How to Create Effective Social Media Ads by As-Sayyidul Arafat
AREWA AGENDA – In my previous articles I talked about How to use social media for marketing, is social media Ads effective? From our research it is clear that Social Media is a great way to market your brand and also an effective platform to run your Ads which gives positive outcomes.
Running Ads on social Media might be unrealistic but it is surely a place you will want to place your Ads because it known to drive new customer to your brand.
Of course it can be scary to move from an organic social strategy to putting real money on the table. So, it is important to understand this article.
When thinking about which social networks to use for advertising, look at which ones perform well organically. Networks where your content naturally draw the attention of your fans are an obvious choice for your first social ad campaigns.
When choosing where to place your ads, it’s also helpful to know which networks are most popular with your target audience.
Pinterest, for example, has far more female than male users. If you’re targeting a younger crowd, you’ll likely find them on Snapchat and Instagram.
Tips for an Effective Social Media Ads
1. Know your Business Goal
What your business aim, your objective, your goal either in short or in the long run. These are what you need to consider at this stage. It’s awfully hard to achieve your goals if you don’t know what your goals are in the first place.
Understanding your business objectives is critical. It ensures you choose the right social network to advertise on. It helps you choose the right advertising solution within that platform. It even guides your creative strategy.
2. Know your target Audience
After knowing your goal, the next thing is to know who your targeted audience are. It might be based on Location (Nigeria, USA, Dubai), Age (12-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.) Or Sex (Male, Female, etc.)
The ability to micro-target your ad campaigns is one of the key benefits of social media advertising. Developing audience personas can help you understand exactly which audience segments to focus on.
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3. Let your organic posts inform your ads
Know the post that is doing well in term of impression or engagement. Some of these posts will resonate with followers; others won’t. Track which ones are being clicked, liked, shared, and commented on. These high-performing messages make the best candidates for social ads.
If you’re branching out into a new network with your social media advertising, start small. Use what you’ve learned from your organic posts as a starting point. However, know that those lessons will not necessarily translate across social networks.
4. Pay for what matters: Impressions or engagement
It is important to know whether you want impressions (amount of time people sees your post) or engagements (amount of people engaging with your post).
If you’re paying every time someone sees your ad (impressions), it can be seen everywhere in the internet. But if you’re paying for engagement, you only want people who are really interested in doing business with you to engage. You don’t want to pay for engagements that are not relevant to your business goals. The wording of your ad should help people identify whether it’s for them or not.
Both engagement and impressions campaigns can be valuable for your business. You just need to choose the right one to align with your business goals so that you only pay for real business results. Here’s some more information about which metrics to track to make the most of your social ad campaign.
5. Make your Ads with Mobile mind
More than 3.25 billion active social media users access social networks through a mobile device.
That means most social media ads are being viewed on mobile devices. Your mobile ads should be specifically designed for the small screen. Incorporate images that are easy to view on a pocket-sized device.
6. Test your ads to optimize performance
One of the great benefits of social ads is instant feedback. You can gauge the effectiveness of a sponsored post in minutes and follow up with advanced analytics reports. The best practice is to test several ads with small audiences to determine what works best, then use the winning ad in the primary campaign.
It’s important to test the ads. This will let you know whether you’ve hit your targets. It shows you what worked and what didn’t so that you can improve going forward.
Testing one ad against another to determine what works best and refine your strategy is known as A/B testing. It’s a critical part of your social media advertising efforts.
Arewa Agenda is a Publication of young writers from Northern Nigeria towards peaceful coexistence and national development through positive narratives.
