Do you know almost 74% of customers check social media while making a purchase?
In this digital era, social media plays a crucial role in influencing a consumer’s buying decision. Social channels are where your customers are, and with the right planning and strategy, you can stand out from the crowd and make an impression. However, amid the ever changing social media algorithms and new updates, getting noticed may get a bit challenging. This is where social media advertising can help make your content go viral, and bring in traffic and sales.
Before crafting a social media advertising strategy, you should be aware of the best practices that will help to gain maximum benefits. Listed below are 10 best practices that every brand should follow –
Set The Target Audience
Determining the right target audience is the first step for creating a successful social media advertisement. If the right people are not targeted, the ad you run would not be of any interest, and eventually will fail to generate any sales or leads for the brand.
So how to determine the right target audience? You have to note down the attributes that define your customer base. Aspects like age range, gender, hobbies, interest, profession, income, nature of spend, etc should be analyzed to create your target audience who will resonate with the ad.
Choose The Right Platform
Even if your brand has a presence on all social media platforms, it is important to select the right platform when running a social media ad. For example, if you have almost the same follower count on Facebook and Instagram, but the audience tends to engage more on Instagram, running an ad on Instagram will yield more productive results. Check the demographics on each platform to know where your audience spends the maximum time before choosing the platform to run ads.
Set Goals For The Ads
Like any campaign, setting the goals you want to achieve beforehand is important to achieve desirable results. Moreover, the strategy and execution also needs to be aligned to the preset goals. For example, if your goal for running social media ads is to increase sales, the ad copy would be such as to persuade the audience to visit a landing page and make a purchase. If the goal is to increase followers, the copy would change accordingly.
Brand Voice And Tone
You should maintain a consistent brand voice and tone on all social channels, and the same should reflect on the social media ads. This helps the audience build awareness and resonance with your brand.
Whether casual or formal, the tone you choose will depend on the brand personality and the product/service you’re offering.
Use Clear High Quality Images
Studies say that “online content that has good images gets 94% more views compared to ones without good images.”
A high quality, well placed image in your social media ad can hold the attention of your audience, and even encourage them to take an action. Appealing visuals help garner more brand trust and ad engagement.
Another important point to keep in mind is to use images that would be relevant to the ad campaign. For example, if you are running an ad to increase sales of protein bars, the images used should be the same. Showcasing muesli packs in your ad creatives will not serve the purpose.
You can also do an A/B testing with different sets of images to see which performs better, and accordingly optimize the campaign.
Create A Landing Page
Getting your audience interested and clicking on the ad is just half the job done. What happens after that?
The visitor would need all relevant information about your product/service before making the final buying decision. This is where a landing page is needed. The page should provide every detail to help increase conversion and convert more traffic.
Use The Right CTA
While running a social media ad campaign, you must guide the audience on what they should do next after seeing the ad. Having the right call to action (CTA) will put them on the right track. For example, if your objective is to get potential customers to make a purchase, a ‘Buy Now’ CTA would be more suitable than a ‘Learn More’ or a ‘Sign Up’ one.
Keep Testing The Ads
There is no fixed formula when it comes to social media ads, so trial and test is an important practice. Test the first version of your ad and check its performance. If the engagement is low, modify or change the copy and check which version garners the highest views and engagement.
Monitor The Ad Performance
Monitoring the ad performance is crucial to get the best ROI for your business. Metrics like views, clicks, conversions, etc can help you understand if you’re achieving the desired results. For example, if you notice that the ad has generated a good number of clicks, but the conversion metrics are not that great – it could mean there’s a problem with the landing page. You can accordingly make changes and improve your ad campaign performance.
Make Use of Retargeted Ads
According to Spiralytics, retargeted users are more likely to convert by 70%.
Retargeted ads are seen by customers who have checked your brand ad but didn’t take any action previously. You may not be able to convert every lead in the first time, but would want your brand to be at the top of their mind when they decide to make a purchase. Consumers check multiple options to make an informed buying decision. Retargeting will give them a little push towards your brand.
By keeping the best practices in mind, social media advertising will help you launch an engaging and effective ad campaign for your brand. At FCS, our team of experts help you make the most of your social media advertising, right from strategy and concept to execution and reporting. Get in touch for a free consultation today!
