10.01 – Advertising on Social Media
Social media is one of the most used channels among consumers worldwide, with billions of active users across various platforms. For example, Facebook has about 3 billion monthly active users, while LinkedIn has 67 million. The average daily time spent on social networks by U.S. adults in 2022 was:
- Facebook: 33 minutes
- TikTok: 31 minutes
- Twitter: 31 minutes
- Instagram: 29 minutes
- Snapchat: 28 minutes
Randomly posting on these platforms might create some buzz, but carefully crafted ad campaigns can significantly enhance your impact. Here are some general tips for advertising on popular social media channels.
Harnessing the Power of Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger Ads
Facebook is the most active social media platform, with the highest daily usage. Despite privacy concerns, users continue to engage heavily with the platform, making it an essential channel for advertising. Whether you’re a B2B or B2C brand, the question is not if you should advertise on Facebook, but how much you should invest.
With over 60 million active business pages on Facebook, standing out can be challenging, which is why paid advertising is crucial. Nearly 2 billion people are connected to a small business page on Facebook, offering a vast potential audience.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, also owns Instagram and Messenger, allowing for seamless ad placement across these platforms. Setting up Facebook ads is straightforward, and the platform guides you through the process at Facebook Business Ads.
Steps to Set Up Facebook Ads
- Craft Your Objective: Determine if you want to generate brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, or achieve other specific actions like purchases, event registrations, or content downloads.
- Define Your Audience: Facebook offers tools to target your audience accurately, including core audiences, custom audiences, and lookalike audiences.
- Choose Your Placements: Decide whether to place your ads across all Meta platforms or focus on one. Automatic placements can help reach a broader audience.
- Set Your Budget: You can set daily, weekly, monthly, or campaign lifetime budgets. Start small, monitor the impact, and scale up successful campaigns.
- Choose Your Format: Select from photo, video, story, carousel, slideshow, or playable ads. Test different formats to see what works best for your audience.
Setting Up on the YouTube Stage
With the rise of video content, advertising on YouTube is becoming increasingly relevant. YouTube statistics show high engagement with brand messages and significant purchase intent from viewers.
Key YouTube Ad Stats
- Viewers are twice as likely to buy something they see on YouTube.
- Over 70% of YouTube viewers are more aware of new brands from watching videos.
To advertise on YouTube, set up a YouTube channel to host your videos and create ads to drive traffic to your channel or website. YouTube allows you to target audiences based on location, interests, and other variables, providing estimates for reach, views, and cost per view (CPV).
Creating Effective YouTube Ads
- Matchmaking with Keywords: Use keywords to match your ads with relevant videos and browsing history.
- Set a Budget: Choose between awareness (pay per thousand views) or consideration (pay per single view) budgets.
- Review and Approve: Submit your ad for review before it appears on YouTube.
YouTube ads should be professional, engaging, and have a clear call to action. Short, fast-paced ads (30-60 seconds) tend to perform best.
Advertising on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is ideal for B2B brands to engage with customers and prospects in a professional setting, building awareness and sparking dialogue about industry topics.
Key LinkedIn Ad Formats
- Single Images, Carousel Images, Videos, Text: Create links back to your website.
- Placement: Ads can appear in news feeds or sidebars, with news feed placements being more credible.
Writing Engaging LinkedIn Posts
- Focus on sharing business and professional information, industry insights, and job postings.
- Provide actionable insights and decision support, not sales pitches.
- Tag posts with relevant search terms to increase visibility.
By leveraging these social media advertising strategies, you can effectively reach and engage your target audience, driving better results for your marketing efforts.
