How To Grow Your Small Business Using Social Media Ads
Social media advertising is a great way to grow your small business. The platforms are easy to use and you can target exactly the audience that you want. Social media ads can get you results quickly and they are also affordable compared to other forms of online advertising.
What is social media advertising?
Social media advertising is a form of online advertising that is placed on social media platforms. Small businesses can be successful with social media ads, as they are cost-effective and allow you to reach a large audience.
What are the benefits of using social media ads?
Social media ads are a great way to get your product in front of more people. You're already using social media regularly (or should be), so it's likely that the platform is a part of your marketing strategy. With social ads, you can target the exact demographic you want and make sure they see your offer at exactly the right time.
If done correctly, social ad campaigns can be very approachable--and they give you the ability to track results and tweak accordingly so that all of your money isn't spent on ineffective ads or targeting.
Do I need to have a website for my business to advertise on social media?
You don't need to have a website for your business in order to advertise on social media. Social media ads can be used to drive traffic directly from the ad itself, or you can use it as an opportunity to direct people back to your site by including links in the text of your ad copy or the image description.
You may also want to include a call-to-action (CTA) button at the end of posts that directs readers toward landing pages or contact forms where they'll be able to give more detailed information about themselves and their interests so that you can better customize future offers based on these preferences.
The Right Audience
If you're looking for a tool that will help you find the right audience, our Ideal Client Worksheet is going to help you narrow that down!
With Meta's Audience Builder, you can create custom audiences based on specific criteria such as location, demographics, and interests that you might already know about your target market segment. The better the audience, the better the ROI.
Create a laser-focused ad
Before you start, it's important to have a clear idea of what your goal is. If you don't know what you want from an ad, it can be difficult for Meta to show the right people your message and get them interested in buying from you.
For example, let's say that when someone searches on Google for "dog food," they see an ad at the top of their results page that says something like: "Dog Food - Buy Now!" That would be great if all they wanted was dog food (and maybe even if they didn't). But what if instead, they were looking for information about different types of diets or specific brands? In this case, an ad like this might not actually help anyone find what they want--it only gets in their way!
That's why setting goals before creating ads is so important: by knowing what we want our customers' journey through our website or storefronts will look like after clicking through from our ads, we can make sure those journeys align with their interests as well as our own expectations (and budgets).
Make it relevant
1. When it comes to social media ads, there are a few things you need to keep in mind. The first thing is relevance. You want your ad copy and images to be relevant not only to the user but also to your business. If you're selling shoes on Instagram, don't use an image of a car or dog!
2. The second thing is the search keywords (or hashtags). You can use these in two ways: by targeting them directly or including them as part of the post itself (i.e., "shop now" with a link). This will help ensure that users find what they're looking for when they click on your ad.
3. The third thing is compelling headlines and CTA buttons--these are especially important because they're likely going into someone's feed without much context around what they're doing there in the first place!
Use video ads to capture their attention
Video ads are a great way to capture attention and tell a story. They can be used to teach, raise awareness of new products, or simply show off your brand.
Tell a story: Video ads are much more engaging than static images or text-based ads, so they're more likely to be watched all the way through. This means that you have more time (and opportunity) to get your message across in an engaging way.
Show off products: If you're using video ads on social media sites like Facebook or Instagram, then it's likely that most of your audience will only see them as they scroll past in their news feeds--so make sure those videos look good! Use bright colors and interesting angles if possible; this will help keep people watching until the end of each commercial break so they can get as much information out of each one as possible before moving onto something else entirely different from what came before it."
Create multiple images, videos, and text ads
In order to grow your small business, you need to create multiple images, videos, and text ads. You can use different images, videos, and text ads for different social media platforms.
Track your results and be consistent.
Track your results and be consistent. Tracking the success of your ads is essential for measuring ROI and improving your campaigns. You can do this by using a tool like Google Analytics, or you can keep all of your ad data in one place like a spreadsheet or marketing analytics app (like AdEspresso).
Don't just set it up and forget it! Social media ads are more complicated than they seem at first glance, so don't expect them to work perfectly right away--you'll need to experiment with different types of ad copy and images until you find something that resonates with people on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
You CAN grow your small business with social media ads.
Social media advertising is a great way to promote your products and services, generate leads, and increase sales. Social media platforms are free to use, so it's no wonder that they've become one of the most popular ways for small businesses to market themselves online.
Which social media platform should you advertise on?
There are a number of social media platforms you can use to advertise your small business. The most popular are:
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
LinkedIn
The first thing that you should do is decide which platform is best for your business. You want to think about where your best / most desired audience segments are.
How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn?
If you're looking for the most bang for your buck when it comes to advertising on social media, then Facebook is probably the way to go. According to AdEspresso's study of over 1 million campaigns across all platforms, Facebook offered a higher ROI than any other platform in four out of five categories: lead generation, customer acquisition, brand awareness, and sales conversion.
Facebook does have a higher cost per click than Twitter or LinkedIn but this shouldn't deter you from using it as an advertising platform because its high return rate means that your ads will still be profitable even if they don't get clicked as much as their counterparts elsewhere
Is there a minimum spend for advertising on each platform?
The minimum spend requirements differ by platform. On Facebook, you can start advertising with as little as $5. On Instagram, the minimum spend is $5. And on Twitter and LinkedIn, it's $50 (though both platforms offer some free tools).
If your business doesn't have much money to invest in ads right now but wants to try out social media advertising anyway, I recommend starting with one platform first--Facebook or Instagram--and getting comfortable using its tools before branching out into other areas of social media marketing like Twitter or LinkedIn ads that require more investment at the outset.
How can you measure success with social media ads?
In order to track your results, you can use a hashtag for each campaign, and keep a close eye on the analytics. This will help you see how many people saw your ad and what they did afterward. You can also create a custom audience of people who have shown interest in your product by using the hashtag or other markers associated with it, like "#smallbusiness."
If you want to measure sales from ads on social media sites, use conversion pixels on your website so that when someone clicks through from an ad and makes a purchase, it will show up in your analytics dashboard as being part of that campaign.
We hope you've found this blog post helpful in learning more about social media advertising and how it can help your small business grow. As we mentioned earlier, there are many platforms out there to choose from and each one has its own unique features and benefits.
So if you want to advertise on just one platform or a few of them--that's fine! Just remember that consistency is key when creating ads. For an incredibly detailed, step-by-step ad guide with customized audiences for your brand, check out our Meta Ad Guide Tool!
Good luck!