Category: Digital Advertising

Social media is an excellent way to bring new leads to your business and build reputation. However, it can be tricky to see exactly how social media is helping your business. Take the confusion away by learning how to measure social media effectiveness with five essential social media marketing metrics.

5 Social Media Metrics that Matter Most to Your Business

These social media success metrics measure broadcasting effectiveness, interaction effectiveness, and ROI.

1. Post Reach

Post Reach indicates how many people have seen your post since you published it.

Not only does this measure how many people have seen your post, but it also tells you which times of the day are best for publishing. Post reach helps you keep an eye on which hours your audience is most active and which posts they’d like to see most.

Social platforms like Facebook and Twitter make post reach extremely easy to view by telling you how many people each post has reached. If you pay to “boost” an organic post, you can also see which unique viewers are from your paid campaign.

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2. Post Impressions

Post Impressions indicates how many times your content was viewed by a person.

Post impressions also measure the spread of your content by telling you how many times your post entered a screen. This can also include paid views, which most platforms will easily differentiate on your profile’s insights or analytics page.

Impressions can help you figure out what time or day is best to post on. Analyzing impressions data will show what time had the most impressions or which day had the least impressions and so on.

3. Average Engagement Rate

Average Engagement Rate measures the level of engagement or interaction that a post is receiving.

This can include likes, shares, comments, reactions, replies and more. Social media engagement metrics are the most important because they are a demonstrable measure of social media success.

A low engagement rate might mean that you are reaching your audience on the wrong platforms or pushing out content that isn’t resonating with them. On the flip side, a high engagement rate means you’re doing something right, so you should pinpoint what it is!

If you’re trying to learn how to measure social media engagement easy, most social platforms already provide analytics. This makes data collection and analysis easy.

4. Click-Through Rate

Click-Through Rate is a ratio showing how many times people clicked on your ad after viewing it. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by impressions. (Clicks ÷ Impressions = CTR)

CTR is used to gauge how well ads are performing. Through testing various versions of ads, you can tweak and adjust until one campaign outperforms the other. Through this method, you can see what resonates with your audience and what types of ads they find valuable and worth their time.

CTR is one of the most important metrics to measure social media success because it measures real user actions. It’s great for a social post to have a broad reach and plenty of impressions, but you’ll struggle to generate a return on investment if users don’t click on your content. Optimizing your CTR is especially important if you plan to advertise on social media.

5. Cost-Per-Conversion

Cost-Per-Conversion is what it costs to land a conversion.

CPC can work in tandem with other metrics such as CTR. For example, if each click costs 10¢, but it takes 10 clicks to secure one conversion, your CPC is $1.

You can use this metric to view the actual costs of valuable actions such as customer conversions, instead of more impressive but (ultimately) less valuable metrics such as impressions and engagement. They are all related, but CPC can give you a definitive avenue of measuring social media effectiveness.

As mentioned above, larger social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have analytics or insights pages where you can compare different posts and how they performed. For example, the screenshot below of a Facebook Insights section shows a lot of information and can help you track your metrics.

Every organization will have different goals, but these metrics are generally helpful for most businesses. However, a high rate does not necessarily mean everything is working- you must compile a group of metrics tailored to your strategy and keep an eye on them holistically.

As your social reach grows or if your company goes a different direction, there are countless more social media measurement metrics that will help you get a handle on more specific trends.

Get Social Media Marketing Help from The Experts

Social media marketing in Houston and Austin can be a huge driver for your business brand and bottom line. Don’t settle on sub-par results, let the MARION marketing company help you grow your business today. Contact our team today!

Facebook

Active Users: 2.7 billion active users (as of October 2020)

Year Founded: 2004

Most Popular With: Everyone

 

Facebook is the largest social media site in the world with a whopping 2 billion+ users. Most people are familiar with this platform but in case you aren’t, this platform allows you to “friend” users, view their profiles, and share content that people can view on their Newsfeed.

Their Messenger service has over 1.3 billion active users and businesses have taken advantage of this by using their Chatbot feature (which allows organizations to reply faster and cut down on customer service costs).

