Over 50% of consumers learn about new brands on social media. If you aren’t tapping into this marketing sphere, you’re severely missing out.
Social media marketing has taken the place of traditional print ads. While some industries still require traditional media advertising, most small businesses should instead focus on social media advertising to help them grow their client base.
Finding your target audience and marketing to them has never been easier than social media marketing. Unlike traditional ads, you can tailor who sees your social media ads to target the right group of people.
So, keep reading to learn how to use social media advertising for your small business.
Find Your Niche
When you started your business, you would have had to find out who your target market is. Your target market will help you find your niche. This dictates the type of content you need to create to have your marketing campaign succeed.
The content you need to create to advertise to 65+ year-old business owners will differ from that of creatives just starting out. The more you can define your target market, the better. You want to target a small specialized group with your ads.
You might think it’s a good idea to cast as wide a net as possible, but when it comes to marketing, it’s more important to target a few high-priority groups that could result in actual leads. Marketing your product or business to people who will never interact with your brand doesn’t make sense.
Once you’ve identified the group you want to target with your marketing, you can tailor the material to show them how your product or business can help them.
Pick Your Platforms
There are quite a few social media platforms to choose from when you’re trying to market yourself. Each platform has pros and cons, so you need to decide which ones you’ll focus on. You should generally choose two platforms to put your effort into.
Chances are your target market can help you decide which platforms to choose. If your chosen audience mainly uses specific platforms, then it makes sense to zero in on these platforms and leave the rest for later.
Look at each platform’s demographics and how people interact with content on the platforms. If you’re unsure which platforms to use, you can look at how people interact with your social media pages. If you see one platform far outperforms the others, then it makes sense to focus on that one.
Start Organically
Once you’ve done all your research, it can be tempting to try and jump ahead by using sponsored ads immediately. While this might boost your numbers instantly, if you don’t have an excellent baseline, chances are you won’t get any good leads from these sponsored posts.
Some platforms like Facebook also prefer that you first post your content, and then if the post does well, they’ll reward you with more reach once you sponsor it. This is a way to ensure good quality content is spread; otherwise, everyone’s newsfeeds would just be flooded with useless information.
When you start by posting and seeing how it does organically, you can also make better decisions about spending your money. Boosting posts that perform well shows that if you boost this post, you’ll continue gaining traction.
This is why keeping on top of your social media insights is so important.
You should also take your time to choose the right posts to boost. If you posted a meme that does well on Instagram, it doesn’t make sense to boost it even if it has good engagement. Put your money behind things that could potentially drive business your way.
You also don’t have to do this alone! Social media management services can help you create content that suits your needs and brand.
Optimize Your Content for Mobile
If you have a website or blog that you want people to go to from your social media sites, you need to optimize them for mobile users. Out of 4.48 billion social media users, over 90% access websites or apps through a mobile device.
If you aren’t optimizing your content for mobile use, chances are these users won’t even try to use your site. With most websites catering to mobile users, they would rather spend the extra time finding a company they can access from their phone than trying to navigate your site.
Nowadays, it’s incredibly easy to build for mobile and then add desktop later. Desktop users can still use a site optimized for mobile even if they aren’t using the right device.
This also counts for the actual content you’re posting on social media. Consider how people will see this content. A horizontal image might look good on your laptop screen, but you won’t be able to see all the detail on a mobile phone unless you rotate your phone.
Social Media Advertising Made Easy
When it comes to social media advertising, you need to understand the basics before you can start tapping into the power of social media platforms. Each platform has different strategies that work best for them, so you need to decide which channels you’ll target. Social media ads are a game-changer if you know how to use them to your advantage.
If you’re ready to start using social media marketing for your business, contact us today. At Ex35 Creative, we believe in using different avenues of digital marketing and artistic design to bring your ideas to life.