Social media advertising spend was over $100 billion in 2019. This is expected to exceed $200 billion in the next 3 years. The potential to build successful social media campaigns is certainly viable but is it worth the risk?

Any company with a social media strategy in place, will most likely have spent money on ads or is planning to in the short to medium term. As competition grows, companies are looking into ways to actively engage with users, to drive traffic, boost sales and increase brand awareness.

Social media usage is at an all-time high. More than 3 billion people are actively using social media on a regular basis*. This means the potential to target your ideal customer is certainly possible on a daily basis. How you choose to do this is key. *source – https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/

So, taking this into account, what are the best ways to maximise ROI? And which platforms work best?

Facebook

Facebook is, and will be for some time the number 1 for social media usage and social advertising. With over 2.4 billion active users, this platform is absolutely vital to any planned social spend. Here at 2Cubed, we have found Facebook advertising to be the most efficient, cost-effective strategy when advertising online. The ability to target a preferred audience, in multiple locations is a simple process if you know your target audience. The variety of ad types is also quite good (photos, videos, events, jobs etc). The budget spending flexibility is also a great tool and even for small amounts you are likely to see some decent results on engagement and return on investment.

Instagram

With over 1 billion active users, Instagram is a hugely popular social media channel and continues to grow. The ability to place ads on the platform is also a simple enough process since Facebook integrated both platforms centrally in their Ad Manager. Ads created on Facebook can now display on Instagram and again, the ability to target your preferred audience is relatively straightforward. In fact, you don’t even need an Instagram account for your business in order to advertise on the platform. The downside of Instagram advertising can be the lower engagement rate on ads compared to Facebook. In saying that, according to Facebook ‘over 200 million Instagrammers visit at least one business profile per day’. Instagram advertising is certainly one to consider in the coming year. You can read more on this here.

Twitter

In the past few days, Twitter have announced that revenues in the company have exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Advertising money accounts for a large portion of this. This obviously suggests that more companies are considering Twitter for advertising purposes. Audience targeting is simple and efficient but not quite as effective as Facebook. Twitter’s platform is getting better and while we wouldn’t suggest ploughing money into a campaign just yet, a small budget campaign may be worth doing to gauge how successful it can be.

These were just some of the platforms available when considering advertising online. When combined with a solid SEO plan and Google Ads, social can be a great way to tap into your users first hand whilst controlling your budgets closely.

Linkedin

Linkedin is a tricky one. With over 300 million active users, it can be an excellent platform in general but when it comes to advertising, we’ve found it to be not so good for the most part. The cost-per-click is sometimes outrageous and a small to medium campaign can lead to costs spiralling in a short space of time with varying degrees of success. Linkedin advertising may improve and is possibly quite a good tool for large corporations but for now we would suggest sticking to the more user and budget friendly competitor platforms.

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