Social Media Advertising- The What and the Why?

Advertising is one branch of Marketing that has crossed many milestones in its journey- straight from the early man era where carvings on stones was the primary media to the Golden Age of Advertising where TV commercials, Radio ads and Print advertising were the only ways known to Marketers. But the biggest boom in advertising has been brought about one medium- The World Wide Web. The Internet has brought marketers closer to consumers like never before and Social Media stands out on the Advertising Wall of Fame as the gem that made this possible.

But what exactly is Social Media Advertising (SMA) and how is it different from Online Advertising? Let’s find out below.





What is Social Media Advertising?
In very simple terms, it is any kind of paid content on Social Media that companies-big and small, use to achieve objectives like increasing Brand Awareness, Brand Engagement, Reach, increase Traffic to their websites, and more.

Are SMA and Online Advertising the same?
The answer is NO! SMA is a subset of Online Advertising which comprises the use of only social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote products and services. Online Advertising is a superset which includes Search Engine Marketing, PPC marketing, etc. In most cases, Online Advertising requires knowledge of certain keywords that companies can bid on and drive traffic to their websites. In case a company does not want to capture customer preferences but wants to increase brand awareness, or acquire new customers, or doesn’t have knowledge of the proper keywords to bid on, Online Advertising will not be useful in that scenario. That’s where SMA comes in.

Why should you use SMA?
The Number 1 reason is because you have to be where all your customers are! An online survey reports that Facebook now has around 2.06 billion active monthly users worldwide and Instagram has over 700 million user accounts. People are using sites like these for entertainment, shopping, reading, networking, and even for their daily news.
The other reasons for SMA’s popularity are that it is the best medium to create brand awareness, build engagement, lead generation, tracking revenue growth, capturing feedback, customer conversion, etc. You are spoilt for choice while choosing the kind of objective you want to fulfil- awareness, consideration or conversion. SMA also opens doors to a number of Targeting techniques that increases the personalization of communication and hence, conversion of customers. In addition to all this, SMA today provides for the fastest and most real-time analysis of customer data possible. All social networking sites have their own on-site analytics arm and third party tools like Buffer, KISSmetrics, Google Analytics, etc. also provide for better and faster analytics.

What is Social Media?

While the most common examples that spring to mind are Facebook and Twitter, they are but one type of all the different social media there are. According to the types of utility that users derive, Social Media can be classified into 10 categories:

1.    Social networks
Utility? - Connect with people
Example- Facebook, Twitter

2.    Media sharing networks
Utility? - Share photos, videos, and other media
Example- Snapchat, Instagram

3.    Discussion forums
Utility? - Share news and ideas
Example- Rediit, Quora
                
4.    Bookmarking and content curation networks
Utility? - Discover, save, and share new content
Example- Pinterest

5.    Consumer review networks
Utility? - Find and review businesses
Example- Zomato, TripAdvisor

6.    Blogging and publishing networks
Utility? - Publish content online
Example- Blogspot, WordPress, Tumblr

7.    Interest-based networks
Utility? - Share interests and hobbies
Example- Goodreads

8.    Social shopping networks
Utility? - Shop online
Example- Etsy, Limeroad, Craftsvilla

9.    Sharing economy networks
Utility? - Trade goods and services
Example- Airbnb

10. Anonymous social networks
Utility? - Communicate anonymously
Example- Ask.fm, Sarahah
For companies the relevant social media channels are all from number 1 to 9. They should steer clear of anything anonymous!

How does SMA affect Targeting techniques?
SMA has opened up newer ways of Targeting and has thus led to a much greater degree of personalization of communication to the targeted customer base. The broad advanced targeting options are:

1.    Interest targeting- This is based on the self-expressed interest, likes, preferences of the users and thus, companies can target specific groups based on this.

2.    Behavioral targeting- People here can be targeted based on their past purchase behavior and connection type (mobile data or WiFi).

3.    Custom targeting- A custom list of email addresses, social media accounts, phone numbers, etc. can be targeted.

4.    Lookalike targeting- The people similar to the identified audience based on interests or behaviors.

Tips for a Better Social Media Strategy
Following are some tips one must not forget while crafting a Social Media Advertising strategy:
1.    Keep changing your digital ads frequently- Users are always in need for fresh content. Considering that these ads are directly on their social media feed, repeat ads are prone to frequent skipping and irritating the customer.

2.    Make sure your ads are compatible on a mobile screen- Since most users today access social media through their mobile phones, make sure your ads are such that they are mobile phone friendly.

3.    Use the geofencing feature- Geofencing sends a notification to the customer when they are in close proximity to the physical store. This results in better targeting.

4.    Use free social media to test your ad codes- It’s always a good idea to make use of the free services to beta test your small ads and then go ahead with the one with the most number of likes, clicks, comments and shares.


Keep watching this space for more such related articles and for all things digital!

____________________________________________________________________________
References:
https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-advertising/
https://marketingland.com/social-media-advertising-set-explode-next-3-years-121691
https://blog.hootsuite.com/types-of-social-media/

Comments

  1. Unknown30 October 2017 at 10:15

    Great blog for learning the basics n operation in an easy language.Its really amazing

    ReplyDelete

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