Compared to other social media giants, the user demographics are pretty spread out so if you are looking to advertise to a wide audience Facebook is your one-size-fits-all social media platform. Most businesses that learn how to advertise on social media focus on Facebook due to its ubiquity. It is able to support some of the top social media campaigns for this reason.

Use social media to improve the results of your marketing campaigns. Download this free eBook today to learn how to run an online marketing campaign!

Twitter

Active Users: 335 million active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2006

Most Popular With: Younger people, mostly between 18-29

 

Twitter is one of the most effective marketing tools when used correctly. Users have profiles where they can send out “tweets” composed of up to 280 characters that appear on other users’ timelines. Videos, photos, and gifs can be attached to tweets and you can also create quick polls.

Trending topics often fall under hashtags, which are a great way to join a global conversation when appropriate and relevant. Users have the ability to “retweet” which is a seamless way to share other profiles’ content on your own.

Businesses can use Twitter to generate engagement and create conversations around their products and services. If you need to facilitate buzz with a younger audience under 35, Twitter is your answer.

LinkedIn

Active Users: 590 million active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2002

Most Popular With: College graduates and high-income earners

 

LinkedIn is the first stop you should make when trying to reach a professional audience. Most B2B marketing strategies include LinkedIn as their platform of choice to establish reputation and put out content. Using LinkedIn for B2B marketing is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter combined.

LinkedIn personal profiles include the users’ work history and accomplishments, but business pages operate similarly to Facebook Pages. Users can follow businesses and see their posts on their timelines, which they can like, comment, and share.

Unlike other social platforms, text posts actually get viewed at a higher rate with more engagement. It’s best to put out content that is thought-provoking and connects professionals from across your industry. The business results driven from LinkedIn are frequently cited as a reason why your business needs social media.

Instagram

Active Users: 1 billion active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2010

Most Popular With: Younger audiences between 18-29

 

Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012, and while there is some crossover (you need to have a Facebook page in order to have a business profile on Instagram), the two platforms are very different.

Instagram is where you can let your creativity shine since it is all visual. Users can post photos and videos, share Stories (a feature made popular by Snapchat), and engage with other people’s content on their feed.  Like Twitter, you create a unique handle (username).

Instagram has blended numerous e-commerce features onto their service and users can bookmark and save photos to their collections. There are countless ways marketers can utilize Instagram to their advantage.

YouTube

Active Users: 1.9 billion active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2005

Most Popular With: People between 18-49

 

YouTube is the most popular video-based social platform where users can upload, watch, comment on, and share videos. Each day, people view over 1 billion hours of YouTube videos.

There are usually ads that you can skip after 5 seconds or unskippable ads that are around 15 seconds long. Beyond ads, however, YouTube videos are an effective way to lead viewers back to your website or to put out content that establishes your reputation as an industry expert.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, so having a competent SEO company in your corner could help your results.

Snapchat

Active Users: 291 million active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2011

Most Popular With: People under 30, majority female teens

 

Snapchat is a “mobile-first” multimedia messaging app that started the 24-hour “story” feature that many other platforms have adopted. Snapchat’s ephemeral messaging can be altered with drawings, text, “Geofilters” (overlays that become available in particular locations), and “Lenses” (real-time effects and AR/3D elements).

These features have been instrumental in creating an extremely engaging avenue for marketing content since brands can collaborate with their own Lenses and Geofilters. There is also a more traditional “Discover” tab where organizations can put short ad content.

Snapchat leans extremely towards a younger audience who value the short-lived content for producing an air of authenticity and real-time feel. Now that Instagram has its own Stories feature, time will tell whether that will be enough to lure away Snapchat’s specific demographic.

Pinterest

Active Users: 250 million active users (as of October 2018)

Year Founded: 2010

Most Popular With: Females with an above-average income

 

Pinterest is a very unique social media platform. Think of Pinterest as a digital vision board. You can have multiple boards where you “pin” content to it, which makes it a very visual network.

