6 Tips For a Successful Social Media Campaign
It can be nerve-wracking taking the plunge to pay for social media advertising as an entrepreneur. But with the tips outlined below, we can help make sure your investment leads to a positive return on investment!
Know Your Goals
If you don’t know your objective, why are you paying for an ad? Decide what your end game is. Are you trying to showcase a new product? Wanting to gain followers on your Twitter page? Perhaps you want to promote an upcoming event. Most social media ads are focused on three goals: awareness (I am just now seeing your product or service), consideration (I want to learn more about your product or service) or conversion (I want to buy your product or service).
You will also keep in mind what you want to pay for. If you are paying for impressions, you are paying for people to see your ad. This can be helpful for building brand awareness. If you are paying for engagements, or people that click your ads, this narrows your audience but likely leads to reaching the type of people that will be purchasing your product or service.
Know Your Target Audience
Before you spend money on an ad on all your social media channels, figure out who you are trying to reach. The image below is from the PEW research center and can help you narrow down which social media platform(s) to place an add on. Additionally, most, but not all, platforms let you narrow down your audience even more. Facebook does a great job at this, offering more advanced targeting than any other platform.
Small businesses tend to want to advertise to everyone. The more people who see your ad, the more income you will generate, right? Wrong. If you sell high end beauty products, there is no point advertising to a college age frat dude. Developing buyer personas is a helpful way to define your target audience(s).
Use Data You Already Have
Look at how your organic posts perform already. What types of posts are already being clicked, liked, shared, and commented on? Take advantage of the analytic tools provided and track trends.
Don’t Forget Mobile View
Ninety percent of social media users access social networks through a mobile device. If your ad doesn’t look good across desktop and mobile, you are wasting your money.
Test For Best Results
Test your ad with a small audience for a few days to see how your ad will perform against your full audience. A best practice is to allow time for A/B testing- testing two or more versions of the same ad with slight variances to see which performs better. Use the winner on your full out campaign.
Measure Your Results
Reviewing the metrics on your ads are key to understanding if you are hitting your goals. All the major social networks have analytics tools to help you understand how well your ads are doing. If you can prove your ads are working, you will know your money is well spent and can continue to use this in your marketing strategy moving forward.