Advertising and Social Media Marketing

Social media sites have been offering advertising programs for a while now. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn provide business owners with the means to promote and reach targeted audiences on their sites. The programs are becoming quite popular because of the results they’re able to deliver. Additionally, it’s a new way to reach your audience and may help you extend your advertising strategy beyond Google.

Why Social Media Advertising Works

In addition to the fact that millions of people access their Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr accounts on a daily basis, they’re also accessing the sites on their mobile phone. That means that as an advertiser on one or more of these sites, you’re getting in front of your audience on a fairly consistent basis.

Unlike other advertising mediums, it’s new so it grabs their attention. Some types of advertising can begin to lose their potency when users become accustomed to them. Their eyes barely glance at the ad before they move on. Social media advertising is new and therefore it’s effective.

Targeted Ads

Social media also has the unique ability to market directly to highly targeted prospects. For example, Facebook makes the following statement, “While most online advertising provides about 38% targeting accuracy, Facebook, on average, delivers 89%. On Facebook, you’ll only pay to reach the right people who’ll love your business.”

This is because Facebook and other social marketing sites allow you to segment your audience. You can create ads based on your prospect’s location, age and gender, interests, and connections. For example, you can advertise specifically to people who have joined a Facebook event. In some cases you can also find people who are similar to your best customers and create ads specifically for them.

Social media advertising is also generally less expensive than many other advertising opportunities and tactics. You reach more people and get more response from those people. Social media advertising also provides analytics, whereas some advertising methods do not provide this and make advertising efforts a guessing game.

Without analytics, you just don’t know if your ad worked or not. With any type of advertising for an internet business, analytics are essential and a clear-cut way to identify which ads are working and how well. You stay in control over your budget and your results.

If you have an advertising budget and strategy, consider adding social media marketing to that plan. You may be surprised at the results. It could change the way your business approaches advertising.

Advertising and Social Media Marketing