Choosing the Best Social Media Platform for Advertising

Which Channel Should I Use?

Before a company decides what social platforms they should participate in, it’s important that the company’s marketing team understands the overall business objectives and KPIs. These objectives will tell the marketing team where they should invest in advertising in order to get the best results possible. Whether or not a company should adapt their marketing campaigns to include social media will be dependent on the objectives of the overall business strategy and who the target customer is. The number of social media platforms that a company chooses to integrate will also be dependent on a number of factors.

Who is your audience? 

Businesses should have a good idea of who their primary audience is before deciding which social platforms to advertise on.

Based on the ages, behaviors, and buying habits of your customers, marketers will have a good place to start. 

I believe that Facebook is a good place to start for paid social advertising for most businesses, as the social media platform attracts a large number of users of different ages and backgrounds and with Facebook’s targeting abilities, businesses can ensure they’re reaching their ideal audience.

According to statistics from Sprout Social (York, 2017):

• 88% of 18-29 year olds use Facebook
• 84% of 30-49 years olds use Facebook 
• 72% of 50-64 years olds use Facebook
• 62% of 65+ year olds use Facebook

These statistics show that there is a wide range of users that advertisers are able to reach over the most popular social media channel; in fact, Facebook has over 1.71 billion active users (Forer, 2017). If you’re looking to attract a younger audience, platforms like Instagram or YouTube may be platforms to look into as well; these two platforms allow for photos, short videos, and even reviews of your products to be shared with potential customers (Forer, 2017).

In short, it’s important for businesses to understand who their audiences is so they are able to learn more about what platforms existing customers are using and which platforms will be best suited for reaching new customers.

Alright, you’re reaching them. Now what? 

Once companies have identified the channel, or channels, that they are most likely to reach their target audience on, they have to figure out what they want their audiences to do. In this week’s lesson, Chris Lake is quoted with the ideal situation when it comes to engagement on social media: (Reed College of Media, 2018).

• You want people to make a noise by sharing things
• You want people to love your website and visit more frequently
• You want people to refer your company to their friends 
• You want people to buy into your brand and buy your products

Through social media, regardless of the channel or platform chosen, businesses want the customers to engage with ads or content that is being shared in order to drive engagement, which in turn, will hopefully drive a sale. Smart marketers will look at the content that is performing best through these social channels and learn from it; they can create content or ads that have a similar look and messaging, or they can incorporate more of the content that is performing well onto their website, so users will visit more frequently.

Depending on what businesses want consumers to do with their paid advertising efforts will determine what type of content is shared. If businesses are only looking to drive sales, then maybe they focus on a great advertising campaign with only ads. If businesses are looking for engagement and interaction with their customers, perhaps they share stories or reviews of their products from real customers. Fast Company named Taco Bell one of 2017’s Most Innovative Companies in Social Media because of the way that the fast-food chain took customer feedback and turned it into viral content through “Taco Tales” (Fast Company, 2017). By listening to the customer, companies can create a content strategy across their social media channels that will both keep the customer engaged, but also make them feel heard.

How do you keep customers engaged? Engage with them.

While most social platforms allow different types of content to be shared, like ads, stories, or reviews; some platforms may limit businesses. Twitter is commonly used for customer service purposes for larger businesses, like JetBlue (Kasteler, 2016). Twitter allows for conversations between businesses and customers, as does Facebook; platforms like YouTube and Instagram are less-likely to be places for conversations to happen. Customers are quick to share their thoughts in a 140 character tweet about a specific product, but companies can keep tabs on these reviews, be pro-active and respond accordingly (Reed College of Media, 2018).

I agree with Novak, that conversations are important between customers and businesses and between other customers, but it is content that spurs those conversations (Novak, 2010). Content strategists and marketing teams should keep in mind the type of content that will help drive a sale, but also the type of content that will keep consumers engaged.

Another way to stay engaged with consumers is to become a part of their daily life. As noted in this week’s lesson, YouTube is a channel that is often overlooked. YouTube allows advertisers to place ads before videos, display ads under videos, share videos through their own channel, and even incorporate paid advertisements through personal channels.

