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Is Advertising on Social Media Right For Me?

Is Advertising on Social Media Right For Me?

Social Media Ads

Social media has exploded and is all around us now. Advertising on the networks that hundreds of millions of people use every day has followed suit, and has turned into big business in the process. It has quickly become an $8.4 billion market, and some projections estimate that over $14 billion per year will be spent on social ads by 2018. These numbers are projected to rise because the average person is spending over six hours per day online, and almost 2 hours of that is on social media.

While it can be confusing, these staggering statistics can leave you asking yourself “Should I advertise on social media?” To answer that question, here’s a breakdown of the advantages of using social media as an advertising channel.

Targeting

One of the biggest advantages of social media ads is the hyper-targeting it offers. You can segment audiences by many factors including:

  • Age
  • Gender
  • Location
  • Interests
  • Job Title

The amount of targeting you are able to do for your ad depends on the network you’re advertising on. For example, LinkedIn offers targeting options such as company size, seniority, and field of study. This type of targeting has allowed marketers to provide specific content to the right people at the right time.

Measurable Metrics

Possibly the most useful upside of social media ads is the ability to track the performance and conversion rates that you are able to gather from your efforts. This feature is extremely helpful for measuring the success of your ad and justifying a specific budget. Conversion tracking allows you to add a small amount of code to a page on your website  that will be able to attribute any conversions to the ad that led to the visit.

Ultimately, conversion tracking will help you be smarter about your budget and messaging. A lot of clicks but no conversions means that you’re most likely wasting your time and money. If you’re running ads on social media, be sure to add these tracking codes to your site.

It’s Affordable

Social media ads are one of the most cost-effective forms of digital advertising. Different social media networks charge differently for placing ads on their channel. On Facebook and LinkedIn, you can pay either by click (CPC) or by thousand impressions (CPM). On Twitter, you will pay based on the engagement that your posts get. These ads are meant to drive genuine prospects to your site, so it’s important to make sure that you drive qualified prospects to your site, not just random views.

Advertising on social media is also about half the price of other digital advertising strategies such as Google AdWords. Facebook ads average around 25 cents for every 1,000 impressions. LinkedIn has set a minimum cost per click at $2.00, but this is still much cheaper than comparable strategies.

Deciding on the best advertising platform for your business depends on your specific goals. LinkedIn is great for B2B companies, but if you are a consumer-facing organization, it probably won’t do much for you. For broader audiences, Facebook and Twitter are good places to start trying out different kinds of ads and messaging. No matter what channel you decide on, you need a defined plan to make sure you are getting the most bang for your buck.