Pinterest has the longest content longevity (half-life of a pin is 151,200 minutes, compared to a Facebook post’s 90 minutes and a tweet’s 24 minutes) which makes it an excellent place to post evergreen content. 87% of Pinners have reported they bought a product because of Pinterest and 93% stated they have used Pinterest to plan a future purchase. Your business can use Pinterest to its advantage by posting infographics, products, photos, and much more.

Now that you understand the audience types for each social platform, make sure your marketing message and delivery are polished. Experts at the MARION marketing company offer social media marketing in Houston and Austin that can help you reach your potential customers.

Contact MARION today to learn how we can help you improve your marketing results!

With the glut of competition out there doing everything they can to get as much engagement on their social media pages as possible, keeping your audience entranced with a never-ending flow of quality content has become a necessity.

Coming up with original content on a regular basis isn’t an easy task. Content creation requires money, time, and creativity. Even if you’re able to come up with a steady flow of original content, there’s no guarantee it will resonate with your audience. That’s why it’s vital that you learn how to curate content like an expert.

What Is Content Curation Marketing?

Content curation is the act of identifying, gathering, and presenting carefully researched content to your audience that revolves around a specific niche or subject matter. Content curation is not the same as content marketing, because you’re not necessarily creating the content yourself.

Instead, you’re gathering content from handpicked, relevant sources and delivering it to your audience in an organized manner. Familiar content curators include RSS and social media feeds.

Why Use Content Curation for Your Business?

Delivering curated content that’s relevant to your audience can benefit your business in a variety of ways. For one, you’ll position your company as an authority in your industry. Quality content curation means your customers don’t have to turn anywhere else for content in their niche — you should have all the answers to their questions carefully curated on your social media pages.

Another benefit is that it’s easier to curate content rather than create it. It takes time, energy, money and a constant flow of creativity to make new blog posts, YouTube videos, and Facebook posts for your brand.

There’s nothing wrong with creating and sharing your original content, but social media marketing takes less time when you share content that’s already been created.

Digital marketing can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Download our free eBook about how to run an online marketing campaign today!

How to Curate Content for Your Business Marketing

The content curation process isn’t complicated, but you’ll want to do it right to avoid wasting time and energy. Consider this multi-step process on the best way to curate content:

1. Determine How Much Content to Curate

First, determine how much original content you intend on creating yourself vs. how much you plan to curate from outside sources.  You’ll need to find the perfect ratio to keep your audience inundated with a nonstop flow of relevant content.

Keep in mind that each social media platform will require its own ratio. For example, Facebook, a slower paced platform, will need a separate ratio than Twitter, a faster-paced platform. There’s no magic number when it comes to finding the ratio of curated content vs. original content. As a rule of thumb, at least 25% of your content should be curated. However, this percentage will likely vary on a case by case basis.

2. Category Creation

Category creation is an essential step because it varies the type of content you’ll be sharing on your feed. To keep your engagement levels high, you should always have new content readily available. If you share the same material from the same categories for long periods, your customers will eventually become bored. Creating categories can remedy this problem.

There are a couple of ways you can go about creating categories to meet your social content curation goals. One option is to stick with content within your industry. For example, if you own a flower shop, you’ll likely only curate content that pertains to flowers.

You can also curate content that’s related to your industry. For example, let’s say you’re curating content for a computer hardware company. Computer hardware isn’t exactly exciting to look at, but posts about computer games that rely on computer hardware can be used instead. With this strategy, you can leverage the social media posts of a complementary industry to provide relevant content for your audience.

3. Find Sources

Once you’ve completed the above steps, you’ll need to learn where to find content for social media. Curating content from multiple sources will keep your feed energized and fresh.

Knowing how to find content for social media posts will require variety. It will also encourage you to build relationships with numerous content creators.

There are two primary ways you can find sources to curate content.

Manual Content Search

The first is to search for content manually. This process can be time-consuming, but if you enjoy reading/watching industry content in your free time, then it’s the perfect strategy.

Whenever you read a great article or watch a video that you know your audience will love, you can bookmark the page and come back to it later when you’re ready to share it on your feed.

Share from Your Feed

The second strategy, re-sharing other social media posts, is less time consuming and requires far less effort. With a few clicks, you can curate content in a matter of seconds.

