Nearly every business is on social media these days, but a lot of businesses are hesitant when it comes to putting actual dollars behind their social media pages.
It’s relatively easy to post content, but it’s much harder to post quality content that is viewed consistently by your audience. It seems downright impossible to build an audience on social platforms, especially as a small to mid-sized business.
At yet, our team at Designz Digital has done it for multiple businesses.
Our team specializes in building followings for our clients by using both organic and paid social media strategies.
Today, we’re focusing on the 5 biggest reasons that paid social media content could take your business to the next level.
1. Find your target audience.
The best part about running ads on social media is that you get a lot of control over who is seeing your content.
You can use category selection tools on just about every major platform in order to make sure that you’re getting the best bang for your buck. You’re just paying for views, you’re paying for quality views that are going to fit your target demographic.
Think of social media as a digital billboard, but the only people who will see your content are the people who actually might want to see your content.
You’ll get more than demographics based on age and employment as well, you’ll also get to maximize your viewers based on their interests, hobbies, and “likes”. You’re paying for your customer to see your product – not just random people online.
2. Establish credibility as a thought leader.
Marketers are in agreement about this: organic reach isn’t “dead”, but it’s on its way. If you’re going to make waves as a business on social media, it’s really hard to do it 100% organically.
By paying for a few clicks, you’ll be able to jumpstart your page views and create some forward momentum on building your audience.
The reason that a business uses social media isn’t just to sell things, it’s also to establish itself as a thought leader in its industry. If no one is seeing your content, it’s hard to do that.
However, perceived credibility goes a really long way. Paid ads can help you begin to get there.
When people see your ads consistently, they can’t help but believe you are a thought leader in your industry.
3. Tell your story to strangers.
Personally, I am a tough sell when it comes to social media follows.
I don’t follow a ton of brands online, not even the brands I support.
Why? Their content is dry and lifeless. I know they have products, but when it comes to social media, I want stories about products.
Most people follow brands online not only because of the product but also because of the story that accompanies the brand. The product is the just collaboration that comes when the story is told well.
If I tell you Designz Digital offers social media management, you won’t think much of us besides the fact that we offer services, and one of them is social media management.
However, if I tell you that we have more than doubled the following of some of our clients in less than a year, that is a story that does more than just offer a service. This is what you should do with your paid ads.
Paid ads give you the freedom to tell your story to new people.
4. Win the mobile game.
Most of the time, where are you viewing social media?
If you’re like 79% of people, you’re probably viewing your apps on your phone instead of a web browser. Running ads on social media gives you more exposure to your customers’ digital lives because you will appear more in the place where they are spending more time.
Location matters, even in the digital world.
To run good social media campaigns, you have to figure out where you want to be.
Here’s a hint: you want to be on your customer’s phone.
5. Gain piles of relevant data.
As a social media manager myself, the best part about running paid campaigns is the boatload of data and analytics that come in after an ad runs for several days.
Paid content gives you data that organic content never can, at scale.
From this data, you’ll be able to figure out if your calls-to-action are working, if your ad looks good, or if it just needs work.
Organic traffic doesn’t give you the definite “yes or no” answer that you need to make business decisions.
6. Leads will come easier than ever when you run social media ads.
Let’s be honest, sometimes, it’s hard to gain traction from the leads you do manage to get through social media.
The added benefit of running ads isn’t just the data, the views, and the validation that you get when lots of people see your stuff. There is a direct correlation between increased views from Facebook ads and increased leads and sales.
When you get leads from people who have been targeted to want to see your product or service, closing those leads will be far more manageable.
7. You can optimize the heck out of the CTA.
One of the most important aspects of content marketing is the CTA – or call-to-action. The call-to-action is the little message that you use at the end of the piece of content (this could be an email, a social media post, or a blog post) that helps direct people further toward making a sale.
With Facebook ads, you already have your client in the door, so you can optimize that call-to-action so thoroughly that you will be able to find your target audience and lead them exactly to where you want them to go.
This is how you can turn Facebook leads into sales.
Closing thoughts
Building a social media audience isn’t just a lot of hard work, it’s also an investment.
It’s an investment of time, resources (other people’s time), and money. Running paid ads can be a bit of a hack to getting an early return on your investment.
If you’re a business owner looking to connect with your audience on a level you’ve never been able to see, social media advertising might be the thing you’ve been missing.
Our team of experts can help you get started.