It can feel like a big effort to claim and retain your place in the ever-evolving social media world. Many of the social media platforms, like Facebook, have become a pay-to-play environment for pushing content to your ideal audience. Luckily, smaller investments into Facebook campaigns can pay off. You can increase your brand's reach with a budget as low as $50 a month. A little really can go a long way to increase brand awareness, grow your fans, and drive referral traffic to your website.
Having the ability to target your audience, on a limited budget, gives your organization and marketing efforts an advantage as you evolve your content marketing strategy. Promoting your content adds fuel to the social media fire, giving you a better insights into how users are engaging with your content. Key performance indicators such as engagement rate, reach, and cost-per-link-click (CPLC) all help you analyze and craft impactful content.
Remember to have an open perspective and an experimental approach to content creation and the promoting of content. Not all ideas will be repeatable and produce the results you may want on the first go. Experiment with imagery, headline, targeting, content and ad type and of course channel. Check out some of our recommendations for how you can start producing and promoting content.
Page like ads
A Facebook fan ad, or page like ad, is an ad on Facebook that encourages users to like a page. These ads are great for growing your audience and exposing your brand to new fans. If you’re just starting out with Facebook advertising, a page like ad is a good choice, since they are easy to set up and have a big impact on your page’s overall engagement over time. Creating a page like ad that people engage with can expand your organic reach for post engagement as well because after someone likes your page all of your business' posts will show up in their Facebook feed.
We used a Facebook fan ad with our client, My Life & Wishes, an online end-of-life planning service. That Facebook fan ad helped My Life & Wishes gain brand awareness and expose their start-up and newly launched service. Getting as many people to know and like them was key to growing their business and achieving their goals. In fact, their fan ad was so successful, their page grew to almost 3,000 likes in a span of only three months.
Carousel ads
Facebook Carousel ads pack a punch when it comes to showcasing products and services for your business. When you use a carousel, you can include up to 10 images in a single ad and can also provide more details about the product by including descriptive text that can change/develop across each card. The interactive format of a carousel ads encourages users to swipe for more. Carousel ads can also be a great way to promote a brand or explain a process.
According to data collected by Kinetic Social, these ads can drive up to 10 times more traffic to an advertisers’ websites than static sponsored posts on Facebook.
We used Facebook carousel ads with our client Choose Hope, a cancer awareness merchandiser. This type of ad works really well for online retailers because you can show a variety of different products in one advertisement. Each image can be linked to a different URL, so you can potentially take users to many different places on your website. But carousel ads aren’t only for online retailers – they’re also good for B2B. If you’re a B2B advertiser, consider highlighting different aspects of your business and taking users to those individual landing pages.
LinkedIn ads
LinkedIn advertising is great for businesses to generate leads and sales. It's a triple threat when it comes to growing your business, as it is regarded as the #1 platform for driving website traffic, capturing leads, and building your brand's awareness. Marketing and promoting your business is on LinkedIn is dynamic as it can get, offering you multiple ways to leverage the advertising space. Below are the ways you can run ads on LinkedIn:
We used LinkedIn advertising for our client Quality Power Solutions. QPS specializes in providing back-up power supply systems to B2B customers in the IT, manufacturing, retail, financial, and healthcare industries. For this ad we started with a piece of gated content targeted at one of their core personas: facility managers. The ebook provided readers with quality tips for installing an uninterruptible power supply. While the content helped to guide managers through the installation process, it also positioned QPS as an industry leader on the topic and allowed QPS to grow their relationship with this audience.
Pinterest promoted pin ads
Pinterest is a one-stop shop when it comes to inspiration and information. It is one of the most used platforms for gaining new ideas and guidance on a product or service. The amount of information shared on Pinterest is significant, but there is always a way your business can create a space of interaction and engagement with your desired target audience.
A paid ad on Pinterest is known as a promoted pin. This allows you to target specific search criteria and keywords to reach customers who are likely to be searching topics related to your product or service.
We used Pinterest promoted pins to help our client Choose Hope promote their unique line of cancer awareness products. Since cancer is something that has touched almost everyone’s life, we were able to increase brand awareness through pin engagement on inspirational graphics that featured quotes, questions, and other thought-provoking cancer-related topics. We also promoted their awareness products and nearly doubled the referral traffic and revenue they'd seen from this channel prior to implementing promoted pins.
Instant Experience ads
Facebook's Instant Experience ads, formerly known as Canvas ads, are an easy and dynamic option for advertising your content. This type of ad offers the opportunityto capture your target audience's attention with video, photos, and carousels, while guiding them through a complete shopping experience all in one place. They are interactive and allow marketers to be really creative. Instant experience ads are a great way to tell your brand’s story and drive clicks to multiple landing pages. Plus, they’re a great way to repurpose your content.
We created a Facebook Instant Experience ad for our client ProClip USA. ProClip provides custom and universal solutions for mounting a smartphone, tablet, GPS and other devices in your car, home office or anywhere. After conducting a customer survey, we were able to gain valuable insight about where ProClip customers liked to mount their phone outside of their vehicle. Their customers mentioned how they used their mount in the kitchen, on their nightstand for their alarm, and even on their bicycle for tracking their fitness activities and goals. After reviewing the survey results, we created blogs and use case landing pages for each use. ProClip’s graphic design team came up with a beautiful infographic to help users visualize all the ways they could use ProClip mobile mounting solutions. Videos helped bring these use case scenarios to life. We compiled a variety of unique and original content that showcased the many ways people use technology in their daily lives and how ProClip can help support that technology in a Facebook Instant Experience ad.
Next steps
Interested in talking about a comprehensive content strategy that allows you to take full advantage of social media? Get in touch today.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2016. It has been completely revised and updated.