How Is the Content Curation Process Different Between B2C and B2B?

The content curation strategy for B2C and B2B has several key differences. B2C marketing primarily focuses on driving consumers to make quick, impulsive purchases. On the other hand, B2B businesses tend to focus on content that engages stakeholders and builds brand equity.

B2C companies should focus on curating content that’s entertaining and easy to consume whereas B2B companies should curate content that’s informative and educational. Ultimately, running a successful content curation strategy comes down to understanding your audience.

Content Curation Tips

As a social media curator, learn the best way to curate content on a variety of social media platforms. Consider these content curation tips for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Facebook Content Curation

Facebook is the perfect content curation platform for B2C and B2B companies because it allows them to show the “human” side of their brand to their customer base. Facebook content curation should ultimately focus on improving your brand image.

Regarding frequency, Facebook curated content should be posted at least once a day.  Facebook’s feed takes a slower pace than Twitter’s, so posting too many times in a single day will overwhelm your audience.

Twitter Content Curation

Twitter works well for both B2C and B2B companies. B2C businesses excel on this platform when they push out easy to read content and hold tweet chats and contests with their customers.

Consumers of B2B content come to Twitter on the hunt for informative industry specific articles and video links.

LinkedIn Content Curation

Without a shadow of a doubt, LinkedIn is geared towards B2B businesses due to its vast user base of professionals. Content marketing curation on LinkedIn is about more than just posting to your feed. You’ll also want to take advantage of LinkedIn’s unique features such as industry groups and showcase pages which allow you to segment the type of content you can curate for your audience.

Curating Content the Right Way

Ultimately, content marketing curation comes down to understanding your audience and using the right platforms. Social content curation keeps your company feeds fresh, your customers engaged, and it saves you time and energy.

Want to save even more time and energy? Work with the MARION team! Our digital marketing agency can help you vastly improve your social media strategy. We’ll do all the heavy lifting. You focus on running your business and reaping the results of the hard work of our professional team of digital marketers.

Contact us today to learn how our social media marketing in Austin and Houston can help your business grow.

 

Roughly 94% of small businesses use social media — and there’s a reason. When done correctly, social media can be one of the most engaging ways to reach customers.

But if there’s one thing small business owners know, it’s that time is money. Your time is one of your most valuable assets, and you can’t afford to waste it willy-nilly. That is why social media poses a threat to you — when done incorrectly, it can be a time-sucking and distracting black hole for your business.

8 Steps to Effectively Using Social Media for Business

Fear not! I’m here to make sure the former happens. Learn these rules for social media marketing for small businesses, and you’ll be well on your way to achieving social media success!

1. Set clear goals and objectives

Before you even step foot into this social media journey, it’s important you know exactly what you are trying to accomplish. Understand the difference between marketing goals vs. objectives, then start setting your targets.

First, set an objective that establishes what social media will help your business achieve. Some broad objectives include:

• Driving traffic to your website
• Growing sales
• Generating new leads
• Increasing brand awareness
• Boosting brand engagement

Whatever your goals, it’s important to go beyond just vanity metrics, such as likes and retweets. These may look good but think about whether they will help you reach your goals.

Next, set social media goals that represent how and when you’ll achieve your objectives. To do this, use the SMART goal-setting technique. The goals you set should be:

• Specific: Make your goals clear and defined. Leave no room for interpretation.
• Measurable: Ensure analytics can be used to track your progress on social.
• Attainable: Keep your goals challenging, yet realistic for your business. If you have some goals that you have previously attained, use those as a benchmark to set new goals within your reach.
• Relevant: Make sure the goals you set are relevant to your business’s success. For example, if one of your goals is to build your mailing list, you’ll want to focus on generating web traffic through social, rather than keeping track of your retweets.
• Timely: Keep yourself accountable by setting a specific time frame to reach your goals.

An example of a good S.M.A.R.T. goal is: “We will gain 40 new visitors to our website from Facebook per week.” This goal includes all five elements of the S.M.A.R.T. framework — It’s specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Remember: your goal must exhibit all five characteristics to be truly smart!

