Since social media started taking over the world, it was obvious that they make a perfect match with advertising. Given relatively low production cost and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) of social media ads, many brands decide to give it a try even if they rely foremost on other marketing tools.
Even if social media campaign for you is more of an experiment, it is important to prepare well. Let’s see how to get the most out of your social media campaign.
Image credit: Ravi Sharma on Unsplash
Preparing social media campaign
Platform and target audience
Facebook accounts for 69% of the social media market, followed by Pinterest (14%), and Twitter (8%), with Instagram and TikTok growing rapidly. Of course, it does not mean that Facebook is the best place for placing ads. There are over 2.7 billion people using it regularly, but you don’t need to reach all of them. When thinking of social media ads, the key is targeting.
Image credit: www.t4.ai
Facebook has one of the best toolsets for audience targeting (the one you can use with Instagram ads as well). However, if you want to reach a certain audience, you might prefer to go for a different social media.
No need to choose just one platform: it is common for brands to run campaigns on few platforms at a time. You can adjust visuals and messages for each of them, especially when addressing different audience segments, or you can just use the same ones for various platforms, saving on creatives’ and designers’ time.
Setting goal(s)
One of the first things you need to figure out before starting a campaign is the goal. What do you want users to do? Go to your website? Subscribe to the page? Install your app? There are so many options apart from buying the product. Social media ads are used a lot at the top of the sales funnel, so “discovery” is a very popular goal. The CTA (call-to-action) has to correspond with the goal.
Format
After setting a goal and picking a platform, it’s time to choose the format of the ad. Everybody knows that YouTube is for (un)skippable video ads, Instagram has ads in stories and feed, but there are so many different formats on each platform that we don’t always notice as users.
Check the how-to pages of social media: they would be of better help than most online tutorials. See all the formats and functions and start with the ones that you think would be the most appropriate or the ones that are easier to work with.
Facebook, the most popular social media for advertising, has numerous formats of ads. Each one has its best use. Here is a quick overview of Facebook ad formats.
Photo ad. A picture and text (optionally).
Best for: reach, awareness, special offer, sale offer with a focus on one product.
Carousel. Up to 10 scrollable pictures.
Image credit: Facebook for Business
Best for: showcasing various products, telling features of the product, showing user-generated content, reviews, etc.
Collection. Few pictures in tiles layout. When a user taps it on mobile, a full-screen interactive app appears. It is called instant experience and can include up to 20 photos and 2 minutes of video.
Image credit: Facebook
Instant experience format provides lots of possibilities, such as raising brand awareness, showing numerous discounts, new products, features, etc. Given that traditionally mobile ads bring fewer leads and conversions, here we can get more engagement to boost ad performance.
Slideshow. Animated series of pictures.
If you administrate a page, you probably have already seen Facebook offering you automatically generated slideshow to promote your business. And it probably looked miserable. Well, a custom-made slideshow can be a great advertising tool for showing different features of a product or several offers at a time. A
Video.
Videos are one of the most engaging ad formats. Videos get 1200% more shares compared to picture-and-text posts. Video can have any goal and content, as far as it is dynamic and engaging. So, if you have the resources to produce a video, go for it. 5-15 seconds are considered good timing, and there’s no need to invest a fortune in expensive music licenses: 85% of views are in mute mode.
Read More >>>> Why You Need More Video Content?
If your budget doesn’t allow for video production, think of a slideshow. Animated pictures will help catch the attention of users, too.
Tips & tricks for a successful social media campaign
Once you are done with all the preparatory stages and have a clear idea of what your audience, goal, format, and messages are, it’s time to get your hands on creating images. Here are some tips on how to make your campaign look (and perform) great.
1. Text part of the ad should not take too much space: ideally, it should be less than 20% of the height of the picture. This rule is based on Facebook statistics, but if you know your audience is more of a reader-type, feel free to use longer texts.
Text on the picture should be as short as possible and as big as possible. This is a no-compromise rule. On average, a person scrolling feed would spend about 1.7 seconds on each post. This means you have to use very few words to catch their attention.
Image credit: Wavechat (design by Eleken)
According to the research, the words that work best in ads are:
- You
- Free
- Because
- Instantly or now
- New
Using one of them, you can make both classic ads offer (e.g. “Buy one, get second for free”) and motivational phrases like “Because you are worth it”.
2. Use attention-drawing elements: bold colors, emotional pictures, contrasting graphic elements, dynamic animation. Try using unexpected copy, like in this example.
Image credit: Dolalr Shave Club
The goal is to overcome ad blindness. It happens when people automatically scroll through the ads without paying any attention. The things to avoid here are intentionally shocking pictures and clickbait headings.
3. Mind the sizes of the images for each ad! Keep the list of all the sizes you need for each social media (they tend to change frequently). Prepare key images for every size from the start. Adjusting the image later will take more time than making them all at once. Here is a snap of the same ad tailored for different social media formats:
Image credit: Abode (design by Eleken)
4. When designing images for social media, always check how the design looks on a mobile screen (not only Instagram and Facebook stories, any image). Nowadays most users access social media from their phones. If you have time for preparing different designs for ads on mobile and desktop, that’s perfect. If you prefer saving time, adapt your ads for mobile screen first.
5. Another way of saving time is by using templates. Custom templates will help to keep your campaign consistent and reinforce branding. Be careful with ready templates, or if you decide to use one, pick the minimal ones and change the colors.
6. Use A/B testing. Facebook and Instagram have a built-in function, so the cost of testing is minimum. The results might surprise you: what designers and marketers like most might not work well with the clients. And with social media ads, you should give preference to the latter.
Takeaway
Don’t underestimate the importance of targeting and choosing the platforms. Adjust your ads to each segment of the audience. Make the visuals creative and bright, but don’t rely solely on your taste: test each of them in practice.
There is a lot of space for creativity in social media ads, but running a basic campaign is something that anyone can do if they have few good pictures. Keep it simple, remember the main rules, and remember: your work isn’t finished after the launch. Evaluate the objectives, analyze the metrics, and use them to improve your next campaign!
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