Introduction:
There has been a shift from traditional advertising with the increased use of the Internet over time. Now, people consume more advertising online than in print media, radio, or television.
We currently live in a world where traditional advertising strategies are no longer sufficient. Social media not only allows for tremendous outreach and networking but also offers interactivity that can be highly beneficial to businesses for a variety of reasons.
“Social media” is a term used for web-based and mobile technologies that turn communication into an interactive dialogue. This interactive dialogue can occur between organisations, communities, and individuals. The Internet allows millions of people to connect, and businesses can promote their products and services to people all over the world using web-based media applications.
Sites such as Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube allow you to share ideas on not just news but also products and services. Products and services that people had never heard about before social media are now readily available and accessible.
Social media has forever changed the way society works, whether it is the sharing of an idea, the communication of news, or the availability of a product or service. Society today is on the verge of a new way of existing that it has never experienced before.
One of the most important things social media can do for a business is to give business owners a way to engage clients in a whole new way. Social media allows you to connect personally with your clients and form a bond of trust with them. By replying to your clients’ concerns and asking for their opinions, you can enhance customer satisfaction while generating more traffic to your site, which further promotes your business.
You can share photos and videos via social media, keeping clients and potential clients updated on your business’s current events and the latest properties for sale. This helps in creating a strong bond with your clients and makes them feel a connection with you and your business.
A well-structured social media strategy often requires investment, but, as with any advertising campaign, the ROI (return on investment) must be considered. A good social media strategy will positively affect your sales by increasing the overall exposure of your business, getting people talking about your services, and exposing your products and/or services to a far wider audience. In the end, of course, the goal is to convert the user into a client and then into a sale. When you interact with your clients and form a bond of trust, it demonstrates an interest in their experience, which often leads to increased sales.
You may already be familiar with the benefits of banner advertising (getting people to click on your ad) and its enhancement of brand awareness. The same principle applies to social media sites.
Every social media site allows you to add an avatar, which is technically your brand mascot, logo, or anything that represents your company. When people see updates on their timeline on Facebook or X (Twitter), etc., about your business, products, and services, you are enhancing brand awareness for your company.
You may consider lowering your advertising budget when you focus on social media marketing. Moreover, traditional ads are a one-time investment for a one-time gain, but with a social media presence, your clients and followers will provide long-term benefits.
Selecting the right social media platform for your growth is a particularly important part of the strategic plan for any business today. For example, Facebook fan pages are highly effective for the creation of an engaging community.
Businesses large and small are turning to social media as an outreach to potential clients worldwide, to advertise their products and services, and to engage with clients.
Paid social media marketing is an immensely powerful tool in digitally marketing your properties. This is because more and more of the country’s consumers are joining social networks, allowing your marketing message the potential to reach millions of people.
Social media advertising options you can use to promote yourself and your properties. There are three primary networks that we focus on; however, you are free to expand to any social networks you would like to promote your business on.
A picture speaks a thousand words, and this is true in your Social Media Marketing and engagement. Your profile picture (called an avatar) should be unique and consistent across all your sites. Choose your mascot or logo and pay attention to the colour combination for better exposure. Make sure to check the maximum allowed image size for each platform, which will help you make the most of your profile image.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads appear in a person’s News Feed and can feature photos or videos. You can also display your content in the format of a carousel, slideshow, or canvas.
- The carousel format lets you display up to 10 images or videos in one ad, which someone can swipe or click through.
- The slideshow format looks like a video but displays a series of still images to make the ad load faster.
- Canvas combines videos and images that people can swipe through and even zoom in on.
Facebook offers an Ads Manager, Power Editor, and the Ads Create Tool. Before you start, read the platform’s advertising policies. With these tools, you will set the goal of your campaign, your target audience, budget, and schedule. After that, you can create or upload your content.
YouTube Ads
On YouTube, South African advertisers can choose between the platform’s ‘TrueView’ in-stream advertising and video discovery advertising, which was previously known as in-display advertising.
- In-stream ads run before YouTube videos and can be skipped by the user after five seconds.
- Video discovery ads display as a thumbnail and text in YouTube’s search results or in various spots on a page that displays a video. At times, these ads can also appear on the YouTube homepage.
- YouTube is the world’s most popular free video hosting site. Videos are one of the best ways to brand yourself, and with YouTube videos, you can quickly get discovered on Google. One of the best things about YouTube is that you can use your Gmail login to access it.
X (Twitter) Ads
X (formerly Twitter) offers several advertising options including ‘Promoted Tweets,’ ‘Promoted Accounts,’ ‘Promoted Trends,’ and ‘First View’.
