Today, social media advertising has revolutionized the way to reach prospects and customers. Through creative storytelling and persuasive copywriting, social media advertising can dramatically improve your sales.

We are social beings, and we love to know what is going on in the lives of others and what is happening around us. Two-thirds of U.S. adults confirmed that they get news on social media, and each second, 11 new users use social media for the first time.

As our lifestyles have evolved thanks to technological advancements like the internet and smartphone, our focus and activities to kill free time have shifted to using social media platforms and connecting with more people.

90% of marketers also accepted that social media advertising gives them more exposure. So, if you are planning to begin social media advertising for your business, this is the high time now.

What is Social Media Advertising All About?

Social media advertising is an activity through which you can target more people by promoting your product and showcasing your content in various formats like videos, images, texts, and articles.

Did you ever observe “sponsored” while checking out Instagram stories and scrolling to your Facebook wall?

The layout of social media platforms is meticulously designed that you seldom observe that you are reading a paid post and being targeted by a brand.

So as an advertiser, you have to pay to respective social media platforms to showcase your content to the relevant audience.

Almost all the leading social media platforms have their independent advertising platforms where businesses can advertise their products and make money.

The indigenously built social media advertising platforms will allow you to decide different types of objectives and target a specific audience to promote your content.

You can also choose how you would like to be charged. Major ways are:

Pay-per-click: Pay-per-click is also known as PPC that makes you charged based on the number of clicks you get on your ad.

Impression: Usually, it is also known as pay-per-thousand-impressions, where you need to pay the social media platform for every thousand impressions of your advertisement.

Cost-per-conversion: Through this bidding method, you will be charged per conversion that happened through your social media ad. Conversions could be lead generation, file download, schedule a call, subscribe to newsletters or buy products and services, etc.

You may ask that people go to social media platforms for recreational purposes. They want to chill, spend some time, gossip, and so on. So, why should I go to social media platforms to advertise my business?

To answer your questions, here are the top benefits of marketing your business on social media.

Why You Should Use Social Media Advertising 

 1.     Build Credibility for Your Brand

In the digital world, how do you trust organizations only with their website and email address? People need more information that can help them trust a brand. In fact, more than 84% of users said that they believe online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

You need to provide as many proofs as possible to establish trust in your potential buyers, and social media advertising can let you do that.

Your social media profiles will serve as identity proof where all the necessary details of your brand will be there.

So, whenever users come to your brand’s social media profiles, they can know more about your products and business. This will bring the trust and credibility for your brand.

Moreover, social media advertising will let you generate engagement in the form of likes, shares, comments, recommendations, etc. which work as social proof to your business.

These social proofs will attract more people to your business. For example, if someone would see that 1,000 people have reacted to your post, and 500 have commented, then the person would think your posts are legitimate you are a trusted brand because so many people have responded to your post.

Moreover, social media profiles will be ranked on search engine result pages. So, whenever someone searches for the name of your business, they will be given relevant social media profiles too.

2.     That’s Where Your Customers Are

More than 40% of millennials and 50% of generation Z believe that social media is the most relevant ad platform.

As shown in the image above by Oberlo,  you can anticipate the number of your targeted consumers who are using social media platforms.

According to Emarsys, 4.2 billion people, which is 48% of the total world population, use social media daily. That shows the power of social media and its impact on people’s lives.

You can entertain, educate, and pursue users to convert them as your customers. Social media advertising can provide you with a great platform to connect with your audience and establish a relationship.

3.     To Survive in The Competition

Many small to medium-sized businesses have understood the potential of social media advertising and have started investing in the platforms.

As per PRNewswire,  77% of U.S. small businesses are using social media advertising for their marketing purposes.

So, if you avoid social media from your advertising plan, you might be missing a lot of potential buyers, which equals profits.

Moreover, your ignorance about social media marketing will give other brands, who are utilizing the channel, grab more customers for their business.

4.     You get Complete Control of Advertising.

Social media advertising gives you granular control over how you wish to promote your business online.

You can choose who should see your ad. There are several parameters which will allow you to showcase your advertisement to a particular group of audiences and ensure dynamic communication.

You can choose your audience based on the below variables.

 

• Age group
• Location
• Time Zone
• Language
• Interest
• Demographics
• Online Behaviors

This is one of the most significant factors for choosing social media as your primary advertising platform. Because in traditional advertising, you can’t select these variables and decide who will see your ad.

In traditional advertising like newspaper advertisements, once you publish your ad, then you can only assume people would respond to your brand. There is no assurance that the right people would see your ad and buy your stuff.

5.     Social Media is Trending Marketing Channel

A couple of years back, social media has been ranked as the lowest cost advertisement option by more than 50% of B2B marketers. (Source)

It makes sense because you don’t have to pay any signup or registration fee to create your social media profiles. Plus, there is zero maintenance fee for keeping your social media profile live. Moreover, you get complete control over the advertisements as discussed above.

You can create and showcase excellent content on social media profiles just for free. If you are going for organic social media advertising, all you have to worry about is creating buzzworthy and valuable content that it is irresistible to your customers.

You only have to pay money if you are going for paid social media advertising.  Otherwise,  organic social media promotion is a great way to build a loyal following for your business.