2. Know your audience

To truly appeal to your target audience, you have to know their traits like the back of your hand. You should be so familiar with these people that it’s scary.

To achieve this, you’ll need to create audience personas. According to Hootsuite, audience personas are “archetypes of your customers that include basic details about them, their goals, and their pain points.”

To create these personas, you’ll need to research your customers to collect demographic and behavioral data. Then, analyze trends to figure out who your customer really is and what their pain points and goals are.

You should treat your audience personas as real people, giving them each a name, age, alma mater, job title, hobbies, the whole shebang … or as Hootsuite puts it, “provide each persona with the kind of identifying information you might glean from someone during a short conversation in line for coffee or at a bus stop.”

3. Decide what platforms are fit for your business

I’ll keep this point short and sweet — not all platforms will be right for your business. Period.

Sometimes, small business owners get so excited about the idea of dominating social media that they forget to take a step back and think: “Should we really be doing this?” And sometimes, the answer is “no”!

There are many social platforms out there, and they all have unique uses, audiences, styles, etc. Do some research into these different platforms to truly understand them, and then decide which ones align with your business and its goals and objectives.

4. Create a social content calendar

Planning is an essential part of ensuring social media success. By planning your social posts ahead of time, you will be able to post more regularly, which in turn will lead to more consistent results. Creating a content calendar for social media allows you to hone in on your social efforts and create a well-thought-out strategy that can get you better results in less time.

Note that having a social calendar in place doesn’t mean you cannot deviate from it. If there’s a hot topic trending in your industry, add a post about it. Don’t be afraid to adjust your calendar when needed!

5. Monitor and respond to ALL social conversations

When it comes to creating a successful social media presence, you can’t just “set it and forget it.” This is one of the most common mistakes I see small businesses make, and it makes me CRINGE!

Social media success requires frequent, daily social listening; you have to go beyond simply posting updates. Always be on the lookout for any customer feedback or complaints, so you can thank your happy customers and make things right with your not-so-happy customers.

Learn how to monitor social media in only 10 minutes a day! Click here to download the eBook now!

Go beyond just responding to customer service issues and participate in conversations — if someone comments on your post or tweets at you, respond back! Engaging with your customers online helps your company form stronger relationships, leading to higher customer loyalty and retention.

6. Use photos and videos

Humans are visual creatures. Think about it — if you’re scrolling through Facebook after a hard day’s work, is your eye more likely to be caught by a simple text post or an engaging photo or video? Exactly. The engagement value on visual social media content is so high, 67% of marketing professionals use it just for that reason alone.

Make sure to use high-quality, royalty-free images that are relevant to the content you are posting. Some great, free resources are gifs on Giphy.com and pictures on Canva and Unsplash.

7. Don’t try to do it all by yourself

You’re a small business owner, and you probably wear so many hats that your collection could rival Spike Lee’s. Don’t be afraid to delegate social media work to someone on your team — or, if you don’t have the resources in-house, consider hiring an outsourced marketing agency, like MARION, to assist you.

Contact MARION today to learn more about how we can help your business start growing!

Learning how to choose a marketing company with social media experts can help you reach your social goals faster.

8. You should probably spend some ad dollars

You might be thinking: why should I pay for social media when it’s free? Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

Organic reach for businesses on social is at an all-time low. In fact, brands only reach 6% of their fans without using paid advertisements, and on Facebook, organic reach is lower than 2%. Social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, have all drastically changed their algorithms to show users posts they actually want to see.

In short, the days of sending out a post and simply expecting people to see it are over. It’s a pay-to-play game now.

Social media ads, sponsored content, and boosted posts are all great ways to get eyes on your content. And with tons of advanced audience targeting factors, you can use social media to advertise your business to the right people!

So, there you have it — how to use social media for your small business. Now get out there and get to work!

Marketing strategies are a dime a dozen. Many of them can be effective if you implement them properly, but few are as effective and user-friendly as social media advertising.

With billions of users collectively using social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and more you would be crazy not to use social advertising to your advantage.

