Billions of people around the world are spending hours of their days glued to social media accounts. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Tik Tok – the number of platforms is growing every day. And with this much attention available, it has become the perfect vehicle for businesses to position their brands before potential customers. Social Media Advertising is a variation of digital marketing available to businesses upon which they use paid ads to place their products or services on the newsfeeds of their target audiences.

Given the amount of usage social media platforms can generate from users from every walk of life, the greatest asset available is the data they collect. If a business takes the time to map out their target market, and understands their ideal customer, then Social Media Advertising can help them to speak directly with these people in a way never before possible. Given the ability to apply a budget that is appropriate to your business, simple analytics to review performance, and quick, real-time results to allow constant refinement, this is an avenue of digital marketing capable of delivering the highest return on investment than any other channel.

The social media channels you use to convert users into customers isn’t nearly as important as the strategy you employ to do it. And any good strategy starts with identifying who you are trying to target. For example, you will not use the same tactics on Facebook to win over users on LinkedIn. Sometimes it is crucial to be highly active across multiple channels to deliver real social proof to potential customers. When you work with the Social Media Advertising team at Creative 7 SIA, we take the time to develop a clear roadmap on how to achieve your specific goals across the channels available to you, focusing more on the actions and efforts the convert best, as opposed to the specific channel.

Social Media Advertising and Google Ads are both powerful tools to promote your brand in front of a targeted audience ready to engage with your business. The performance of campaigns in converting these audiences will depend on how skilfully it is built and optimised. While every business and industry is different, and therefore will experience varying levels of success across the available channels, each platform has its place within a well-rounded digital marketing strategy and should be utilised to ensure all members of a target audience are being adequately reached.

To achieve success with Social Media Advertising means crafting a profile and ads campaign that outperforms your competitors time and again. It means showing more value to your target audience to interrupt scrolling on their feed and make them consider your brand. And with the saturation of content available across the many social platforms in circulation, this can be extremely difficult.

The Social Media Advertising specialists at Creative 7 SIA take our clients to the next level by building a service around research and targeted demographics, determining when and where it is best to allocate your resources for the ultimate return on investment.

Unlike organic social media marketing, where businesses use the platforms available to them to post free, valuable material to engage and grow their following, Social Media Advertising is a more direct approach with a budget placed behind advertisements. Your capabilities will vary based on the platform you choose to employ, but one key aspect that will be available to you is the audience research and targeting. Once you have created your social media ad, you will then be able to use the data collected on that platform to ensure it is seen by your target audience, based on demographics such as where they live, their interests, and their history engaging with other businesses. Social ads operate on what is known as a pay-per-click (PPC) model, where businesses are only charged once someone clicks on their ad.

Rather than asking how much a Social Media Advertising campaign costs, it is more prudent to weigh up your goals against your available investment. The pay-per-click (PPC) model means you will only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad, but the resources you apply behind these can vary depending on the competitive nature of your industry and the audience you are targeting. It is far more practical to give context to your investment by first outlining what it is you are looking to achieve, how quickly you need to achieve it, and placing the appropriate resources behind your campaign in order to make that a reality.

Success then follows with the refinement of your Social Media Advertising campaigns. When you are new to the practice, it can be hard to know exactly how to optimise your campaigns, so it requires less budget to acquire customers or qualified leads.

Organic social media marketing can feel quite safe, as you only need to invest your time to get results. Moving into paid advertising across multiple social media platforms can therefore be daunting, as you are having to allocate larger amounts of resources in order to chase a higher return on investment in the future. That is why it is so crucial to partner your business with a Social Media Advertising agency who knows how to get you results.

If you are having difficult selecting the right agency for you, ensure you find a partner that begins by creating a unique Social Media Advertising plan for your business and goals – there are too many cookie-cutter solutions in circulation which won’t deliver the results you need.

You will also need an agency clear on how they measure performance. When you invest your resources behind any form of advertising, there is no room for guesswork, so you should receive clear, frequent, and fully transparent reporting demonstrating a return on investment from your campaigns. The key is to research and engage with an agency you trust to propel your business before a target audience ready to make the most of your products or services.

Social Media Advertising works best when a strong strategy is built on top of a target audience and clear goal setting. Common issues spring from campaigns created without a clear purpose or direction, having budgets and resources wasted by going to broad with their approach. The key skill and benefit behind Social Media Advertising is the wealth of data collected by the platforms, allowing businesses to target their audiences with more success than ever before. Unfortunately, many feel like selecting a refined niche might limit their potential and opt for casting a wider net. This actually wastes your budget placed behind your campaigns on audiences not looking to convert. Keep the focus on your ideal customers to ensure every dollar is well spent towards converting engaged customers.