Paid Social Media
The United States of America. The land of opportunity. Start your own business and build your path to success. Live the dream. Except for the fact that 20%of small businesses fail after the first year, and half don’t make it passed the fifth year. Pretty short-lived dream, huh?
The main reason businesses seem to fail is due to lack of need for their product in the market. You need to make sure you are marketing a product or service to the right market and that there is an actual need for it. After that, common reasons include lack of cash, poor marketing, and losing to the competition. There are more than 50 millionsmall businesses that use Facebook these days, but only four million actually pay for advertising on Facebook. With Facebook constantly changing their ever-complex algorithm, a business’s organic post reach is diminishing. Facebook is prioritizing “meaningful interactions,” so users see more posts from friends and family and less activity from businesses and brands, which hurts your brand’s reach. Being part of that 8% that spends money on social media advertising is vital to getting visibility to your business. Not only will this boost you above competitors, but it can also tackle the marketing and cash flow aspects of small business struggles. More traffic means more consumers and, in the end, more conversions.
Think of the advertising power social media brings. Two billion people on Facebook and 800 million on Instagram. That’s over 25% of the world on Facebook and over 10% on Instagram, and all will be seeing some form of advertisement. In 2017, desktop and mobile ad revenuesurpassed television ad revenue. With both of these social media powerhouses providing targeted marketing options, there is no better way to spend your money advertising. Social media ads provide a better target net for new and returning customers. It can help grow both your fan base and your sales by using customer generated content for ads. Let your current loyal customer base help you advertise to new customers.
Goals
Visibility: helps increase awareness and recognition, leading to a greater reach and more purchases; visibility leads to traffic
Lead Generation: paid ads can help to generate leads; you can see what demographic responds best, helping future targeting and promotions
Traffic: this helps boost visitors and pageviews; more people on your page will lead to more engagement and conversions
Engagement: measuring engagement helps to see what content is working best, which tactics are stimulating a response from viewers
Sales: bottom line, paid ads lead to more conversions, more sales, and more profit
AIDA
Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action: this model is the phase of stages consumers typically go through when interacting with a brand or product. You want to create brand awareness, generate sufficient interest to encourage research, move the consumer from “like” to “want” and create an emotional connection, and finally, move the buyer to interaction and/or purchase. This is a commonly used process to outline your marketing efforts, especially with paid ads. You need to target ads to gradually move from generating awareness in new markets to prompting consumers to make a purchase.
Actions
Resonate with customers: show how other people are using your products; show positive reality of life after purchasing your products
Be original: constantly vary creative; people don’t want to see the same ad everyone else is using
Simplify message: one of the instances when less is more; use a simplified message to help consumers retain the information
Use graphics to support: visuals go far; “a picture is worth a thousand words”
Test and optimize: see what works and what doesn’t; adjust and repeat
Measure
Measuring results is important. You need to not only see what is working but be able to quantify it as well. No one wants to spend money on something ineffective. Look at the KPIs (key performance indicators). You need to look at your perspective social media pages and measure things like likes and shares and also the analytical things like reach and impressions. Measure the site conversions. Are people making it all the way through the AIDA model? Do they engage and purchase? Another way to measure effectiveness of ads is A/B testing. Run two ads at the same time to see which has a better response. Continue to run the successful one and reevaluate the lesser of the two.
Conclusion
Starting a small business is a struggle, but if it was easy, everyone would do it. Paying for social media advertising is an easy and convenient was to improve visibility, reach, brand awareness, and website traffic. With the number of people using it on a daily basis, it is an unparalleled form of targeted marketing. Help your business succeed. Statistically, small businesses aren’t supposed to make it. Be the statistic that makes it.
Prove them wrong.