- Promoted Tweets and Promoted Accounts function similarly to organic tweets. The difference is that people searching for content relevant to your ad will see your tweet or account at the top of their search results. These ads can show up in a person’s timeline and relevant user profiles.
- Promoted Trends appear at the top of the ‘Trending Topics’ list. They can also show in a person’s timeline.
- First View places your ad in the top ad slot of the timeline that people see when they first visit the X app or log into the website.
With 280 characters, you can reach a large audience. Getting on X is easy, and within minutes, you can create a profile and start building your social media presence on this site. Here are a few tips to better engage with your followers on X:
- Get a custom Twitter Cover image to match your site design or profile.
- Use hashtags when writing tweets.
- Acknowledge all tweets coming your way with @replies.
With X Ads, you will select your campaign type, define your audience, set a budget, and either select existing tweets to promote or create new ones. You can view activity and insights on X’s Ad Analytics dashboard.
LinkedIn is a social network that, although smaller in size compared to others, boasts a highly targeted and quality audience. LinkedIn is not only for businesses, but it is also one of the best places to find a job or freelance work.
Pinterest may not be for everyone, but it is one of the most popular social networking sites globally. You can use Pinterest for marketing and brand promotion.
Pinterest is a social network with a vastly different approach. Its basic model revolves around images, and it might not be wrong to call Pinterest an image-based social networking site.
How does the pricing of social media advertising work?
Social media is relatively inexpensive when compared to other advertising and marketing tools available to individuals and businesses. Social media tools are free for everyone to use. By simply spending some time working on your social media presence for a few minutes a day, you can see the great benefits of increased exposure and sales, while also building strong relationships with your clients.
Traditional advertising and business promotion tools usually require professional assistance. Using social media tools, on the other hand, is simple and inexpensive.
There are two key aspects to understand when it comes to social media advertising costs:
- What the advertiser (you) is charged for.
- How social media networks decide on the price.
What advertisers (you) are charged for:
Most of the time, you only pay for the views, clicks, or other actions that people complete when they see your ad.
Social media networks allow you to create advertising campaigns on their platforms. When setting up your campaigns, you must choose what you want people to do when they see your ad. You may want people to click on the ad or watch a video. You are only charged for each of the actions that a person performs.
Some platforms, however, charge you for simply running the ad, regardless of how many ‘likes’ or ‘clicks’ it receives. You will need to do your research on each platform’s advertising policy to understand the finer details.
Social networks rely on ad auctions to determine what an advertiser (you) will pay for a click, ‘view,’ or other action. The cost of this action is influenced by other advertisers in the auction.
These auctions occur before a person sees an ad on a social media platform. The social network’s auction system weighs up several ads from various advertisers before one is chosen and displayed to the user.
You can choose to bid automatically or manually. With manual bidding (also called maximum bidding), you select how much you are willing to pay for each person’s action.
When you win in the auction, you do not always have to pay the amount they set manually. Instead, you only pay slightly more than the bid that came second in the auction, which, in Twitter’s case, is one penny above the second-place advertiser’s bid. This is called a ‘second-price auction.’ Twitter sells adverts in second-price auctions, with YouTube also providing this option.
On Facebook, adverts win auctions based on their highest total value. This is a combination of the advertiser’s bid, the quality and relevance of adverts, as well as the estimated action rate of the audience.
Maintaining and Monitoring Your Social Media
A single negative comment can cause more harm than anything else. It is said, “for every dissatisfied vocal customer, you lose ten customers or potential customers.” For this reason, any serious business with an online presence needs to manage and monitor social media activity. This helps you to track the level of satisfaction noted by your clients via their comments and helps in solving user issues, thus enhancing the overall client experience.
Maintaining the image of your business is particularly important. Negative comments and rumours of poor business practices can easily destroy the image of any business. By keeping up with a strong and consistent social media presence, you can help to maintain a good reputation and a strong image for your business. Through social media, you can easily reply to potentially destructive comments instantaneously and help preserve the image of excellent client service that you want your business to have.
Social media is all about getting targeted people to join and interact with your business page or profile. It is important to follow common social media practices such as continuous sharing, breaking news, questions, humour, etc., to bring a consistent conversation to your page.
Additional Resources:
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-create-a-facebook-fan-page-for-your-blog.html
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/how-to-create-a-twitter-account-for-dummies.html
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/loginlink-your-youtube-account-with-gmail-account.html
https://www.shoutmeloud.com/pinterest-marketing-tips-for-bloggers.html