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When and how to start advertising on social media

 

Philipp Enders

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All major social media platforms offer some form of advertising on social media for businesses.

With the big players (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn), the tools are incredibly sophisticated and reaching new audiences is often just a few clicks away.

With organic reach on social media going in only one direction, down, it’s becoming increasingly necessary for some businesses that need to increase awareness or find new customers to pay for it. But it’s not always a good idea to dive right into this large and complex world. A few stray clicks here and there, and you can waste your monthly budget in a matter of days with nothing to show for it.

So let’s find out when you should advertise with social advertising and how to go about it.

When should you advertise on social?

We’re not talking about the days of the week or the hours of the day here (although we could fill an entire blog with that!), but rather how you as a business decide when the time is right to advertise on social.

For most, the answer is that now is the time to advertise on social if the budget is there. Advertising on social media is perfect if you want to reach a new audience, especially if you need to be able to do it quickly. We haven’t come across many companies that don’t want to reach new audiences and grow their customer base.

You need to be able to spend some time and budget on it to give advertising a chance. Like much marketing, social media advertising requires a lot of trial and error until you find the methods that suit your audience and needs. You can make as many educated guesses as you want, but in the end they are still just guesses. Having a bit of budget to play with can give you a good foundation for your future campaigns.
We’re not talking thousands here, so don’t worry, a few hundred euros should be enough for most businesses.

How to get started with advertising on social media

The easiest way to get started with social media advertising is to start with one platform. We recommend that you choose the platform with which you are most successful organically. This suggests that the audience there already enjoys your content more than most.

For many of you, this will be either Facebook or Instagram, and the good news is that since Facebook owns Instagram, they use the same advertising platform.

There are more options than we can list here, but broadly speaking, Facebook and Instagram advertising can be divided into three goals:

  • Awareness – increase reach, gain followers
  • Consideration – Website Clicks, App Downloads, News
  • Conversion – online conversions, website sales

Facebook delivers your ads in a slightly different way depending on what you want to accomplish. For example, an awareness campaign where you are simply trying to engage your followers would be shown to a wider audience. A conversion campaign that targets sales may only be shown to a very specific audience.

Advertising on Twitter works much the same way as advertising on LinkedIn. You can target your campaign to increase awareness, gain new followers, encourage app or content downloads, increase website traffic, or simply be seen more.

As we’ve said before, you’ll figure out which options are best for you based on educated guesses and a lot of trial and error, so start small and work your way up.

Tips and takeaways

Before you leave our site, keep the following tips in mind when thinking about social media advertising:

  • Start with a small budget, maybe €400 per month, and try a few methods.
  • Use the platform where your organic content currently performs best.
  • Start with just one platform.
  • Think about your business goal in everything you do.
  • Get a clear picture of who you want to reach – targeting tools are incredibly detailed.
  • Always use images and videos whenever possible.
  • Design your ads for mobile, that’s how most people use social media.

Want help navigating the world of social media advertising? Then get in touch with us today.

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