This is part 4 of 4 in our FREE Social Media education series (based on our Peaceful University course “The Social Classroom.”) Click here to visit part 1 – Magnetized Shareable Content
Is Advertising on Social Media Right For You?
If you want to scale your business quickly — and you don’t mind paying for audience — social media advertising platforms are dynamite for getting you and your goods seen.
Whereas Google’s advertising tool, AdWords, shows your ads to people who search for keywords on which you bid, platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you find audiences based on a HUGE array of demographics and interests.
Even if you aren’t ready to spend money on traffic, it’s never too early to set up tracking on your website. Your future advertising manager will thank you for that!
This is an incredibly deep topic, so consider this your educational tour through the language and concepts of social media advertising.
Video Transcript
Hello everyone – Did you know there are only 4 ways to expand your REACH online?
Well, now you do! And if you are following this series, next up is Social Advertising
You can review what we discussed in the first post which was all about creating Magnetized Shareable Content; the 2nd post which was a deep dive into Hashtags, Keywords and SEO; and the 3rd one which explained Strategic Partners, Affiliates, Street Teams and Super Fans — your People Power!
If you think of all the ideas we’ve explored so far (content, hashtags, superfans) as complimentary supporting circles, social advertising becomes the crowning touch that can really expand your REACH.
Social Advertising
Sometimes you need to nurture an audience so they come to know, like, and trust you enough to purchase from you. If you just hammer them with a conversion-type ad, you will miss the opportunity to build a larger audience, and thereby make more sales down the line.
So choose the type of ad that is most important at this time in your business, and then work through the others as you can.
Understand the Architecture of Social Advertising
It’s important to first understand the architecture of social advertising systems.
Generally, you have these three areas; Campaigns, Ad Sets and then Ads
Think of it this way:
Campaign = Goal
Ad Set = Targeting
Ads = the actual ads
Tracking, Pixels and Codes Oh MY!
A “Conversion” in this context is any event where something happens; an email address is given in exchange for an ebook, a purchase is made or a subscription to a membership is started.
This is where you need to get your geek on – or send it to someone who already does. You will need to place code on your websites, landing pages, ecommerce sites and any other spaces where your conversions happen.
- Tracking helps you build a Custom Audience for retargeting your ads
- “Pixels” help track conversions, to see which ads are working
- UTM Codes and Tags helps you see which posts are working and which social site is most productive
Targeting Audiences
Finding the perfect group of people to see your stuff is an art and a science. Most of what you see being promoted to small businesses and marketers on social right now falls into the category of “learning how to target your perfect buying audience.”
You can target audiences by many different things. A few of these are:
- Custom audiences you build
- Age, gender, location
- Connections they have with other people
- Behaviors
- And Niche audiences
This is a huge topic and many 3rd party systems have been developed to help manage finding the best combination of these things. Your best bet in the beginning is to test audience combinations and keep tweaking them until you get a good conversion rate.
Visuals
Now we are finally getting to the visual part of the ad – the bit you see on social – the Sponsored content. Most people new to social advertising just want to START right here, but you really need to do the other parts first, and have done your homework back in the first of this series – when you worked on finding out your magnetized shareable content pieces.
So the things to keep in mind here are:
- Your Magnetized Shareable Content is vital here
- OWN the copyright on all visuals
- One image, slideshow, carousel, video
The Copy – The Words
Each social site has a different amount of text you can use. And depending on the type of ad, the amount of text can be big or small. This is where all that work with your hashtags, keywords and SEO will help you. Each word counts. Literally.
Here are some helpful hints:
- Your Magnetized Shareable Content is useful here
- Put some copy on the image and some in the text
- Answer the viewer’s question “What’s in it for me?”
The Budget
Through time you’ll be able to have a positive ROI, but you might not at first. Don’t give up! You just need to try something else. Test the ads and see which ones work better – and put your money on those.
- Start small
- Slowly build the budget instead of increasing it in big leaps
- Check the analytics daily
In The Social Classroom I recommend training programs to a few people who have Facebook Ads. If you find you don’t have the patience or love for advertising – then by all means outsource it.
Test
Social media advertising is never “done.” If you’re doing it right, you’ll always be managing, monitoring, testing and tweaking.
- Learn how to test
- Use built-in A/B testing
- Start Small and slowly build the budget
- Positive ROI is achievable eventually
Let’s review: we’ve covered ALL four ways to expand your reach online: magnetized shareable content, hashtags, keywords and SEO, strategic partners, affiliates, street teams and super fans, and now finally social advertising!
Whew!
Next Step: Ready to Get More Eyes On Your Brand?
We hope this 4-part series has helped you feel more comfortable and knowledgeable about the 4 ways to expand reach with social media. The journey to designing your customized social media strategy has likely just begun.
We invite you to JOIN The Social Classroom!
The Social Classroom Will Show You How To Reach More People!
I take these four ways and really go much deeper into HOW to do the things I’ve talked about all through this series.
Here’s what you get:
- Immediate and lifetime access to all the videos, resources and strategies in The Social Classroom.
- Pick and choose the knowledge you need, right from day one.
- Small Private Facebook Group where I’ll personally answer your questions.
- Strategy Development Checklist – you’ll use this while going through the 4 Modules.
By the end you’ll have a PLAN — a Strategy document that you can implement right away giving you a boost in your online REACH!
Get deeper social media education & training in our online course, The Social Classroom!
Love to see you over there. Thanks for watching.