Advertising on Social Media

According to Hootsuite, “Advertisers spent $5.1 billion on social media advertising in 2013 and this figure is expected to exceed $14 billion by 2018.” The numbers don’t lie.  Advertising on social media in order to drive leads and sales has become  an extremely valuable marketing tool.  With internet advertising now surpassing traditional print advertising, it is hard to ignore this platform as a location to focus your company’s marketing dollars.  As a small business, how do you decide where to advertise and how to spend that precious currency?  Let’s look at the types of advertising available on social media and how your company can get in on the action when it comes to social media marketing.

Facebook – Posting pictures and content is free but there are several ways that you can use Facebook advertising to increase the volume of people that see your content and widen your reach.

• “Boost” Posts – Choose this option to boost a specific post, image or link that may showcase your business in a positive manner.  This method allows the business to define a budget and target an intended audience.
• Facebook Ads – Another method is to create a Facebook Ad with a visual image and promotion.  With this type of direct ad you can choose where the ad will show up, choose a targeted audience and decide on pricing options. Targeting options include choosing geography, gender, age and behaviors.

Twitter – In December 2013, Twitter updated its advertising from Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts to better target ads to users. The product, called “tailored audiences,” uses data from browser histories to show users ads that directly relate to the sites they’ve recently visited. For each of these methods a business can choose to:  increase the number of desired followers, appear directly on the active timeline, or even be featured at the top of trending topics lists tailored by location and followers.

LinkedIn – To reach active business professions on LInkedIn Advertising, choose from Direct ad or Sponsored Updates.  Direct Ads show up on the Home Page, Profile Page, Inbox, search Results Page or Groups Page.  It allows for a business to choose a target audience and places them on chosen LinkedIn pages. Sponsored Updates means that you can publish a copmany upodate and link for visitors. With each of these advertising options targeting can be done by industry, seniority, geography, groups, company size, gender or even job function.

Pinterest -Pinterest introduced Promoted Pins as their advertising tool.  This means content you choose to promote that will appear high within search results. You’ll only pay for the Promoted Pins when a viewer clicks through to your site. To learn more about this new advertising tool READ MORE.

Google+  is for businesses who want to connect with the right audience and promote their brand. Google + uses advertising called +Post Ad.  This method takes your Google content and creates a display ad shown on the Display Network.  It allows users to comment, follow your brand and “Hangout” with your business.

Instagram – By Sponsoring Videos and Photos, Instagram Marketing can reach a very specific niche. The ultimate aim of these ads is to make the display look and feel natural as visitors scroll through ab Instagram Feed.

Categorised in: Advertising, Blog, Social Media