Understanding the Basics of Advertising on Social Media

An age-old advertising industry aphorism notes how ad spend follows eyeballs, and these days all eyeballs are on social media. According to data from eMarketer, Advertisers worldwide will spend $23.68 billion on paid media to reach consumers on social networks in 2015, a 33.5% increase from 2014. By 2017, social network ad spending will reach $35.98 billion, representing 16.0% of all digital ad spending globally.

Compelling stats and figures aside, it doesn’t take a marketing guru to realize that, with virtually everyone on the planet interacting on social networks, social media might not be such a bad place for your business to advertise. But how do you get started? If you’re like many, the very notion of advertising on social media is an overwhelming one. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone took the time to summarize the basics of advertising on social media, perhaps in a nice-and-tidy blog post full of actionable links? Don’t worry, dear reader, I’ve got you covered.

Before You Get Started

1. Set Your Goals (and Budget)

Much like going to the casino, it’s always a good idea to clarify what you are willing to spend (and potentially blow) before you dig into the nitty-gritty of setting up ad campaigns on social media. And you can’t set your budget until you’ve set your campaign goals, or defined what exactly you’re trying to accomplish with each specific social ad initiative. This is an important but often overlooked step.

If I had to pick a common theme to advertising on any of the major social channels these days, it would be simplicity. This was not always the case. A few years back, setting up ad campaigns on most social platforms tended to be a confusing and cumbersome process. Now, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube, they’ve all stripped down their processes, simplifying the user experience and making it astonishingly easy to set up ad campaigns on their platforms.

Just bear this in mind: as useful as a highly simplified user experience sounds, it can be a dangerous thing when setting up social ad campaigns if you’re not prepared ahead of time with a well-conceived marketing plan governed by clearly defined budget parameters. Very dangerous indeed.

2. Define Your Target Audience

For the modern-day digital marketer, the ancient Greek maxim “Know Thyself” can (and should) be translated to “Know Thy Audience.” Your audience is the Who you are targeting to—make sure you know who they are. Don’t skimp out on developing detailed buyer personas to help clarify.

3. Shape Your Message

The principle driver of any social media campaign—paid or otherwise—is solid marketing content that contains a relevant message targeted to a specific audience. Enough said.

4. Execute Your Campaign

Not much to say here. Hopefully this one is so obvious as to not require further elaboration. Hit the “Activate,” “Go,” “Initiate Campaign,” etc. button and then grab a cup of joe and hope for the best.

5. Measure Your Results, Refine, Scale

One of the great things about social advertising (and digital marketing generally) is the easy access to campaign performance data. Unfortunately, this is where the wheels tend to fall off the applecart in many a social advertising campaign.

Don’t let this happen to you. Take the time to understand the analytical tools at your disposal on whichever social platforms you advertise, and then use them on a consistent basis. After all, they’re there for a reason: to provide you with tangible campaign feedback, feedback that will shed light on what’s working and what isn’t and provide a roadmap to future campaign refinement.

Once you’ve reached the point where you know what is in fact working, don’t be afraid to scale your campaign by dedicating additional money/resources to it. Remember, success is the goal here. As I always say, if it ain’t broke, throw more money at it.

Now that we’ve reviewed the big picture process of advertising on social media, let’s take a quick spin through some of the high points of advertising on each of four major social networks—Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Off we go…
Advertising on Facebook

The first step to advertising on Facebook is to create a Facebook Page for your business. If you haven’t done this already, you can learn how to set one up here.

Once your Facebook Page is up and running, you can create Facebook Ads to reach different audiences and meet specific business goals. As Facebook is more than happy to point out on its Facebook Ads homepage, over 1.4 billion people globally are on Facebook, with more than 900 million visiting the site every day. With such massive audience reach, Facebook is an attractive platform for all types of businesses, although it is generally regarded as primarily a business-to-consumer-focused (B2C) marketing channel. However, it should be noted that a number of business-to-business (B2B) companies have found success with Facebook advertising and marketing. Check out this post from Facebook to learn more.

Like AdWords and many other social advertising platforms, Facebook uses an auction system for determining which ads are placed when and where. Likewise, you maintain control of your campaign budget, which you can set on a daily, monthly, per-ad, or per-campaign basis.

A big advantage of advertising on Facebook is the vast array of micro-audience targeting options at your disposal. Businesses can target audiences based on location, demographics (age, gender, etc.), interests (activities, hobbies, etc.), online and offline buying habits, and more.

In terms of campaign objectives, Facebook offers many different ways to advertise on its platform, ranging from boosting the reach of individual posts to increasing conversions on your website or getting more installs of your mobile app.

For my money, though, one of the most interesting social advertising tools on Facebook is the Custom Audiences feature, which allows you to remarket to people who have already visited your website by retargeting them with a customized ad when they go on to use the social platform. Pretty cool.

If you want to learn more about advertising on Facebook, here’s a link to the Facebook Ads homepage.

Advertising on Twitter

Reflecting a common approach taken by many leading social networks, on its Business Solutions homepage Twitter highlights four popular campaign goals for businesses interested in social advertising: build an audience (in this case on the Twitter platform), generate more traffic, leads, and sales to your website; promote your mobile app; and raise brand awareness by promoting your content (again, on the Twitter platform).

Like the other social networks, Twitter offers robust targeting capabilities, a host of free analytics tools to measure campaign performance, and a raft of case studies highlighting how other businesses have used Twitter Ads to reach their campaign goals. That said, by far the most novel and potentially game-changing social advertising tool Twitter has to offer, in my humble opinion, is Twitter Cards.

Twitter Cards allow you to go beyond 140 characters by adding engaging media experiences to your Tweets. With Twitter Cards, you can attach photos, videos, and other rich media to create more engaging Tweets that drive traffic to your website. According to Twitter, all you have to do is simply add a few lines of HTML to your webpage, and users who Tweet links to your content will have a “Card” added to the Tweet that’s visible to all of their followers.

Here’s an example of a Twitter App Card, which features a “Download” call-to-action embed:

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