural resistance to sales. It’s also likelier to grab users’ attention, as they’re more actively engaged on social media platforms than with traditional channels.
Responding to social ads feels as natural as it is easy as signups, downloads, and purchases are just a click away.
For all these reasons, social advertising offers one of the highest conversion rates of any marketing medium.
Moreover, although the cost of acquiring new customers through social advertising is relatively low, loyal repeat customers tend to spend more than new customers. It not only keeps brands top of mind for past buyers but also reaffirms their choices and turns them into brand ambassadors who are eager to bring friends and family on board.
Social media permeates daily life. It’s where users keep up with friends, interests, and events on a daily basis. Thus, with social advertising, it is also easier to keep up with the right customers. You can immediately interact with your audiences and answer their queries related to the product.
On top of that, there are other benefits, perhaps even more important ones, that make social advertising a uniquely valuable investment.
A successful social advertising campaign has three pillars, a well-defined strategy, detailed planning, and streamlined execution.
Following the best practices for every campaign phase will not only promote brand awareness and bring traffic to your page or website but also bring faster return of investment.
The easiest path to achieving business goals while conserving advertising dollars is to partner with experts who can bolster internal marketing teams with world-class creative and campaign support.
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