Take for example, the game Best Fiends. This app-game has taken over YouTube through many different avenues. Seriously, the marketing agency in charge of advertising for the game, created a video that stared actress Kate Walsh, best known for her portrayal as Dr. Addison Montgomery on Grey’s Anatomy, that highlighted the addition to Best Fiends that was sweeping the nation, the ad won YouTube’s Ad of the Year for 2016. Best Fiends also created connections with daily vloggers who incorporated the game into their vlogs in order to promote downloads. Companies should take note of this tactic; by creating relationships with influencers who share their positive experience with a product in order to increase sales. Seriously spent more than 50% of their marketing budget on their influencer campaign, and it paid off, they were even able to find success in more niche areas of YouTube, such as reaching those in the LGBTQ community (MediaKix, 2017).

How do we keep this going?

Luckily for marketers, social media platforms are evolving and there are more tools to learn about your audience, the performance of your marketing efforts, and ways to uncover potential customers. Moorman mentions that it’s much easier to test and learn on social media than traditional media, so companies can learn what is working or what isn’t and adjust their social campaigns to match what they’ve learned, which is a continual process (2014). Businesses may be able to incorporate what they’ve learned on one platform to another; if an image is performing better than expected on a Facebook ad, maybe the company should test that image on an Instagram ad, is there a difference in performance among the two audiences?

Just like with any other advertising channel, marketers will constantly learn more about their audience and what their consumers are looking for. Paid tactics, like advertising or social referrals, with the fastest return on investment may take priority on social platforms, but what you learn from these initiatives can be incorporated into long-term strategies like content strategy (Daoud, 2016). Through analytics, marketers can learn what type of advertisements work best for each platform and can continue to optimize their marketing budget based on these performances.

I would be hesitant for a business, especially smaller ones, to stretch themselves too thin across the various social media channels, so testing and diving into advertising performance overtime will tell businesses what’s working best and where they should be investing their time and efforts. Melissa Leiter states that the most important factor that advertising in social media comes down to knowing your audience (2016). By understanding your audience, you will know what platforms they’re using most, the type of content they’re looking for, and their mindset when they are browsing these social media channels.

 

References

Daoud, H. (2016, September 28). 8 Essential Elements of a Social Media Marketing Strategy. Social Media Examiner. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/essential-elements-social-media-marketing-strategy/ 

Fast Company. (2017, March 10). The 10 Most Innovative Companies In Social Media 2017. Retrieved January 28. 2018 from https://www.fastcompany.com/3068596/the-10-most-innovative-companies-in-social-media-2017

Forer, L. (2017, February 7). How to Navigate the Social Media Advertising Solar System [Infographic]. MarketingProfs. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from https://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2017/31385/how-to-navigate-the-social-media-advertising-solar-system-infographic

Kasteler, J. (2016, December 6). 8 companies doing social media right and what marketers can learn from them. Marketing Land. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from https://marketingland.com/8-companies-social-media-right-marketers-can-learn-198228

Leiter, M. (2016, April 26). How to Choose Social Media Platforms. Melissa Leiter Marketing. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from http://www.melissaleiter.com/blog/how-to-choose-social-media-platforms

MediaKix. (2017, May 26). Exclusive: The Company Behind ‘Best Fiends’ Talks Influencer Marketing, New Animated Short. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from http://mediakix.com/2017/05/best-fiends-marketing-influencer-content-interview-animated-short/#gs.9nlH3rE

Moorman, C. (2014, December 16). 12 Tips For Integrating Social Media Into Your Marketing Strategy. Forbes. Retrieved on January 28, 2018 from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemoorman/2014/12/16/12-tips-for-integrating-social-media-into-your-marketing-strategy/#22490934e53f

Novak, C. (2010, July 27). Why conversation, not content, is king. SocialMediaToday.com. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from http://socialmediatoday.com/wordspring/152636/why-conversation-not-content-king

Reed College of Media. (2018). IMC 642, Lesson 3. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_97081_1&content_id=_4434995_1&framesetWrapped=true 

York, A. (2017, March 6). Social Media Demographics to Inform a Better Segmentation Strategy. Sprout Social. Retrieved January 28, 2018 from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/new-social-media-demographics/