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Eighty-two percent of Americans have an account on at least one of the following apps: Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Every time someone decides to join one of these social media networks, they first have to share a lot of information about themselves.
There is an upside to this. It’ll make their social media experience a lot more personal, and their friends and family can find and connect with them a lot more easily, among other things.
But there’s something else.
Right from the point of registration, social networks now have enough data about a person to sell targeted advertising to companies.
That’s just the beginning though.
Social media platforms record and store everything a user does: every post they like or dislike, where they go on vacation, who they work for, their interests and hobbies, and more.
The networks get to know that person a little better thanks to the ever-changing algorithm which tracks their activity every time they log in.
As a result, there has never been a more complete or detailed marketing database of consumers in the history of the world.
Your company can find exactly the people you want to reach out to with social advertising.
Organic Posts vs. Ad Campaigns
There are two ways to get your content in front of potential new customers on social media — organic posts and ad campaigns.
In truth, they actually depend on each other to succeed but let’s look at the differences between them.
Ad Campaigns
Buying social media ads guarantees that your content appears in your chosen targets’ news feeds.
You can choose the types of ads you want to run — we’ll cover that in more detail in a moment.
There are a number of different pricing models available from cost per click (CPC) to cost per action (for example, you only pay when someone downloads an app, signs up to a newsletter, or buys something).
You can select one or more of the following pricing models for your campaign:
- Cost per click: Like Google Ads where you pay only when someone clicks through to a page on your site, such as a landing page.
- Cost per mille: You pay a charge for every 1,000 impressions or the number of times your ad is seen in users’ news feeds.
- Cost per view: A charging model based upon how many times your video is viewed and for how long.
- Cost per action: Where you’re charged every time someone does something you want them to do (for example: download an app, sign up to an email newsletter, or buy something).
- Cost per lead: Best for lead generation, you pay every time someone gives you their contact details for follow up (the longer the inquiry form, the more you should expect to pay).
Social advertising platforms themselves are flexible and easy to use.
Attribution (or the measurement of results) is immediately available via each platform’s “Ad Manager” dashboard. You can often track your click-through rate (CTR), conversion rates, and much more in real time.
Organic Posts
You don’t pay for organic posts. With an organic marketing campaign, you create content and then you upload it to your account. Your hope is that this content will appear in the news feeds of the active users following your account.
To speed up growth in your number of followers, you should:
- Optimize your profile: Upload a high-quality profile picture, use the description section to tell visitors about your company, enable reviews and a custom URL (like facebook.com/yourbrand), add a link to your website, and use page tabs (tabs like posts, groups, review, videos).
- Post regular, high-quality content: Consistently share interesting, informative, and engaging posts with your followers. Come up with a content calendar for each platform and stick to it.
To speed up growth in your number of followers, profile optimization and regular posting of content can help. Another way to boost visibility is to interact and engage with your followers so that they feel part of your community.
The problem with organic marketing is that the social media platform decides which followers see your content. On Facebook, that can be as few as six out of every 100 followers per post.
Mixing Up the Two Approaches
The type of content you produce for your paid for campaigns should be a lot more business-like and results-oriented than your organic content.
Organic content offers an opportunity to build loyalty to and appreciation of your brand among your followers. What makes it different? Who works there? What do you believe in?
Millennials and Gen Z gravitate towards companies that share their opinions and worldview. This is your chance to show them just that.
Your overall balance of content should be a mix of promotional and informational with the majority of posts skewing heavily towards informational.
If you post too much overtly commercial content, you risk losing followers.
Bring Them Further Down the Funnel
When someone does start following you on social media, try to take it “offline” as soon as you can.
Try to get their direct contact details by give them strong enough reasons to:
- Buy something from you
- Sign up to receive email newsletters and promotions
Social media ad campaigns are very effective in building up audiences and generating sales. But the most successful digital marketing campaigns come from being in direct contact with your customers and building strong relationships that way.
6 Social Media Advertising Options
There are six main ad formats you can use in your social media strategy.
1. Video Ads
Video ads, especially shorter ones, are very effective in generating responses. According to media investment firm Magma, six-second video ads persuade more viewers to buy than 15-second videos.
Many companies are therefore now focusing on creating short videos like Instagram Stories Ads, Snaps, and TikToks for their campaigns.
