There is little doubt that social media advertising plays a key role in successful content marketing campaigns. Hence the willingness of most business owners to jump on the bandwagon and include it in their marketing strategies. However, when the idea of paid social media advertising crops up, some of them begin to drag their feet, and in some cases, chicken out.
Perhaps you are still unsure whether social media advertising is the way to go in the first place. The fact that two billion people use social media platforms every day should go a long way in convincing you.
The importance of social media advertising can be further highlighted by the fact that social media posts have become the most popular content marketing strategy used by B2C companies. Presumably, B2B marketers are the earliest adopters of this strategy. In fact, 61% of B2B marketers increased the frequency of their posting on social media channels.
That said, churning out countless social media posts every day won’t do you any good. Instead, paid social media advertising campaigns are probably the best way to reach your target audience.
For the most part, the organic posting is no longer as effective as it used to be in getting businesses on the face of prospective customers. That’s why you need to create a paid social media campaign.
For starters, it is essential to understand what paid social advertising means. In simple terms, it is an external marketing effort that involves paid placement on social media platforms.
Paid social media advertising goes a couple of steps ahead of organic posting in terms of reach, engagement, and even conversions.
Here are some benefits it presents to businesses and brands.
It Amplifies Your Reach
As highlighted earlier, paying for social media ads increases reach way beyond organic posts would do. Social networks like Facebook now promote your friends’ posts on your news feed. Posts created by companies have low priority, which makes the scope of organic reach for brands and B2B marketers limited. Hence, connecting with the target audience via organic posts has become challenging.
On the other hand, paid ads offer a guaranteed spot in the users’ news feed. Therefore, B2B marketers can take advantage of it to drive leads, improve website traffic, and, most importantly, ensure sales.
To achieve the highest reach, it is important to know what social media platforms your target audience mostly use. According to a study, LinkedIn is the most widely used by B2B marketers at 97%, followed by Twitter (87%), Facebook (86%), YouTube (60%), and Instagram (30%).
It Is Budget-Friendly
This is arguably the most important benefit to businesses. Paid social media advertising is a cost-effective way to market your product to other businesses. This is related to the fact that every social media platform operates on a pay-per-click payment model. In other words, a subscriber only pays when the user takes the intended action.
The average price-per-click for Facebook ads hovers around $1.72. In comparison, the average cost of promoted tweets (paid ads on Twitter) is about $1.35. For Instagram, it’s a bit higher – the average cost of 1,000 impressions per post is about $6.70.
It Helps Improve Your Targeting Approach
Businesses have complete control over who sees their paid ads. There is a plethora of targeting parameters for several social media platforms. Contrary to what most people believe, targeting parameters go beyond user demographics. B2B marketers have other options available on the list, including the option of choosing from psychological factors such as personality types, interests, and hobbies.
For best results, upload a list of contacts you intend targeting. This way, it is possible to expand and engage the audience all at once.
Final Take
As the reach of organic posts on social media continues to decline, paid social media advertising should take a chief position on the mind of any serious business owner. For the reasons discussed above, starting a paid social media campaign and incorporating it as part of a robust content marketing strategy would help your business grow in leaps and bounds.