Social media enables businesses to connect with millions of people across the world. Due to its profound influence and expansive reach, social media advertising is an essential and effective tool for modern companies of all sizes.
If you’re interested in implementing paid social media advertising, you may be wondering how to get started. Below, we’ll outline six steps for enacting a successful paid social media plan.
#1 Clarify Your Goals
Before you create your campaign, it’s important to clarify your goals. This way, you can tailor your campaign accordingly.
A few objectives you may want to pursue include:
- Increasing brand awareness to establish trust
- Boosting engagement to improve your rankings within each algorithm
- Driving traffic to your website to increase conversions
- Generating sales to fuel and expand your business
#2 Assess Your Existing Social Media Presence
Next, it’s time to conduct an audit of your current social media presence to identify growth opportunities and assess your current social impact.
Here are a few questions to ask during your audit:
- Which social media platforms are you currently using?
- Have you optimized your profile pictures and bios?
- Do you post organic content on a consistent basis?
- How does your online presence compare to your competitors?
Different social media websites draw different demographics of people, so you may want to gear your advertising efforts toward relevant social platforms. For example, if you’re a clothing company targeting Gen-Z trendmakers, you may want to funnel your content into youth-centric social services like TikTok and Instagram.
Additionally, you’ll want to analyze engagement and publishing metrics, audience demographics, and referral traffic to ensure your content is making an impact. If your numbers aren’t reflective of your goals, take time to identify specific objectives you wish to meet, such as improving brand awareness, growing your follower count, or increasing the number of people who visit your site.
#3 Reach Your Target Audience
Social media allows marketers to target their ads with exceptional precision. To take advantage of this, you need to decide who you want to reach with your paid ads.
Maybe your target audience is Gen Zers who live in Los Angeles and love Minecraft. Or maybe your ideal customers are professional couples in their thirties who earn over $100,000, enjoy drip coffee, and own a dog who doubles as a child.
When it comes to paid advertising, you can specify your preferred:
- Age
- Location
- Job title
- Income
- Interests
- Behavior
- Connections
Once you’ve customized your outreach, you can ensure that your content, products, services, or advertisements reach your intended audience.
#4 Create Engaging Ads
Next, it’s time to create ads that will capture the attention of your target audience and inspire them to engage with your brand. Each element of the ad, from the copy to the visuals, should be thoughtfully tailored to your target audience.
You should also carefully consider the type of ads you run. These days, there are many ad types to choose from, including:
- Banner ads
- Story ads
- In-feed photo ads
- In-feed video ads
- Messenger ads
Depending on your campaign goals, target audience, and advertising offer, certain ad types may be more effective than others.
Many companies today are utilizing story and video advertisements to engage with younger audiences. However, image-based banner ads are often displayed at the top or bottom of a website and may be more familiar to and trusted by older demographics.
#5 Monitor Your KPIs
Once your paid ads are up and running, you’ll start seeing an influx of data regarding their performance. You can use this data to track your success and guide your social media decisions going forward.
Some important KPIs to monitor include:
- Reach – The total number of people who have viewed your content
- Clicks – The total number people who have clicked on your content or website
- Engagement – How people interact with your content with likes, comments, or shares
- Conversions – Measures how many customers bought or subscribed to your product or service
- Conversion rate – The percentage of users who clicked on your content and then took action toward your CTA
- Brand mentions – References to your business through posts, comments, reviews, or articles
- Hashtag performance – Measures how well your campaign performed
#6 Adjust Your Campaign Strategy As Needed
After reviewing your KPIs, you may want to tweak aspects of your advertisements to enhance their performance, such as their:
- Offer
- Call to action
- Copy
- Visuals
- Chosen social media platform
Keep in mind that social media is always changing, so your ads will likely need continuous optimization. As long as you let the data drive your decisions, you can improve your campaigns over time and confidently increase your ROI.
Semgeeks: Take Your Social Media Game to the Next Level
Looking for some support for your paid social media business plan? Semgeeks has you covered.
As the most effective social media agency New Jersey has to offer, we can help you craft, manage, and analyze your social media campaigns to enhance your brand outreach. We’re a results-oriented digital agency that’s fluent in technology, SaaS, B2B, B2C, ecommerce, and more.
Are you ready to elevate your social media presence? Let’s talk.
Sources:
Forbes. Three Reasons You Should Be Advertising on Social Media in 2021.
BigCommerce. Navigating Social Media Advertising in 2022: How to Choose the Right Platform and Ads for Your Brand.
https://www.bigcommerce.com/blog/social-media-advertising/
