This post was written by one of littleBIG’s super-smart social team, Maddie Kellaway. What would we do without her?! 

It’s no secret that social media is absolutely flooded with content. Recent content statistics showed that 3.2 billion images are shared across social platforms each day.

Let’s kick off with the bad news… getting noticed on social media is no easy feat.

If you’re a small business looking to gain some traction on social media, you’re one of about 60 million other small businesses with Facebook pages (talk about a competitive market).

There is good news, though. Only 4 million of those businesses are actually utilising Facebook advertising to make the most of this online platform.

But, of those 4 million businesses, how many are using social advertising effectively?

When used correctly, social media advertising can accelerate your business’s pace of growth and generate sales leads by helping to connect with customers.

Without the help of social media specialists, it can be difficult to wrap your head around the foreign land that is Ads Manager.

Here’s a few handy hints to get your started on your social media advertising journey.

 

Before you get stuck into creating your ads, it’s important to consider what you’d like to achieve.

Why? Because there are several different types of social advertising campaigns, each designed to accomplish specific objectives. While it would be convenient, social ads aren’t exactly a ‘one size fits all’ scenario.

In reality, there are 11 specific objectives and campaign types to choose from. Here’s a few examples of how to work out which campaign category is right for you:

If you answered, “more page likes, please”, then you need a Likes Acquisition campaign.

If more likes, comments and shares is what you’re after, then an Engagement campaign is for you.

If you’ve got a message that you just want to get out there, then opt for an Awareness or Reach campaign.

Or, if you’re keen to direct your social media friends to your website, then what you need is a Traffic campaign.

Thankfully, Facebook makes life a little bit easier through their Guided Creation.

 

Once you’ve got your campaign set up, it’s time to start thinking about creating great content.

So, what makes the best content for social media advertising? Here are my top tips:

• If you’re using static imagery, make sure it’s high quality.
• Be sure to include video content somewhere in the mix – these are always our best performers.
• Incorporate strong calls to action. E.G. “Follow us to stay up-to-date with the latest from the Rutherglen wine region”.
• Mix things up! Use a variety of images, video, carousels and slideshows within each ad set. Don’t forget to change up your copy, too!
• Speaking of copy, keep it short and sweet.

 

Optimise, optimise, optimise.

Ideally, once you’re all up and running, you’ll have a selection of ads within each ad set which battle it out against each other to get the best results.

While it may sound a bit bizarre to have your ads fighting against each other, this actually helps you make the most out of your budget. The better the ad result, the cheaper the cost per result.

Optimise your ads regularly by turning off ads that aren’t doing well and refreshing your ad set with new content.

 

What NOT to do.

While there’s certainly a time and place for boosting individual posts on Facebook and Instagram, doing this regularly won’t help you get the most bang for your buck. Rather than investing $100 in each post for big results, create a campaign with a $100 budget, and ‘boost’ 5 ads for the same price.

It all sounds a bit confusing, doesn’t it? If you’d like to know more, give us a buzz and chat to one of our specialists.