How to Maximize Your Use of Social Media Advertising Platforms

Does social media marketing still matter?

That’s a question that entrepreneurs ask themselves every day, looking at statistics from failed social media advertising campaigns.

The fact is that social media advertising is a powerful way to reach potential customers. That’s the reason why so many brands are choosing to spend their ad budgets on social media channels.

Do you want to learn why others are seeing success where you may not be? Read on to learn how you can get the most out of these advertising platforms.

1. Know Your Audience

Your advertising campaigns start and end with your audience. You have to understand who they are. You’ll need to know what they’re interested in, where they live, where they shop, and why they need your product or service.

The more details you can provide about your target audience, the better. You have to understand their challenges and frustrations that lead them to search for solutions that you provide.

2. Chose the Right Platform

There are a couple of reasons why you need to know your audience. Different audiences use different platforms.

People under 25 are on Snapchat and Instagram. People between 35-44 are also on Instagram. Women are the main users of Pinterest.

Facebook seems to be an obvious contender because it seems that everyone uses the platforms. If you want a detailed look at advertising on Facebook, read Disrupt Your Industry, Dominate Your Niche: How to Advertise on Facebook in 2020.

It wouldn’t make sense to advertise a retirement planning product on Snapchat if you’re targeting GenXers and Baby Boomers.

3. Have the Right Message

Why you? Why should anyone buy from you as opposed to your competition? Your marketing message needs to be crafted to address this question.

You also have to go back and look at the needs of your target audience. What are they looking for in a solution? What is the pain or challenge that they need to solve?

Your ad has to be written in a way that addresses those needs and does so in as few words as possible.  

4. Set Goals for Your Campaign

Your advertising campaign needs to have goals attached to it. That’s how you know that you’re not wasting time and money.

Your goals also tell you which measurements need to be tracked. For example, if your goal is to increase traffic to your website, you’ll need to measure what your traffic is before, during, and after the campaign.

The goals should also inform the rest of the campaign. They help you decide what’s required to run a complete campaign. An ad campaign that is focused on lead generation will need a good landing page, lead magnet, and ad that generates enough interest.

A campaign that is geared towards purchases requires more attention to detail. You’ll need to target people who are ready to make a purchase now, as opposed to reaching people who are tire kickers.

5. Use Retargeting

If you’re putting in a lot of work to drive people to a landing page or to your website, you don’t want to miss a big opportunity because you can’t convert visitors.

A small percentage of people are going to convert instantly. The vast majority of traffic will leave your site and go on with their day. That’s an opportunity lost.

You can recapture their attention by using retargeting. That places a tracking cookie on your website and you can reach

Let’s say that you run a Facebook campaign for a camera store. The ads tout that there’s a big sale going on. Someone clicks on your ad and goes to your site. They don’t buy anything.

The tracking cookie can be set up to place another ad to remind them of the sale and complete a purchase before the sale ends. You can increase your conversions this way.

6. Step Away from the Analytics

One mistake that entrepreneurs make when they invest in advertising platforms is that they are constantly monitoring analytics. They want to know immediately if the message is getting through to the right people or not.

They’ll look at analytics every hour on the hour, hoping for an increase in sales. Here’s a small piece of advice: step away from the analytics.

You need to let a campaign run for at least 5 days to collect enough data to determine if the campaign is doing OK or not. You should let it run for about two weeks to get a good sense of what is happening with your campaign.

7. Refine and Adjust Your Advertising Campaigns

An advertising campaign is not a set it and forget it type of thing. It’s an ongoing process to fine tune your campaign and get the most out of it.

After you have a good amount of data, you can make strategic decisions. This allows you to take the emotion out of the process.

Look at your entire campaign’s stats. The number of impressions, clicks, and ad spend. You then need to examine what happens when people click on the ad. Do they convert into leads? Do they abandon the site immediately?

These questions will help you figure out where you may need to adjust your campaign. Once you see where people are leaving the process, you can make adjustments and then monitor the campaign again.

Getting the Most Out of Social Media Advertising Platforms

The principles of social media advertising don’t change. Only the tools do. The tips to get the most out of your advertising apply to any of the social media advertising platforms.

You have to know your audience, craft a message they will respond to, and choose the platform that they use. After you launch your campaign, you have to adjust and refine it to maximize your ROI.

Come back to this site often for more social media marketing tips.