Why you should focus on advertising via social media

So, why advertise on social media in the first place? Advertising using social media can completely transform the face of your business.

Start social media advertising for your business! Texas-based businesses can schedule a free consultation with MARION to implement social media advertising and marketing into a comprehensive marketing strategy today!

Let’s consider a few reasons why you should use paid ads on social media to generate more leads for your business:

• Some advertising channels will provide immediate results. However, these are often a one-off affair. Take influencer marketing for example in which you can yield high results quickly, but only for a single instance. Paid social media advertising will consistently deliver results consistently and affordably.
• Many advertising channels require a significant amount of time before you can see any measurable results. Take content marketing for example. B2B content marketing takes quite a bit of time to pick up steam and you might not see results for weeks or even months. Social network marketing, if done right, can yield immediate results.
• Knowing how to advertise on social media can make your life a lot easier because most online advertising platforms are intuitive. Take Facebook advertising for example. It’s incredibly simple to learn and you can set up an effective social media campaign in less than twenty minutes if you know what you’re doing.

The beauty of advertising through social media is that it can deliver immediate results. You can literally start an online business in a few hours and begin driving traffic to your site immediately.

That means social network advertising can facilitate consistent sales from day one. This is a massive advantage for e-commerce sites that lean heavily on social media marketing platforms such as Facebook advertising and pay per click services like Google Adwords.

Social media advertising effectiveness

If you don’t believe in the effectiveness of social media and advertising you just have to look at the numbers.

Facebook

Facebook is the most preferred social media platform for millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers. Here are a few stats to digest:

• Facebook users consume more than 100 million hours of videos every day.
• Facebook ad revenue is on track to overtake total print ad spending by 2019.
• 68% of adults in the United States between the ages of 18-29 use Facebook.

Instagram

Facebook might be the most popular social media network out there, but that doesn’t mean Instagram isn’t slowly closing the gap. Instagram’s many updates include the addition of Instagram stories, Gifs, a new redesign and much more. Let’s look at a few Instagram stats.

• 35% of Instagram users log into their Instagram accounts more than once a day. 51% of users open Instagram on a daily basis.
• Instagram garners more engagement per post than any other social media platform — 54 times more than Pinterest, 84 times more than Twitter and 10 times more than Facebook.
• In 2016 Instagram grew by 100 million users in only six months. This was also around the time the platform added Instagram stories.

Linkedin

Linkedin is the world’s largest professional network, and many businesses are just beginning to tap into the possibilities of using LinkedIn for B2B marketing. Here are a few stats.

• Linkedin has more than 450 million
• 94% OF B2B marketers use LinkedIn to distribute content.
• In November 2017 US marketers were given a poll in which the results revealed that LinkedIn was the safest social ad platform for brands when it comes to being exposed to potentially damaging content such as fake news and divisive politics.

Let’s not forgot about the other major social media platforms such as Pinterest, Snapchat and Twitter. Each have equally astounding statistics that prove their effectiveness when it comes to social marketing advertising.

How do businesses use social media to advertise?

The best social media advertising gurus use a combination of tips and tricks to get the most out of their ad campaigns. If you’re going to invest your money in social media marketing you should focus on these six platforms:

• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Instagram
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Snapchat

Interested in learning more about how companies use social media to advertise and interact with their target audience? Download our ebook, and improve your social media management today!

Let’s examine how companies use social media to advertise.

Pinterest Advertising

You could easily draw comparisons between Pinterest and Instagram in that they’re both highly visual platforms. The primary difference is that Pinterest is more geared towards women. In fact, 81% of Pinterest users are female. Let’s look at a few advertising tips:

Be strategic with where you’re linking your pins

Each Pinterest pin can link back to a website of your choosing. Therefore, be strategic with your click-through link. Make sure your link sends users to relevant page that is capable of collecting their contact information.

Focus on trends

Pinterest is all about staying on top of the latest trends.  Follow what your competitors are doing. Look at the most recent trending posts. Identify the hottest products. Etc.

Be creative

Don’t forget — Pinterest users often view dozens if not hundreds of pins one after another every day. Think about what you can do to make your pin stand out. It’s all about grabbing their attention and not letting go.