Let’s not discount longer videos, though. The Instagram videos that generate the most comments are 26 seconds long on average.
The best option for advertisers wanting to create longer-form video content may be Instagram Reels, which can be up to 60 seconds in duration.
2. Single Image Ads
According to a recent survey of marketing professionals, 24% believe that single image ads work best on Facebook.
Text-based ads with single images make a real impact. As well as using them to display products to consumers, brands use imagery to preview future releases, tell their story, and even tease their audiences like KFC did with their hilarious new french fries launch.
A recent study found that the inclusion of an image in a tweet substantially increased the number of likes and shares for airlines and SUV manufacturers (between 87.26% and 213.12%).
3. Carousel Ads
Carousel ads allow advertisers to display multiple headlines, calls to action, links, videos, and images within the same ad.
Compared with ads that encourage click-throughs to a company’s website, Facebook’s carousel ads have been reported to deliver:
- Lower costs per conversion and click
- A 72% higher click-through rate
4. Product Ads
Companies use dynamic product ads to generate sales from people who have been to their websites before.
If someone visits your website and you have a Facebook Pixel installed on it, this sends information back to Facebook on which pages you visited, which products you added to your shopping cart, how long you spent on each page, and so on.
It then uses this data to present products in a user’s news feed that it believes will be of interest with the hope of creating an immediate sale.
According to Abode, product ads result in lower cost per impression, higher click-through rates, and a reduction in cost per click. Overall, product ads campaigns can be up to 23% more profitable than standard social media campaigns.
5. Collection Ads
Collection ads are a variation on carousel ads that allow advertisers to display four or more products in video and image form — a kind of digital catalog.
Adidas chose Facebook to run a collection ads campaign to promote its Z.N.E Road Trip Hoodie and the accessories, shoes, and sweatpants it manufactures from the same range.
Facebook reported that Adidas achieved a 5.3x return on the campaign with a 43% reduction in conversion costs.
6. Influencer Ads
On influencer advertising campaigns, you partner with a personal social media account holder whose followers closely match your target audience.
Influencer promotions generate impressive results for advertisers with an average earned media return of $5.78 for every $1 spent.
Sometimes results from influencer marketing generate much greater returns, like Markerly client Dixie recording a 100x ROI on an influencer marketing campaign.
The 6 Most Popular Social Advertising Platforms
You can run all six types of ads listed above on the most popular social media platforms (with the exception of collection ads on LinkedIn). But which network(s) should you choose for social advertising?
Statistics in this article were generated by Pew Research. The percentage figures shown relate to the percentage of Americans in that demographic using that particular platform.
1. Facebook Ads
At the time of writing, Facebook is by far the most popular social media network in America. Marketers appreciate the platform not just for its extensive reach but also for how easy their ad targeting options are to use as well as the deep level of demographic detail it has on its users.
Over three-quarters of American females have a profile on Facebook compared with three in five men. There is a higher proportion of African Americans and Hispanic Americans than white Americans on the platform.
The site is popular amongst all age ranges and income, although it’s slightly more used by college students and graduates.
2. Instagram Ads
Facebook owns Instagram and this means that the Instagram advertising platform is exactly the same as Facebook’s.
One in four Americans use Instagram with a slight bias in favor of female users. The proportion of African American and Hispanic American IG users is much higher than white Americans.
The use of the platform is greater among higher-earning Americans. Nearly half of Americans earning $75,000 or more use the app. Instagram users also tend to be highly educated with nearly half of them being college graduates.
Instagram is particularly popular among urban and suburban 18-29 year olds. The usage among Americans aged 50+ is much lower.
3. TikTok Ads
TikTok is a relatively new entrant to the social media landscape, but we’re seeing brands do some amazing work on the platform. This video-based platform is now the third most popular network among 18- to 29-year-olds.
The user base shares much in common with Instagram’s user base. Younger people tend to use it far more than the over-30s and it has established itself as a very popular app among African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
There is little difference in the usage rates depending on either income or level of education.
4. Twitter Ads
One in four Americans has an account on the open short blogging/messaging platform, Twitter.
It’s the only platform where men outnumber women. Users of either gender tend to earn more and be better educated than on other networks with the exception of LinkedIn and Facebook.
