Social Media Marketing

Social media has become a behemoth player in the marketing industry. Between Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Pinterest, and others like TikTok, big name brands and small are finding their audiences becoming more receptive to their marketing efforts when they are subtle on social media over overt, in your face broadcast marketing.

The big players:

• Facebook

• Instagram

• YouTube

• LinkedIn

• Pinterest

• TikTok

Whether you choose to find social media influencers, do your marketing inhouse, or parse it out to a media company, overlooking this segment of marketing channels comes at an expense.

With pinpoint, laser-precision targeting, you’re able to define your market at times better than you would on a billboard on the side of a highway, hoping the right person sees your message. Today, you can narrow down to lookalike audiences, include certain interests, and separate segments via age, geo-location, and gender. This makes it easier to find the exact customers that your brand serves.

While there are multiple marketing and social media channels, the most important aspect is finding where your targeted audience spends their time. Looking for older customers? They’re more likely to be on Facebook, while it’s a younger crowd on TikTok. Professionals are on LinkedIn, while Instagram’s age bracket is continually rising. Looking for more stats? Check here.

Along with deciding where to advertise, learning what type of advertising and marketing materials give you the best return on investment is crucial.

Common types of ads:

• Static

• Animated

• Video

• Carousels

• Stories

While you might hear that video is the rising king, you might spend the money and time to make a video ad, only to find that you’re getting engagement, but no return on investment. Stopping to watch a video is fine, but if it doesn’t succeed in bringing a customer to you as a lead, it might be the wrong choice. Between stories, carousels, static ads, animated ads, and videos, there seems to be a limitless supply of choices. Learning what works best for your brand takes time.

Run a few tests spots and check your stats. Data rarely lies, though with too small of a sampling, you may find your results skewed.

The advertising market is about to change. Are you ready?

Apple has created a situation that’s left Facebook feeling the heat. With IOS users able to opt out of being followed and their personal data collected, many marketers are feeling the pinch. This new measure just went into effect in March of 2021, so people are still feeling out what it means for their marketing campaigns.

With parameters changing, it’s important to not only look to the future, but more than ever to know who your buyer persona is when it comes to targeting.

With in-house data, past information, and understanding what your focus as a business is, you’ll be able to get around this large hurdle if Facebook is one of your major platforms. This impacts other sites too, but as Facebook is one of the largest advertisers, it’s the story that’s been in the news the most.

Influencers Make an Impact

Whether you’re a large enterprise business with big advertising bucks to spend, or a small business looking to work with micro-influencers, there’s good news. Influencers are here to stay, and they’re getting your messages seen and heard. When it comes from an influencer, it can feel less intrusive, and more natural on a person’s timeline.

Different types of influencers:

• Nano: Smaller audience, under 5,000 followers, but may be highly niched and targeted

• Micro: Under 100,000 followers, a nice segment with reach

• Macro: Upwards of 100,000 to 1 million followers, very large reach, bigger expense with more followers

• Mega: Over 1 million followers, these influencers have major reach, though they may be less niched down

Note: Different companies have different definitions of exactly how many followers each level has. Some add another middle tier, some use bigger or small numbers. These are averages, not set in stone.

If you’re a small company that’s very specialized, a Nano influencer who has a very niche following may have a bigger impact than a scatter-shot approach of using a mega influencer. Every scenario is different, and it really comes down to who you’re trying to reach for what purpose.

Maybe you’re an enterprise company, and are looking to introduce a new flavor to your popular beverage line. In this case, a mega influencer is going to get you more reach. Each business needs to decide what their goal is for the marketing campaign they’re working on.

When it comes to social media marketing, options are varied. Between the multiple channels available and the means to slice and dice your target audience by a wide array of choices, you’re only limited by your imagination.

Are you currently using social media for advertising and marketing? Are you relying on brand specific messages only, or have you increased your bottom line to also target social media advertising?

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