Social Media Ads - Do I need them?

13th Dec. 2015

There’s a very simple answer to the question ‘do you need to do social media ads?’ - Yes. In 2005, just 5.6 percent of the advertising budget for an average small to medium sized business was designated for the internet. Every other advertising medium except cinema - magazines, newspapers, radio, billboards, and so on all received a larger portion of the available funds. In 2013, however, web advertising took up more than 20 percent of the average advertising budget, surpassing the more traditional forms of advertising to become the second most influential method of promotion, with only TV keeping it from holding the top spot on the leaderboard.

Of course, these figures are relevant only to web advertising in general - so why is it vital for small to medium sized businesses to break the category down further and focus specifically on social media advertising, rather than generic internet promotion? According to research, ads that are placed in social media newsfeeds, rather than on webpage banners, have much higher click through rates - as great as 8.1 times higher for desktop ads, and a whopping 9.1 times higher for mobile ads. Why? Quite simply, the average internet users spends more time interacting on social media than performing any other tasks on the web - it’s a case of visibility.

Remember, however, that social media advertising is only successful if undertaken with careful planning. Here are some handy tips for using social media ads to grow your business:

•  Don’t jump in feet first - test the waters. Make use of analytics tools like Facebook page Insights to determine which types of posts really speak to your customers, and play to these strengths when it comes to creating valuable ad content.
• Try not to focus solely on desktop - consider optimising social media ads for mobile too. Reportedly, only 68 percent of small to medium sized businesses include mobile in their marketing strategies, which is significantly limiting business promotion efforts.
• Make sure you’re targeting the right people - social media ads that aren’t being seen by the right audience will suffer in terms of click through rate. Networks are prepared for this, with Twitter allowing businesses to target specific demographics, locations, and so on.

Social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are essentially the largest publicly available marketing lists, and are something that all businesses should be making a priority. Millions of users all around the world interact through these platforms, meaning social media ads are an effective way to reach large numbers of the right demographic at a relatively low cost.