Twitter Advertising

Twitter is often the preferred social media platform for those in the worlds of business and politics and has over 328 million monthly active users.

Twitter’s strong suit doesn’t lie in its advertising. Its greatest strength lies in its ability to grow organically. This is directly opposite to a Facebook fan page, for example, which typically takes money to grow quickly. E-commerce stores frequently use Twitter advertising to promote specific products for direct conversions and to build brand awareness.

Instagram advertising

Instagram is an image driven social media platform and is quickly becoming one of the more popular choices for younger Americans. Let’s look at a few techniques to advertise effectively on Instagram.

Don’t underestimate the power of hashtags

Hashtags have their uses on other platforms, but when it comes to Instagram, they’re a driving force so don’t underestimate their usefulness. Instagram does a fantastic job providing analytics for the number of users who use specific hashtags.

Avoid stock photos

Stock photos simply don’t work on Instagram. You’ll have to use a custom image of an actual photo for your advertising endeavors.

Use stunning images

Instagram’s is all about visual stimulation through images. That means you should focus your energy on posting very high-quality pictures that will draw the eye and captivate the attention of your audience.

Facebook advertising

When it comes to online advertising Facebook can’t be beat. Facebook has over 2 billion monthly users which means there’s enough room for everybody to get a piece of the pie. Let’s look at a few advanced tactics for Facebook advertising.

Test constantly!

Not every ad is going to work for you right away. In fact, some ads may not convert at all. Keep running and tweaking your ads. This includes changing the image, the copy, your target audience and so on until you start converting. The only way you lose is if you give up.

Don’t run the same ad to all your audiences

Each retargeting and prospecting ad you run should be unique in its own special way. You should create a new ad for each unique audience. Don’t expect one type of ad for a specific audience to yield the same kind of results for an entirely different audience.

Use emojis

Emojis have increased in popularity in Facebook advertising. Even big-name companies have begun to use emojis in their ad copy. Test, test, and test some more to see what works and what doesn’t. It’s all about resonating with your audience!

LinkedIn Advertising

LinkedIn is literally where the money is. 75% of LinkedIn users earn $50,000 per year or more. In terms of advertising, B2B services tend to do particularly well on this platform. Here are a few tips to advertise well on LinkedIn.

Track ad performance constantly

You should always track ad performance no matter what social media platform you’re using. When it comes to LinkedIn, however, you should discontinue any ads that are performing under a 0.10% click-through rate (CTR). If your click-through rate is around 1% or higher scale up your budget.

Focus on the problems and challenges faced in the professional world

Since a good number of the users on LinkedIn are professionals in one field or another, you should focus on solving problems professionals face on a daily basis.

Target LinkedIn groups

LinkedIn groups are a powerful tool. This is where business owners and professionals congregate to discuss ideas and share information. Target these groups with your ads for better results.

Snapchat Advertising

Snapchat has one massive benefit that makes it invaluable for many businesses. More than 41% of all 18-34 year olds use Snapchat in the United States.

If you have a product or service that targets this demographic Snapchat is a necessity for your business.  However, when it comes to advertising, it can get expensive — extremely expensive.

Take Snap Ads for example, which are mobile, interactive video ads that can cost anywhere from $1,000 – $3,000 a month to run.

There are also Sponsored Lenses which allow businesses to deliver customer lenses their users can interact with. The cost for a sponsored lens can run anywhere from $450,000 – $700,000.

Snapchat Discover is another advertising option that allows businesses to push their story to the top of user feeds. This costs $50,000 a day.

Final thoughts on using social media to advertise your business

Figuring out how to successfully advertise on social media isn’t rocket science. It just takes the willingness to learn new platforms and plenty of experimentation. No other form of advertising can deliver quality leads with the speed and efficiency of social media marketing which makes it a necessity for your business in 2018 and beyond.

If you’re looking to take your social media marketing to the next level Marion offers world class social media marketing services for small to mid-sized businesses.

Contact MARION today for more information on how we can help your business thrive using social media marketing.