Why and how to advertise on social networks?

In digital marketing, there are a few truths. One of these indisputable maxims is that advertising should go where audiences are, and today audiences are on social networks.

According to data of the sector, in January 2022 there were 3.45 million users of social networks in Panama. In other words, almost 80% of Panamanians use Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or some other social network.

However, the importance of social media advertising goes beyond the size of your audience.

At Chili, we believe that the advantages of social networks and their ads is that they serve many different purposes, all of which are very important in digital marketing.

Let’s see some.

7 advantages of making ads on social networks

Branding

Brand management or branding is responsible for your company having a good image in the eyes of potential and current customers.

With advertising on social networks, branding found a great ally, since every time a user interacts with a brand’s publication, its recognition automatically increases.

It is used to acquire quality leads

In case you don’t know, a lead is a potential customer who has shared their contact details (usually their name and email address) with a company.

This information is essential for a company, since having a good lead base allows campaigns to reach people who have already shown interest in the brand or in one of its solutions.

Through advertising on social networks it is possible to increase that lead base, always offering something in return, for example, an ebook, a quote, a course, a discount, etc.

It has a high segmentation power

The job of social networks is to interpret and know their users. Only then can they offer them content that interests them and keep them using it.

Of course, social networks share this information with advertisers, who in this way can segment their advertisements and achieve that they reach a certain target audience.

Offers accurate metrics

Social media advertising platforms have the great advantage of providing accurate and up-to-date information. This is fundamental in digital marketing, since without quality information, you are working —and investing money— blindly.

Increase communication with the audience

Social media ads are ads, but they are also communication channels. Every time a company advertises on social networks, it posts a post that users of that social network can comment on and share. In other words, it opens a new instance of communication.

Generate web traffic

A typical social media ad includes a link to a blog, ecommerce store, landing page, or any other type of page.

These types of advertisements work as a gateway to the destination they are targeting, so they can also be a means to generate qualified web traffic.

His potential is extraordinary

Social media advertising has truly extraordinary potential and can generate a huge return on investment.

As? Mainly, through the alliance with influencers, who bring their own audiences closer to the brand; and viralization, which allows advertising to be spread without the need to invest money, since it is shared through the action of users.

How to advertise for social networks

Define the target audience

As we said, social networks have enormous segmentation power. But that is useless if you do not know what your target audience is like.

For this reason, the first step is to define your buyer persona, the ideal customer profile who is interested in your product or service.

Try to do it based on data and not assumptions. For example, if you know a customer, explore their social media profiles to learn about their interests and see what types of posts they engage with.

Of course, you’ll also learn as you go, as you launch your first social media ad campaigns.

Choose social networks

Each social network has a specific user profile. Simplifying a bit, we could say that Facebook has adult users; TikTok, tweens; and LinkedIn, professionals and companies.

Find out who your target audience is and which social networks they use most frequently.

Define your goals and metrics

You cannot advertise on social networks if you do not know what your goal is. As we mentioned before, ads can be used for many things and your first task is to know what you want it to be used for.

Do you want to get traffic? Branding? Increase your sales? Generate conversations? Go viral?

Once you have defined that, you will know which Key Performance Indicators or KPIskey performance indicator) follow.

The KPIs are numbers or percentages that are used to know how successful an advertisement was, the most common are:

• Reach: The number of users who viewed a certain post.
• Click Rate: How many users clicked relative to the number who saw the ad.
• Engagement: Count the interactions.

Create the advertisements

Here we must appeal to creativity and the power of synthesis. A good advertisement must attract and inform.

We live surrounded by advertisements and, over time, we have developed something known as banner blindness. It is neither more nor less than the tendency to ignoreautomaticallythe advertisements we see on the web.

Fortunately, social media has one big advantage over traditional ads: It has the same format as organic posts.

Therefore, they are not so susceptible to this phenomenon, which does not mean that you should not strive to deserve the attention of users.

Analyze the results and make the necessary adjustments

Clearly, no advertising campaign on social networks can be terminated until its results are analyzed.

Evaluate the defined KPIs before launching the campaign and draw some conclusions: Were you successful or not?

If the answer is no, you have to find some explanation why and make the necessary improvements for the next one. And if you have been successful, don’t settle for that, there is always room to increase ROI and efficiency.

At Chili we have expert teams in advertising on social networks. Contact us and we will give you a free quote!