Social Media Advertising In 2022: Everything You Need To Know
We’d love to say that all it takes to reach your target audience is creative content and a unique tone of voice, but with every brand out there trying to do the same thing it can be really hard to stand out from the crowd.
It doesn’t help that Meta and the others are constantly changing their algorithms and search engine rankings. This makes catching the attention of your own followers as they scroll through their feed difficult enough, let alone trying to attract new audiences! And so, we turn to advertising. With the right strategy, you can convert even a small advertising budget into the kind of results that will make your CEO say, “Wow, are we going viral?” But don’t take our word for it! Let’s go through our top tips for this kind of approach.
Key Steps In A Successful Social Media Advertising Strategy
Set clear goals or objectives
Think about what you actually want to achieve! Are you raising awareness of your brand, generating engagement with your social posts, or driving followers to a specific action – like clicking a link or making a purchase? Without agreeing on goals there will be no way to track your successes or failures along the way. You might as well be throwing money away!
Decide which metrics to measure
Depending on your objectives, you need to figure out which statistics will back up your results. Awareness can be tracked based on how many people you reach with your ads, while engagement can be proven through social media metrics like shares, comments, saves, likes and retweets. Measuring awareness and consideration metrics – like how many people clicked your link – is pretty straightforward from the social media side, but might require a bit more analysis within your website or eCommerce platform to find out what activity resulted from the link click. Tracking all these metrics will also help you calculate your cost-per-action so you can decide if the amount your spending is worthwhile.
Choose your audience
Put some time into developing audience personas and getting to know your target audiences. Each platform allows quite specific ad targeting, so you need to know who you’re trying to reach to take full advantage of those options and get more value for your money. Bear in mind that Meta has been getting criticised for their targeting options and has changed them as a result, so you need to be ready to adapt to any future restrictions like this.
Content creation
It’s completely fine to use your organic content as a starting point, but keep in mind your target audience. The kind of imagery and language that works well with your current followers might rely on a certain knowledge of your brand, while new audiences will need more info from any ads that appear on their feed. It also helps to have a clear call to action in social media ads if you want to see the results you’re hoping for.
Reporting
Probably the most important step in this entire process is tracking your results, examining the successes and failures, and adapting your strategy based on that information. There are no failures in social media advertising – just more chances to improve!
We’ve had some great success with strategic advertising through our clients’ social media accounts too
In December 2021, Sunshine launched a conversion campaign for a well-known spa to encourage target audiences to treat their loved ones to spa vouchers over the festive season. Despite December being a notoriously cluttered (and expensive!) advertising space, the campaign generated a WHOPPING 1,023% ROAS (return on ad spend).
Working with an iconic Scottish food brand, Sunshine devised a digital strategy to support and nurture online retail listings. How? Seeding key messaging and calls-to-action, while targeting people within a specific radius of each listing to ensure messaging was fully tailored to each retailer. The results? A spike in web traffic to online retail listings at a cost-per-click of just £0.19, as well as targeted awareness of store listings to encourage footfall.
The sky is the limit when it comes to social media advertising! So, what are you waiting for? Try it out yourself and see what it can do for your brand.