Social Media Advertising: How to Get Started in 2021

In today’s digital age, everyone is chained to their phones, laptops, and other devices. It’s like we can’t even breathe without checking our social media feeds every five seconds. Every living human (and their pet) has social media accounts. This is why social media advertising is one of the top marketing trends for 2021. 

Businesses are using social media to advertise their products and services. For the most part, social media advertising is pretty straightforward. You post your ad, get engagement and clicks, win new customers, and pay for the ad. However, the whole thing can get a little tricky for you if you are doing it for the first time. Here’s your guide to harness the power of social media advertising in 2021.

Step 1: Choose the right social media platforms

As you know, social media is not just Facebook and Twitter anymore. There are so many new apps in town and each one has its own type of content. Your first step towards building a social media strategy is to find where your target audience is. 

Have some products for teens? You’ll find their lot on TikTok and Snapchat. Offering services for moms? Advertise them on Facebook. Selling some software for businesses? LinkedIn is your place. 

After choosing the right social platform/s, you can micro-target your ad campaigns. For that, you’d have to work on buyer personas and understand which audience segment you need to focus on. For example, if you are targeting businesses, what specific types of businesses fall under your product umbrella.

Step 2: Work on the ad content

Now, once you do decide on which social networks you are going to put your ads on, it’s time for you to work on the content of your ad. You need to resonate the content of your ad with the social platform’s content. Your ad needs to blend and strike a chord with the fans. That’s it, that’s the magic trick. 

Photo ads work for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Video ads are the best for Instagram and YouTube. Short and looping videos drive the most engagement on TikTok and Snapchat. Similarly, if you are using photo ads, you can then choose between slideshow and collection ads. There’s a lot to think about.

Marketing is emotional and you need to trigger the emotions of your potential buyers through your ad. Whether it’s a photo or a short video, the whole point of your ad is to make someone stop scrolling and check out your product or service.

There is no cookie-cutter for setting an advertising budget for your social media strategy. It all depends on how much you can afford at the moment. Instead of going into a ton of formulas and calculations, the best way is to set aside a flat percentage of your total revenue for advertising. 

Once you have a number in your mind, you can then choose the payment method depending on your goal. If you only want impressions out of your ads, you will pay cost per 1000 impressions. If you want clicks, you’ll pay a cost per click. 

Other factors that impact how much you will be paying for your social media ads include:

• The quality of your ad
• The type of audience you are targeting
• The country you’re targeting
• Placement of your ad (messenger or news feed)

You can start by putting aside small amounts for different social platforms. A few days in, you can analyse the results of each one and invest some more in the best performing ads. This will give you a taste of every type of ad as a first-time social media marketer. 

Step 3: Measure results and revise your strategy

Knowing your goals before running a social media campaign is important. Measuring the results to see how much of those goals you have achieved is just as important. You can see what’s working and what’s not, which social platforms are receiving your ads the best and bringing you new customers.                                               

You can use smart social media analytics tools to see the results of your campaigns. The numbers and graphs will tell you which ads are performing well and on what social networks. You can then promote those ads even more to get the most juice out of them. For the ones that aren’t performing that well, you can experiment with the design and content of those ads, switch their placement on the social network, and even change the time of appearance on the page.

Recently, Apple’s iOS 14 release and Google’s new privacy policy has left digital advertising in hot waters. Long story short, they are no longer allowing marketers to track the effectiveness of their ad campaigns without users’ consent. So, if you are to crack that, you need a sharp social media analytics tool by your side.

The Bottom Line

Advertising, especially social media advertising, is a game of behavioral data. You identify where your target audience is, what social media platforms they use, and you advertise your products and services to them. Then you see how your ads are doing, which products are bringing you more leads, and you promote them. With the right tools by your side, you have got it all figured out. 

But one thing that marketers tend to forget is that good marketing is not just “plug and play”. Yes, you need a data-driven marketing strategy. But you also need to realize that your customers, no matter how robotic they have become, are still real people. You have to remember that ads do not drive sales, they tell a story of your brand. Your products and services complete the sale. 

If you want social media advertising to work and win you leads, you have to make sure you have efficient and quality products in store. In the end, it’s all about how good your product or service really is.