What Is Social Media Advertising

Social media advertising is one of the most accessible and affordable ways for small businesses to market themselves and their products, and it allows them to reach massive audiences with just a few clicks. But how exactly should we define social media advertising, and how does a small business begin advertising on social media? This post brought to you by Stiddle will help you and your small business create your online presence and promote your brand.

What Exactly Is It?

Marketers define social media advertising as a type of digital marketing where people or businesses display paid ads on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to target audiences.

Some might confuse social media advertising with the broader idea of social media marketing. The difference is that social media marketing includes the promotion of organic content. Small businesses do and should have profiles on social media where they post their content, whether it be photos, videos, infographics, or links. This is generally not considered social media advertising as businesses don’t pay for these posts, and they can’t control who they show their ads to.

In contrast, social media advertising is paid marketing. Businesses sponsor advertisements that are then targeted to specific users.

Both social media marketing and social media advertising should be essential components of your business’s marketing strategy. They both are intended to expose your brand and products to new audiences so you can increase website traffic and increasing potential sales.

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How Does Social Media Advertising Compare to Other Types of Marketing?

Marketing as a Whole

Marketing is an umbrella term that comes in various forms, all of which have the intention of increasing brand exposure and hopefully converting interest into sales. More traditional forms of marketing would have businesses promote themselves through posters, billboards, or tv ads.

Additionally, businesses can even consider the layout of their stores or the design of their packaging as a type of marketing since it is a strong visual component of the customer experience that affects how they perceive their brand and products. Visionaries like Steve Jobs recognized this and paid painstaking attention to these details, which helped turn Apple into one of the biggest success stories of this century.

Digital Marketing

With the increase in Internet and social media usage, digital marketing emerged and has proved immensely effective. Within digital marketing, there are even many specializations. It can be categorized into sections like email marketing, SEO, and content marketing (to read more about the specializations within digital marketing, click here).

One of the elements of digital marketing that connects all of these various categories is data. Data drives the Internet age and is its most valuable currency. Websites collect data that businesses like yours can analyze to understand consumer trends. It is especially valuable for marketers who can analyze it and then turn their understanding of consumer trends into effective marketing campaigns.

Social Media Advertising

Just like these other forms of marketing, social media advertising should focus on being visually appealing. It should be eye-catching and engaging so it stirs up interest in your target audience. And, like other forms of digital marketing, it relies heavily on data. Knowing the different consumer trends and what stimulates your target audience will help your social media advertising campaign stand out.

How Can Small Businesses Use Social Media Advertising?

Luckily, social media advertising is one of the most accessible and affordable types of advertising. Additionally, it is quite successful at converting interest into clicks, helping increase website traffic and sales.

Social media platforms make most of their money through selling advertisements so they make it easy for you to create and distribute your own ads. The first step to social media advertising is knowing how you want to market yourself and how you want your brand to be perceived. Your branding should be consistent across all platforms and should reflect your vision, mission, and values.

Then, you have to decide who you want to target your ads to. These platforms collect lots of data on users, meaning you can easily share your ads with people from specific demographics with specific interests and behaviors. Additionally, you can even decide to share ads at specific times of the day when your business is open or in hyper-specific locations.

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Designing your own ads is the last step before you advertise it on social media. Since ads on social media are typically displayed as photos and videos, you should focus your efforts on making them visually appealing.

Of course, designing ads for social media isn’t quite that easy, which is why we at Stiddle have made it our mission to simplify digital marketing while making it accessible and affordable for all businesses. Simply enter your business’s name, niche, location, and competitors into our machine learning algorithm, and we’ll create the perfect ad for your business. We can even help you find the right target audience by eliminating biases and assumptions. After we launch your marketing campaign, we will help you analyze the data it produces so you can spend your budget on the ads that are the most effective. If you don’t see results within the first seven days, then we will extend your free trial, no questions asked.

Conclusion

Social media advertising is one of the best ways to market your business, and with the help we at Stiddle can offer you, we can help you put your small business on the map.

Stiddle - aims to bring you inspiration from leading respected marketing experts.

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