Aug 13
19
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Your marketing team made a convincing case. Early forays into social media on behalf of your brand are showing headway. Things are going well and the plan appears to be coming together. Then you hit a wall. Suddenly it seems like your team is working harder and harder just to maintain current levels of engagement and reach.
Social media marketing was explained as an incredible free tool to drive eager customers to your door. Now your marketing team is asking for an advertising budget. Moving from “free” to “fee” is jarring, especially after you remind the team they really did say “free” a few months ago.
So now you’re left with a few key questions. Is social media advertising really worth the expense? Can paid social promotion overcome the obstacles that get in the way of reaching the customers you want?
Over the next several weeks Digital Always Media will be taking a deep look at the business of social media advertising. We will explain the various ad units available on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Tumblr. As the series progresses, we will dig into how targeting, images, copy, and the landing pages they lead to, work in concert to get the best results for an advertiser’s dollar in Internet marketing.
When added to the internet marketing campaign mix, social ads have the ability to cut through the social noise and reach a highly focused and motivated audience.
Paid social media advertising is already big business. In 2012, social media providers realized $4.7 billion in ad revenues. Media analyst firm projects that by 2017 social media advertising is expected to surpass $11 billion in ad spend.
As you’ve no doubt noticed, major entertainment brands like AT&T, Microsoft, Disney, and Netflix are pouring money in to the social media ad space. They are seeing returns on the magnitude of billions of impressions for their brands according to .
Caution: Brands cannot skip past organic community engagement and go straight into ads.
It takes an intimate understanding of what makes a brand’s community of advocates tick to produce the kind of ads that get billions of impressions. The only way to test the copy and images that really resonate with your customers is to interact with those customers online. Brands with an active organic social presence have a great deal more credibility with consumers than a brand that is just paying for a bigger bull horn.
Thanks to our friends at for use of their infographic current state of social media.
What do you think? Have you tried paid promotion on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn? Did you get the results you were expecting? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
If you need guidance about your current social media presence or would like more information on how social ads can work for your brand, feel free to contact us.
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Jim Hedger
Jim Hedger is an organic SEO and digital marketing specialist. Jim has been involved in the online marketing industry since 1998 and a SEO since 1999. Best known as a broadcaster, interviewer, content writer and search industry commentator, Jim is a frequent conference speaker and organizer. He hosts the search focused radio show Webcology on WebmasterRadio.FM and is a WebmasterRadio.FM conference interviewer. Jim brings a wealth of knowledge, experience, passion and creative thinking to each project. Preferring a teamwork approach, Jim strives to inform and train his clients and their staff to run and maintain their own search and social media efforts.
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