SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING

 

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING SUPPORTS AN ORGANISATION'S DIGITAL MARKETING EFFORTS

Why Social media advertising?

Social media advertising is a form of digital advertising where businesses paid ads to target audiences using social media platforms.

The organic search of social media platforms is in decline. Long gone are the days when companies published a post on Social media, for example Facebook and all the fans of the brand page saw it. The average reach of an organic post on a Facebook page is now around 5.20%. This means that about one in 20 fans see the page's non-sponsored content (Katie Sehl, 2021).

If we think that the goal of any business is to keep its customers and to have new ones, it is "mandatory" to reach the right people (targeted customers), especially on social media when most people spend a lot of time, and then start making paid campaigns.

We also consider the expenditure of time and economic resources that companies support for the content-creation and to elaborate the right message for customers. If no one sees these contents, what's the point?

Choose the right social media platform for advertising

Before starting to launch paid social campaigns, as we can see in the screenshot below, we have to consider that every social media has its characteristics and its potential audience. For a b2c business for example could be better to start creating Facebook ads campaigns considering it has the highest number of monthly active users, 2958 million (Statista, 2023). For a b2b business, it is preferred to use LinkedIn to reach the target audience.

Fig. 1: Comparing different Social Media marketing platforms (WordSteam, n.d.)

Audience and Goals in social media advertising

Imagine for a company how can be helpful to show advertising (example: a photo of a new product available on the website, video, etc…) to thousands of people per day, in almost every Country of the world you want. A company can grow in a very fast way if use this service in the right way and targets correctly.

Of course, this could be expensive, normally in the social media campaigns platform there are different pay criteria you can choose from, most common as PPC (pay per click), pay per impression, etc…

Audience and goals are fundamental aspects to identify before to starting a social paid campaign. For example, if the goal is to increase brand awareness, it is suggested to reach as people as possible (mass marketing audiences), if my goal is to achieve sales it is better to focus target my audience to reach people more likely to buy. (Staff Writer, 2023)

The effectiveness of paid social media advertising is often related to how reasoned they are, in according to Facebook there is no one universal approach (Facebook help, n.d.)

Social media advertising KPI

Aimed to measure the effectiveness of each strategy it is necessary to establish which reference KPIs businesses are interested in considering. For example, if a company promotes some posts with the goal of creating a stronger community, the KPI (key performance indicators) will be: shares, new followers, mentions, likes, and retweets. Conversions are always important but in this case they would be second place.

Finally, it’s not only strategy but it is suggested to be prepared on how social media advertising tools work to make the best choices and avoid wasting money.

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWER ABOUT FACEBOOK ADVERTISING

What key objectives can be satisfied with Facebook advertising?

To define your campaign type you have to choose which Facebook campaign objective can satisfy your goal

AWARENESS: if you aim to increase notoriety this is the objective to select. This goal helps you reach as many people as possible who might remember your ad.

For example, if your company has changed its name and you want to inform all your fan page users about that

TRAFFIC: if you aim to drive traffic to a destination like a website/app or Facebook or Instagram shop.

For example when you are promoting a new product available on the website, or driving traffic to a landing page with your business contacts.

ENGAGEMENT: When your aim is to find potential customers interested take some action like sending you a message or an information request.

For example, if you are searching for people more likely to start a messenger conversation, this type of objective will work to reach them

LEADS: If you aim to obtain as much contact information as you can about your potential customers, or customers’ subscriptions.

For example if you want to reach people more likely to share personal information or to subscribe to a newsletter, this objective will help you to find the right people.

APP PROMOTIONS: if you aim to increase your app download or take an action (maybe an upgrade) on it.

For example, if you want that your customer try to make a purchase using your app.

SALES: If you aim to find people more likely to buy your products or service.

For example, if you want to sell an e-commerce product directly to a targeted audience, or you want that your audience adds a product to cart. (Meta service center, n.d.)

What are the main Facebook advertising formats available?

The main formats are:

PHOTO: The easiest and clear format, do your best to create the best picture ever, visually connected with the subject of the text above. Best practices when choosing these pictures are to show people wearing your products, make A/B tests, and make sure you focus people's attention on only one aspect.

VIDEO: We are in the video era so this is a format that cannot be missed, tell your stories with videos. Videos are very common to increase engagement with your business and to sell products. “People spend half the time they spend on Facebook watching videos” (Meta business center, n.d.)

STORIES: Stories are an immersive experience for users. They allow businesses to Connect with people at any time of day. 65% of US people things that stories are more authentic, give a sense of belonging, and even more the 62% of US people think that it’s hard for them to get tired of watching stories.

MESSENGER: Messenger ads help people to start a conversation with your company. Messenger is a way to connect directly and privately with clients, considering them as friends (Sara Nguyen, 2022). Choose the Messages objective to start conversations that drive results.

CAROUSEL: Carousel ads allow you to display up to 10 images or videos within one ad. It is helpful when you want to show different images of a product in just one post, or you are proposing different pictures or videos about different products, for example a real estate company showing pictures of different houses. Every image or video can have its link to a specific landing page.

SLIDESHOW: Slideshow ads are video-like ads that feature motion, audio and text. These clips help you dynamically tell your story. Creating a slideshow ad is very easy you can also use images you have in your archive and Facebook will play them in a nice sequence.

COLLECTION: Collection ads allow people to discover, browse and buy what you offer. Very common and suggested for e-commerce websites, when users just clicking on your Ad will open a collection of products, with prices and a direct link to buy them. Going from discovery to purchase has never been easier.

