Paid Social Media Advertising Tips From A Top Agency

Social media advertising is a proven way to increase your brand awareness, reach potential customers and generate both leads and conversions. If you’re not convinced that your budget will be well-spent on social media, take a look at some of these stats:

• In 2022, social media video ad spending grew by 20.1% to $24.35 billion (Statista)
• Social media advertising spending topped $173 billion in 2022 (Statista)
• In 2022, 33% of all digital ad spending comprised of social media (Statista)

Each year, a new generation of users join the various social media platforms. As more and more people use social media to discover new products and brands, the pressure is on for brands to produce high-quality content that enhances the distinct experience offered on each platform. Getting granular with your social media advertising—compelling content, clear goals, targeted audiences, etc.—is where the magic happens.

Here at Commit Agency, here are just a few of our top recommendations when it comes to creating a successful paid social media campaign.

Generate Leads With Targeted Ads and Boosted Content

Imagine creating an advertisement specifically for someone you know. You know what they like, what they don’t like, their type of humor and their demographics. With all of this information in mind, you could likely produce an extremely compelling ad. This kind of audience targeting can translate to social advertising.

Targeted social ads create ad sets with a specific, defined group of people. Based on what your campaign offers, you’ll align your target audience with your brand persona. Then, your ads will be delivered to those people in your target audience. If your ad is effective, those people will ideally click on your ad to learn more or make a purchase.

Most platforms now have an ad manager with in-depth analytics useful when creating a campaign. For example, Facebook Business Manager will guide you step-by-step through the process by asking you exactly what your goals are and, essentially, how you want your campaign to roll out.

Produce High-Quality And Interesting Content

One of the best ways to stay competitive, relevant and interesting on social media is to simply invest in quality talent who will produce high-quality content. Social media is all about newly discovered content. Every day is a new day to discover or be discovered. Strong writers, photographers, designers and directors who are well-versed in the latest social media trends will be essential to a successful campaign.

Because of the daily pressure to produce great content, social media teams have evolved to include writers and designers in addition to account managers. Being able to act quickly is essential with social media, so it’s important not to bog down a creative team with last-minute tasks.

See What Works by Testing Creative Variations

One of the best strategies we have implemented for many of our social media clients is creative testing. This involves the creative team and digital team working together to create a “test” of the advertising creative design. Think back to your middle school science days when you had to conduct a proper experiment—clearly defining one variable (one thing that is different), testing the materials and then analyzing the data. This format proves true with a creative test.

You might choose to test a headline format. In this case, you could have one headline with a promotional offer and another with an inspirational non-promotional message. You’ll launch both designs with the two different headlines and then analyze the results of each, comparing them to see which headline performed best. This could also be done with subject lines, photography, color schemes and other design elements, but the key is to stick to one variable.

Don’t “Copy & Paste” Content Across Platforms

This may not always be the case, but we encourage you to produce platform-specific content. While you do want to tell a cohesive story across multiple channels within one campaign, your campaign story may need to evolve to fit different kinds of social media experiences.

For example, if your brand is on TikTok, you may want to incorporate a current challenge or trend, and you’ll definitely need to produce a video, as TikTok is a video platform. The jury is still out on the “ethics” of posting a brand TikTok on Instagram to get that extra reach. Some might say repurposing content is a great way to stretch what you’ve already created, while others think the users on each platform deserve their own content.

Implement a Retargeting Program

As the algorithms continue to learn more and more about your audience, each will continue to adjust. Additionally, a retargeting campaign is an effective piece of paid social advertising. Retargeting is the use of paid ads that target customers who have visited a social media page or landing page before. These ads are triggered by a specific action or click and can be a helpful tool in your marketing automation playbook.

Be Consistent With Your Daily Social Media Presence

Social media is a long-term game. If you’re running a paid media campaign, be sure you have an active presence on all of your platforms. It’s important to have a vision for your brand on social media. Social media users, especially today, want to interact with brands who are utilizing social media like they are. If you’re posting infrequently or irregularly, you’ll want to get back on track with your daily content before implementing a paid campaign.

If you’re not seeing results on social media, one of the easiest things you can do today is to work on consistency. While everyday social media content is not always tied to a sales goal, it’s important for brand building and telling that cohesive brand story. Showing up for your audience on a regular basis shows them that you are using the platform and meeting them where they are. Then when it comes time to launch a paid campaign, they’re more likely to pay attention.

The trick with consistency is to stick to it even when you’re not seeing results immediately, which can feel demotivating for anyone who oversees a brand’s social media efforts. If you’re looking to grow your business on social media, but can’t seem to break through, have patience and continue to publish content while simultaneously completing an analysis of your social media accounts so you can eventually implement a long-term strategy that works best for your brand.

Commit Agency can help your business grow with social media, don’t hesitate to reach out today.