Social Media Advertising - An Overview

Social Media Advertising and Digital Strategy - An Overview

Learn how social media advertising can support your digital marketing strategy

• Introduction
• Brand awareness
• Engagement tracking
• Website traffic and conversions
• Conclusion

Introduction

Social media advertising has become an integral component of a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. With its vast user base, targeting capabilities, and interactive nature, social media platforms provide a powerful channel for organizations to promote their products or services, engage with their target audience, and drive business growth. This report provides an overview of social media advertising, and best practises and explores how it supports an organisation's overall digital marketing efforts.

Social media advertising provides a huge opportunity for businesses, brands, and organizations and should form a significant part of their marketing strategies, in particular their inbound activities. Social media advertising allows for the engagement and nurturing of new and existing audiences through multi-format campaigns that can be tracked, measured, and analysed to ensure optimal performance and return on investment. 

The below screenshot shows the vast reach of social media. It shows that 3.78 billion use social media and spend an average of 2.25 hours per day on its various platforms, demonstrating the value it can bring organisations in supporting the acquisition and engagement of new and existing audiences. Social media advertising allows marketers to utilize this reach through mass or targeted audience ad campaigns. 

Fig 1, WordStream [n.d] ‘Social Media Stats Snapshot’ (graphic) [online]

Brand awareness

Social media advertising can support an overall digital marketing strategy in helping increase brand awareness. This can be achieved through the ability to target specific audiences, ensuring that ad campaigns are shown to the right people that align with organisation's objectives and target market, according to Schaffer. N [May 2023], 75% of marketers credit social media marketing with increased web traffic, and almost 90% say it has improved business exposure.

By utilizing the vast user data available on social media platforms, organisations can create highly targeted advertising campaigns that reach the desired audience segments. This ensures that the brand's message is effectively delivered to the right people who are more likely to be interested in the products or services offered. Consequently, social media advertising aids in building brand recognition and familiarity among the target audience, leading to increased brand awareness and visibility in the digital landscape. 

Engagement tracking

An important factor of an organisation's digital marketing efforts is to track user engagement and interaction. Social media advertising supports this in that it allows a direct link between brands and their audiences. Through multi-format content ads such as videos, carousels, document ads, polls, and quizzes, marketers can engage with their audience, capture data and gain insight into their target market. 

To ensure successful engagement, it is best practise for marketers to ensure their content is not too centered around sales as audiences do not like to be ‘sold to’. Instead, marketers should follow the 70-20-10 rule to achieve optimal engagement. 

Fig 2 - Allen. J [n.d]. ‘A Marketer’s Guide to Building a Profitable B2B Social Media Strategy’. [graphic]

This screenshot is an example of a Linked ad from Toptal that uses helpful content to support its audience, consequently positioning the brand as a thought leader. 

Fig 3, Hubspot (online) [2021]. ‘9 Fantastic LinkedIn Ad Examples’, [image]. 

The following screenshot indicates that digital marketers place significant importance on measuring the success of social media advertising based on metrics such as likes, comments, shares, retweets, and customer interactions.

Fig 4 - Smart Insights [2019]. ‘How marketers define engagement when measuring social success’ [graphic], (online).

Website traffic and conversions

Another impactful way that social media advertising supports an organisation's digital marketing efforts is that it can assist in increasing website traffic and conversions. By strategically promoting content, products, or services through social media ads businesses can redirect users to their websites. It is best practise here for marketers to ensure that they use compelling Call-to-Actions to inspire users to click through from the ad to the business's website or landing pages. 

Targeted ad campaigns on social media platforms offer immense potential for optimizing conversion rates. By tailoring advertisements to specific audience segments based on demographics, interests, and behaviors, organizations can ensure their ads are shown to individuals who are more likely to convert into customers. This precise targeting increases the chances of driving high-quality traffic to the website and ultimately leads to higher conversion rates.

Conclusion

In conclusion, social media advertising plays a vital role in an organization's overall digital marketing strategy. By utilizing targeted ad campaigns organizations have the opportunity to increase brand awareness, engage with target audiences, and drive website traffic, as well as leveraging user data, businesses can effectively reach the right people and optimize conversion rates. With its immense reach and measurable impact, social media advertising has become an indispensable tool for organisations seeking to achieve their marketing objectives in the digital landscape.