The importance of paid social media.

There are 2.62 billion people that use social media across the globe. It’s great for connecting with family, friends and brands. For us, on the marketing side of the table, it’s got a number of benefits, but paid social media is something that should be in every campaign strategy, and here’s why;

1.    Targeting

One of the biggest benefits of paid social is the vast range of options available to help with targeting. Which has been under some scrutiny over the last few months, but we can target users based on their interests, demographics, pages they’ve visited and also retarget them if they’ve been to our website (more on this later).

2.    Creative testing

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter etc, all have a number of additional creative options when it comes to paid advertising. It gives a wide range of options based on campaign objectives,  Carousel ads, Facebook Instant Experience (formally known as Canvas), Lead Generation ads and the list goes on. From this, A/B testing will help define adverts to make sure they are the best for the audience. Not only can you test the creative, but you can test the placement with vast options including; the News Feed, Timelines, Facebook Stories, Instagram Stories, Instant Articles and the list goes on.

3.    Retargeting

A quick code snippet on your website and you’ll be able to pick-up what your website visitors are doing. Giving you the option to learn about them and then retargeting them with further adverts to convert them. This has added some great ROI for a number of campaigns, but its application can be used across every industry and the Pixel code should be on every website.

4.    Cost effective

The great thing about paid social media is that the campaign costs can be low. The ability to tweak campaigns and make changes in real-time, allow for budgets to be utilised effectively. Effective planning, understanding what is needed to achieve campaign success, and continuous optimising (see point 6) throughout the campaign, will ensure sure that campaigns are cost effective.

5.    Reporting and analytics

Real-time reporting on campaigns will give very quick insight into how well your campaign is running. Sometimes, within a few hours it’ll be apparent which adverts are performing the best, meaning that you can learn, adapt and optimise very quickly to make sure your budget is spent effectively.

6.    Optimising

The ability to create, test, learn and refine with paid social is one of the main benefits. I’ve touched on it throughout this article, but depending on the length of the campaign, this is the most important part. Spending budget wisely is the top priority for any campaign and with the tools paid social provides, I’m looking to do that daily. The process is simple, check in daily, sometimes every few hours. Take a look at what demographics are responding to your adverts and amend the targeting accordingly. Next, take a look at the adverts themselves, which are getting most clicks for the cheapest budget? Then, turn off the adverts that are not performing. A few weeks in, start to tweak again, introduce a new variant of advert to keep the campaign fresh, then repeat the process again.

7.    Changes in organic reach

Mark Zuckerberg announced at the start of 2018 that the News Feed in Facebook will be shifting what it is showing. It’ll focus more on meaningful interactions instead of posts from businesses, brands and publishers, all to achieve the goal of bringing people closer together. To combat this, paid social is a great way to amplify content to reach new and existing audiences, remember that budgets don’t need to be huge, sometimes £25 across a week might be just what you need, especially if the return is much more significant.

Need help?

There are a number of great benefits to paid social and it may seem a little daunting. The above is just the tip of the iceberg of what can be done. Thankfully, we here at Torpedo can do all of that for you.

If you need help or advice with paid social media, Torpedo has the expertise and experience to help. Get in touch now!