Younger Americans have really taken to the platform. That’s not the case for the over-50s however, where it has the second-lowest usage level of the six networks featured.
5. Pinterest Ads
Founded in 2009, Pinterest is a social media network where users share images, videos, and web pages of interest with their followers.
Nearly half of female Americans have a Pinterest account whereas barely one in seven men have an account.
Membership among white Americans and African Americans is at nearly double the rate of Hispanic Americans. Usage in urban, suburban, and rural parts of the country is roughly similar at around three in 10 of the population.
Along with Facebook and LinkedIn, it’s more popular with users over the age of 30 than under. Forty percent of all Americans earning $75,000 or more have a Pinterest account.
6. LinkedIn Ads
LinkedIn is the most popular B2B networking and recruitment platform in America.
Just over one in four Americans have an account on the network with a slight bias towards males. It has a higher usage among people aged 30-64 than 18-29.
Half of Americans either earning $75,000 or more or who are college graduates have a profile on the platform. Users are primarily based in urban and suburban areas.
The proportion of white Americans and African Americans joining the platform is roughly the same, however, Hispanic membership is currently much lower.
Dark Social Advertising
Dark social describes the interactions that take place between people on platforms like messaging apps that can’t be remotely tracked.
Dark social has been with us since the dawn of the internet. When we send links to our friends and family by email, this is a form of dark social, believe it or not.
Nearly two-thirds of people prefer to share via dark social rather than in public on social media platforms. Messaging apps are also particularly popular among Gen Zers.
Dark social is difficult to take advantage of because it’s difficult to measure. Everyone knows it’s out there but the tools don’t really exist yet to track its performance accurately.
What’s the best way to cater for the preference to share information on dark social media?
You could consider creating downloadable and shareable promotional material like:
- E-books
- White papers
- Virtual coupons
- Gift vouchers
The Dark Social Networks
There are dozens of messaging apps available and we include the three below because they have the highest numbers of users in America.
Figures shown for users also come from Pew Research.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a messaging app primarily for private, closed-group sharing of images and videos.
It’s popular among younger Americans who make less than $50,000. The majority of Snapchat’s users have either attended or graduated from college.
Usage in urban and suburban areas is higher than in rural areas. The proportion of Hispanic Americans on the platform is much higher than white Americans or African Americans.
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is a separate communications app linked to your standard Facebook account.
Facebook doesn’t break out numbers for the Messenger app.
However, given its dependence on the main Facebook app to operate, it’s likely that they have near-identical user bases.
Like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp is owned by Facebook and it uses its social advertising platform.
WhatsApp has slightly fewer users than Snapchat.
WhatsApp’s audience is older than Snapchat’s, although, on average, they earn slightly less. This is despite the fact that WhatsApp has a higher number of users who graduated from college than Snapchat has.
The app is far more popular in urban and suburban areas than it is in rural America.
WhatsApp’s usage among the Hispanic American community is much higher than in the white and African American communities.
How to Succeed With Social Ads
Social media platforms offers advertisers an abundance of platforms and tools to:
- Raise brand awareness
- Generate new traffic to their website
- Drive revenue
The first challenge to any brand is identifying their potential customers using each platform’s demographic statistics. In the past where we may only have targeted one or two audiences, we may have to find a dozen or more audiences now, creating separate messages to appeal to each to really succeed.
Define Your Business Goals
You need to be clear on your commercial goals before you decide which platforms to appear on, which audiences to target, and which types of ads to book.
As with your other routes to market, you need to constantly test and analyze the metrics to judge how successful individual campaigns have been.
By doing this, you’ll better understand where your greatest return on investment in social media marketing comes from.
Social Advertising and Your Company
Social marketing is an opportunity for your brand to build relationships with existing and potential customers online.
Social media networks have invested tens of billions of dollars to persuade the majority of Americans to join their platforms and share personal information with them. This is an expenditure your company doesn’t have to make.
And what starts off as a relationship between you and a customer on social media can blossom into so much more given the right nurturing.
For 10 years, Markerly has helped brands large and small find their tribes on social media. We can help you unlock the power of social media by strategizing the best approach for your campaign goals and connecting you to influencers who are eager to help.
Work with our social media campaign team to find the right platform and types of ads for your brand. Fill out our contact form so we can start chatting!
