Social Media Advertising is No Joke

Social Media Advertising is No Joke

Social Media Marketing

Have you tried advertising on Facebook with confusing or just plain lousy results?

Did you think, “hey I’ll place this ad on Facebook and hundreds of people will flock to my online store or business,” but then nothing happened?

Yup. It’s a common pitfall. Many people have the mindset that all they have to do is put up an ad on a social media platform and voila! The sales will roll in. The fact is that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

And if you’re spending money without getting results then you know better than anyone that it’s not funny!

Just because we all use social media for personal use doesn’t mean that it will be easy to run successful ads. The fact is that it’s not easy and it takes strategy, time, and expertise. But with some focus and attention, you can certainly run kickass ads on social media that convert.

Understand Customer Behaviour

For your social media advertising to work like gangbusters you have to tailor your ad for the platform itself. Remember why people are using Facebook, for example, in the first place. They use it for a distraction, relax, check in with friends and family, catch a few good cat videos, and get their friends’ opinions.

They aren’t tuning in with the purpose of buying anything.

So if you want to entice them to shop, buy, or subscribe to your services, you’ll need to surprise and delight them!

Leverage the Power of Images

First, your ad needs to leverage the power of images. Facebook and Instagram are visual platforms after all. Use powerful, emotional everyday images to catch attention.

For larger brands, you need polished and professional. However, for personal brands, though it may seem counterintuitive, the best ads use ‘native’ images. This means images that aren’t too polished or professional looking. Say what?!

I know you’re sitting there thinking that you want your business to come off polished and professional, but the truth is that if you’ve got a personal brand, it’s much more important for your people to be able to connect with YOU on a personal and authentic level and the more real you can be, the better. If your ad looks too salesy users have trained themselves to just scroll by, but if your ad looks like a regular Facebook post, users will stop and read what you have to say. Genius, right?

For larger brands, your overall brand essence needs to take precedent and clean, attractive branding that uses the right font, colours, and careful logo placement (when appropriate) go a long way to embed your brand in the consciousness of your potential customers.

Add Value with Your Text

The more your image can say without words, the better, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have any text to go along with it. Tying the message to the image is the winning combination that will really push your ad over the edge.

Your message must always (and we can’t stress this enough) provide value to your readers. Even if it’s just a little piece of information or a question that provokes them to stop and consider, carefully crafted copy will tie together the feeling that your image evokes along with your message and call to action.

Remember, you’re advertising to real, live people and people make decisions based on emotions, not logic. To get people to listen you need to connect with your readers on an emotional level; make them feel as if you know them better than they know themselves. Explain how and why your product or service can really help your audience, and use natural language to do so, as if you were talking to a friend.

Earn Trust Before you Make a Call for Action

Of course, you’re placing an ad on social media for a reason. Whether that reason is to have people buy your product, attend your event, or book an appointment with you, it’s always important to have a clear desired action.

However, most business owners focus too much on the action and not enough on providing value and connecting with their target audience first. You have to earn their interest and then their trust first.

The language that you use is incredibly important. You could be an amazing company with proven success in your field, but if you don’t use the right language, no one will care, take notice, or feel comfortable buying from you. Your writing should help your prospects to see themselves in your writing. Carefully selected language helps your readers feel comfortable choosing to buy from you. This is how your readers will feel that you understand them, which will help them to trust that you can help them achieve their results.

  • Make it about them, not you
  • Ask questions directly to your reader
  • Use “you” and “your”
  • Demonstrate that you understand their challenges and pain points
  • Explain how you can help them reach their objectives
  • Use real metrics to explain results

Always keep in mind that your leads are only interested in you in order to help themselves. By keeping their objectives in mind, you’ll be able to write tailored copy that will build trust and convert more visitors into buyers.

Once you’ve earned their trust, you’ve also earned your right to call your readers to action. After you’ve used powerful, native images and provided value to your audience—connecting with them on an emotional level—let your readers know what to do when they’ve read your ad.

One way to provide a seamless user experience is to ensure your Facebook ads always point to a specific promotions page and not to your website’s home page. When someone clicks on your ad, the page they arrive at needs to tie in directly with the ad that they just saw. It should elaborate on what they’ve just been intrigued by on Facebook or Instagram, and be completely focused on that one product or service and one call to action.

Even with a powerful image and text that offers value, without a smooth transition from your ad to your webpage, you won’t successfully convert your readers into responsive customers.

Maximize Your ROI

For most businesses, Facebook and Instagram ads are by far your best bet. Both social media platforms are owned and operated by Facebook and managed through the Facebook Business Manager. (This is different than setting up ads through your personal account so take note!) In almost every situation, Facebook ads beat Twitter and LinkedIn ads for return on investment.

Maximizing your Facebook ad’s effectiveness takes expertise. You’ll need to track your target audiences behaviour and the cost per click for their visit. We’ve isolated the two most important metrics that you need to be tracking are:

  • Cost Per Exposure
  • Cost Per Engagement

And of course there is a third:

  • Cost Per Conversion

How much is it costing to get your ad in front of each set of eyeballs? How much is it costing for each engagement with your ad? That combined exposure and engagement is critical for your overall brand building. But of course, the most important metric will be your cost per conversion.

You’ll also want to perform A/B testing to see which ad creative is more effective and you’ll want the Facebook pixel installed on your website to be able to track behaviour and conversions once visitors arrive at your site. And of course the pixel is critical if you plan to do any retargeting… which you absolutely should!

Ad targeting takes finesse. You don’t want to be so specific that you’re targeting such a specific group of people that your ads get very expensive to get in front of your audience. And they shouldn’t be so broad that you’re reaching people who don’t care about what you have to offer. It’s like Goldilocks and Three Bears; you have to hit that sweet spot that’s just right. That takes daily monitoring and tweaking to ensure your ads are getting to the right people who will appreciate what you have to offer and have the potential to convert into paying customers.

Setting a Realistic Budget

So here’s the hard truth: It takes money to make money. As a business owner, especially one that is just starting out, it can feel painful to spend money. But if you want to get real results, you absolutely need to invest.

Hiring a professional to manage your ads for you is a worthy investment that absolutely pays off. Here at Barker social, we have a team of professionals that strategize, design, implement, calculate ROI on Facebook and Instagram ads. We can help you create perfect ads and landing pages that convert, with copy that genuinely connects with your audience.

We offer a free marketing consultation with no strings attached. Get in touch and we’d be happy to provide some advice and see if we might be a good fit to help you reach your business goals.

Todd Foster

As a dedicated Digital Marketing Strategist at Barker Social, I am passionate about helping businesses unlock their full potential online. With a focus on results-driven strategies, I aim to deliver measurable success for our clients.