Social media advertising is an essential part of any brand’s marketing approach, whether you’re looking to drive traffic, increase brand awareness or encourage engagement across your platforms.
But social ads are so much more than the simple click of a “Boost” button. Achieving real results and maximising your spend takes time, skill and strategy. So, what is the secret to successful social media advertising, and why should you work with an agency rather than go it alone?
1. We know your audience and how to target them
Before even thinking about what you want to say in your social adverts, you need to know who you should be saying it to! Whether you’re looking to reach new potential customers, target your existing base or engage with warm leads, an agency can take the time and trouble out of analysing your different demographics, what platforms they are using, and when they are online.
It goes without saying, the goal is not to target everyone. So, after the initial analysis and strategy phase, we will create a series of different audiences, tweaking demographics to match your different customer personas. From age, gender and location, to interests, occupation and spending habits, the level of detail we can go into is quite amazing! (And perhaps a little bit scary about how much Mark Zuckerberg knows about each of us.)
This will allow you to micro-target the right people with the right campaigns, in turn getting the most out of every pound and penny spent.
If you have access to a database, we can create custom audiences using data gathered from offline lists or online interactions from your website, email campaigns, or apps, building that customer-brand relationship and increasing authority in the space. Lookalike audiences are another effective way of reaching potential customers, using a segmentation tool to find users who, you guessed it, look like your existing customers and followers.
2. We create thumb-stoppable assets
A picture (or video!) is worth a thousand words, and with social media users now having an estimated attention span of fewer than nine seconds, it’s never been more important to use assets that will get your customer to stop scrolling!
It’s therefore important your creative reflects your brand personality and gives the best first impression of your business.
Whether you want to appear on Facebook feeds, Instagram stories or Pinterest boards, there are a host of different specs and requirements to work to avoid awkward cropping, or things not showing up as they should do on mobile. And that’s without looking at the different types of assets. From carousels to single images, stories to videos, the asset options are endless, but using professional photographs or graphics is essential.
Don’t forget to design with mobile in mind. More than 3.25 billion active social media users use their mobile as opposed to laptops, so make sure any assets created look just as good on the small screen as they do on the big!
3. We optimise your ad with split testing
Using split testing is an extremely effective way to optimise performance, but can often be overlooked unless you’re working with a professional. Essentially, split testing, or A/B testing as it is also known, is the practice of running the same or similar adverts as “mini campaigns” within one large campaign, seeing which performs best, and tweaking the campaign to reflect these results.
There are two main strategies when it comes to split testing – changing the creative or the audience.
The first approach can be as simple as tweaking the wording of the post itself or the headline and description. It may be switching the CTA, using a different asset, or even changing where an emoji is placed! The smallest of changes to creative can have a big impact.
Another approach is to run the same creative, but target different audiences to see which group of users responds best. This is where our first step of analysing and creating target audiences comes to the fore!
Split testing means you get the most out of your money and reach the right audience at the right time – win, win!
4. We save you valuable time!
Of course, we know that planning and executing a successful paid social media campaign takes time! And we bet that your time is something in short supply.
We can become an extension of your team, helping you to achieve your business goals with a dedicated team and set hours each week to creating, monitoring and reporting on your social adverts, so that you can spend your day focusing on just that – your daily job!
Not only that, but at the end of every campaign, we will dive into the results and provide a full report with concrete data detailing everything from reach and impressions to cost per result, so that you know you’re getting a good return on investment.
If you’re looking for paid social media support, drop us a line! Email hello@honestcommunications.co.uk
