By Sarah Roney, Digital Marketing Coordinator
Today’s social media algorithms are hard to predict. Some posts get tons of engagement while others get buried, no matter how much you optimize them.
Paid social is the tool that guarantees your post will be seen. Essentially, you pay to ensure your post is put in front of your target audience. If your organic social media presence is strong, it may be time to give paid social a try.
Here are 3 tips for starting a successful paid social campaign.
1) Be Aware of Each Social Media Platform’s Advertising Policies
Each social media channel, from Facebook to LinkedIn, has rules regarding the ads that can be run on their platforms; the different advertising policies can be found on each social media channel’s site. It is important to keep this in mind so that you can avoid any rejected ads or in the worst case, a disabled ad account. Most platforms have policies for ads related to alcohol, drugs, politics, elections, and social issues, but some policies are not as obvious. For example, Facebook does not allow a graphic with a “fake” call to action button on it (Register Now, Shop Now, etc). Because some of the guidelines are not as evident, make sure to stay up to date on each platform’s policies, as they are ever changing.
2) Narrow Your Audience Targeting
This tip will vary depending on your ad’s objective, but in most cases the audience that is most likely to register for your webinar, download your white paper, or purchase your book is limited to some extent. Therefore, it is important to be deliberate about the demographics, interest groups, and skills that you choose to target. Most of the social media advertising platforms have the option to exclude certain audiences and/or narrow audiences. With the excluding feature, you can target an industry but exclude a company that is already a customer. With the narrowing feature, you can target an interest group but narrow the audience to only the engineers that are interested in that topic. These examples ensure that you are getting the most bang for your buck by only showing the ad to the audience that you believe is most likely to convert.
3) Be Intentional with Your Creative and Ad Copy
According to a study done by Microsoft, you only have 8 seconds to capture someone’s attention. When you are paying for views, those 8 seconds matter even more. Therefore, it is important to choose a headline, caption, and graphic that follows best practices and contributes to your goals. The headline and caption of an ad should be short and sweet; no need to include every detail about what you are promoting. Instead, entice the user to want to learn more with a hook and call to action. The graphic should be relevant and eye catching with minimal text. In most cases it is beneficial to have your company logo, the title of what is being promoted, and a call to action.
For more tips on captions and graphics, check out our other social media blog posts!
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