INSTANT EXPERIENCE: Facebook Instant Experiences load instantly, are mobile-optimized, and are designed to capture the full attention of your audience. Facebook Instant Experience Ads consist of a combination of full-screen video and images. You can create an engaging preview for example showing a game with an introductory video and give people the ability to preview your game directly from your ad before installing.

How can you target audiences when creating a Facebook advertisement?

According to Alexandra Sheehan (Shopify, 2022) Facebook has 3 types of targeting options: core audiences, custom audiences, and Lookalike audiences.

Core audience or base audience is when you start targeting the audience by location, demographic information, connections, behavior, and interests. This could be a normal way to start in the beginning to reach new people targeted.

For example, a food company can set to show the Ad to people who live in Scotland, are married, from 35 years old, interested in fish.

Custom Audiences are people who have already interacted with your brand, maybe visiting your website/app or interacting with your Facebook business page. There are 3 main sources of data for your Custom Audiences: Contact lists, website visitors, and app users.

Contact lists could be a list of people who are subscribed to newsletters or have already purchased on your website. It is up to you to export this list from the website backend or CRM and import it into Facebook, creating a custom audience. If the email addresses match with the email to which this people has subscribed on Facebook, they can be reached with your adv.

Lookalike audiences offer a great opportunity to reach potential customers with similar characteristics to your already existing ones. Once you have contact list or a lot of people that have interacted with your adv, you can start creating this audience to expand your audience focused on people who are more likely interested in your products/service.

For example, an e-commerce website can export the list of people who have purchased and import it into the Facebook audience creating a custom audience. After that it is possible to create a lookalike audience, it means that Facebook will find potential customers with similar characteristics and buyer habits.

Custom Audiences and Lookalike audiences are the most one categories more infected by the new privacy terms of IOS 14, but fortunately solutions would already have been found to remedy the problem. (Michelle Morgan, 2023)

Explain the key elements that make up a great Facebook advertisement

First of all, to create a great Facebook advertisement it is needed to have a strategy.

1. Start setting a SMART GOAL (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) and then you will be able to decide the KPIs.

For example, if you want to achieve leads and sales, the KPIs to track and analyze are conversion rate, conversions, assisted conversions, and average sales value.

2.    Choose your audience

As I said before there are different types of audiences you can reach, select which one the best fit to reach your goal. Starting with core audiences could be a good choice.

For example, do you have an e-commerce with also 5 physical stores in London? In this case is better to set up an Ad with a target location just in London, if you aim to drive people to pick up the delivery in the stores.

3.    Be creative and respect the Facebook ad format guidelines

If you are an e-commerce business and you want to sell products, the best Ad format could be the carousel or the collection. Make A/B tests and try different creativity and ad format, using pictures, video, etc…Choosing the correct ad format to respect the Facebook guidelines when you create content, and of course don’t forget the importance to create also a good copy. Emma Siemasko (2022)

4.  The importance of retargeting

The 92% of people that visit your website are not ready to purchase. Jason Fishman (Forbes.com, n.d.). it has been said that customers require seven touchpoints with a brand before they convert.

For example, you have launched an awareness campaign to show the picture of a new products on sale to as many people as you can, and now you can launch a new campaign with the conversion goal, targeting people that have already interacted with the awareness campaign post.

5.   Track Kpi and monitoring

In the end, all that matters are the results, so have a look of the KPIs. If Your Goal was to increase the sales by 30% of a specific category of product, and you have achieved just the 20%, try to understand why.

For example, in this case you can add new creativity and make some A/B tests, or you work on your audience creating a lookalike audience based on the users that have already purchased the product aimed to find new customers that could be more likely interested to buy this category of product.

Reference list

 

Katie Sehl, (2021). “Organic search is in decline - Here’s what you can do about it ”, Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/organic-reach-declining/  (accessed: 17/02/2023)

 

Wordstream (n.d.) “Social media marketing for businesses”, Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/social-media-marketing? (accessed: 17/02/2023)

 

Statista (2023), “Most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2023, ranked by number of monthly active visitors” Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/ (accessed: 17/02/2023)

 

Staff Writer (2023), “Target marketing or mass marketing – which is better for your small business?” Available at: https://www.smallbusinessrainmaker.com/small-business-marketing-blog/ (accessed: 17/02/2023)

 

Facebook Help (n.d.), “Tips for making your ads stand out” Available at: https://www.facebook.com/help (accessed: 17/02/2023)

Meta service center (n.d.), “How to choose the right objective in Meta's Ads Manager”, Available at: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/ (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Meta business center (n.d.), “Find effective and engaging ways to tell your company's story”, Available at: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/ad-formats?ref=ads_guide&tstamp=806d4ed6c791b8e77e8b02eb42e04af8b1902bde (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Sara Nguyen (2022), “Facebook messenger ads: how the pros get results in 2022”, Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-messenger-ads/ (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Alexandra Sheehan, (2022) “15 successful Facebook Ad targeting tips for 2022”, Available at: https://www.shopify.com/blog/ (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Michelle Morgan, (2023) “Facebook ad targeting in 2023: the complete guide + 10 tips”, Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Emma Siemasko (2022) “9 tips to write the best Facebook ads ever”, Available at: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/best-facebook-ads (Accessed: 18/02/2023)

 

Jason Fishman (n.d.), “What is retargeting and why is so important?”, Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ (Accessed: 18/02/2023)