6.     To Ensure Excellent Customer Experience

In a competitive world, customer experience plays a crucial role in generating more sales and profit. A slight recklessness in customer experience can ruin the brand image of your business, and the customer may also only share negative feedback on social media. This overall behavior will impact the image of your company.

However, you can also align your social media advertising activities to create a substantial customer experience.

You can leverage the power of direct messaging and custom targeting of the particular social media platform.

If you can give good User experience to your customers through social media,  71% of them are likely to recommend your brand to their friends and family.

This way, you will get the benefit of word-of-mouth marketing by managing robust social media advertising.

7.     You Can Reach Out to Mobile Users

Today, smartphones have become an integral part of our lifestyles. Nowadays more than 50% of web traffic generates from mobile devices. The average person spends 4 hours per day using mobile phones (source) and spends 76 minutes using social media apps.

There might be a possibility that your ideal customer is busy replying to an email for responding to a message on social media. To leverage these user behaviors, you need to use social media to target mobile users.

If you also would like to use social media for advertising your products, here are creative ways to do that.

How to Do Social Media Advertising?

·       Get the Basics Right

Before beginning a rigorous social media advertising for your business, you need to ensure that you have completed your brand’s social media profiles creation.

Don’t forget this step; otherwise, users won’t be able to verify that you are a genuine business and may not interact with the social media page at all.

Always add relevant images as your profile picture and cover image. While uploading a profile picture, try to use the logo.

Don’t put random images as your social media cover otherwise, and it will create a negative impression for your brand. Because the first thing that users would notice whenever they land on your page in the cover photo.

Ensure that you have a relevant social media handle as it would go everywhere across the internet.

Also, add the necessary details which are essential for your customers to know about your business. It could be an email address, working hours, website URL, team members’ name,  postal address, etc.

·       Don’t Act Like a Business

Except for LinkedIn, almost all the major social media platforms are created for entertainment purposes. So, when you are doing social media advertising for your business,  don’t write your ad copies like a sales pitch.

Your post should be fun yet informative so that users can easily connect with your message and interact with your post.

Just like you share content from your personal profile, treat your business’ social media pages the same way. This does not mean you keep uploading random stuff with ambiguous copy and relevant communication.

Share posts which are relevant to your business. You can still be entertaining while promoting your services. You can always be showcasing the features of your product while not sounding too salesy.

·       Maintain a Social Media Calendar

Brands that thrive on social media platforms usually published often compared to the businesses that don’t do well.

Based on your business and products, you must cover special days and occasions by sharing greetings post on social media.

To keep track of the upcoming days and festivals, you will need a robust social media calendar in place.

The schedule will keep you on track and streamline your creative development activities to ensure your page always have something fresh to offer to your audience.

·       Take Users in Buyer’s Journey

You must aspire to take your audience into a journey by making people aware of your brand and eventually converting them as your consumers.

Now I don’t mean that introduce your brand as being the best in the niche and share self-promoting social media posts straight away.

You need to go methodically by understanding the mindset of the people who visit your social media profiles.

Your social media audience can be categorized into three segments.

• People who have no idea about your brand and visiting your page for the first time.
• People who know a little bit of knowledge about your business and want to know more about what you do.
• People who are about to make the final decision of purchasing your product.

So, through social media advertising, your job is to take the audience into a journey by educating them about a product, telling them about the solutions that you provide, and eventually make them believe that your brand is the ideal choice that they are looking for.

·       Leverage Video if Possible

Social media is all about content.

Your advertising activity must focus on creating valuable content that helps, educates, entertains, and pursues your audience.

You can try different formats like video, image, text, polls, live streams, etc. to engage your audience through social media.

That said, among all the formats, video is a favorite type of content for most of the users, and  54% of consumers expect video content from brands and businesses.

So, using video is one of the trending social media advertising tips that you can apply in 2019. There are many video editors available for creating social media posts.

·       Engage with Your Audience

They say, “You sow what you reap.” If you want engagement on your social media profiles, you need to engage with your audience too.

After sharing a post, if a user comments on your page, try to reply to those comments.  In social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook, you can also show reactions like love, anger, happy, etc. to the comments and posts.

Use these reactions for effective communication and micro-interactions. You can also mention people in the comments to make your message more direct and dynamic.

You can also follow, and like other people’s content, which is similar to your niche.  This will develop a robust digital relationship with fellow businesses and brands.

·       Share User Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) impacts the most in buyers’ purchasing decisions. (Source)

If somebody is publishing a post that mentions your brand, it automatically works as a word-of-mouth marketing for your business. Such posts automatically build credibility and reputation for your business.

So, you can try social influencer marketing activities as a part of your social media advertising.

You can also share useful posts that you feel your users would love. Even though the posts are shared by others, you can re-share those posts as dedicated posts, stories, links, etc.

Conclusion

To become a successful social media advertiser, you must develop the learner’s attitude. Because sometimes your intuition and anticipation give positive results and sometimes, they don’t.

You will get to know the mindset and online behavior of your customers, and based on those insights and analysis, and you need to edit your upcoming campaigns.

So, the success and failure must not stop you from expanding your creativity and experimenting with new things in social media advertising.

Do let us know in the comments what do you think about social media advertising and how do you plan a social media campaign for your clients or business.

 

About the author: 

Abuzar Khan is a web developer, SEO expert, and the founder of SEO Basics. He has over 8 years of web development and SEO experience, working across various businesses.