Social media boasts billions of active users. That popularity has prompted several businesses to focus the majority (if not all) of their marketing strategy on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and others.

If you’re new to advertising through social media and aren’t sure how best to shape your strategy on platforms you’ve deemed relevant to your audience, you’re in the right place!

Our team has scoured the web and talked to experts to compile what we feel are the seven most important tips every novice and pro-social media advertiser should keep in mind when seeking success on the world’s most popular platforms.

Keep reading to take your social media marketing strategy to the next level!

1. Integrate Keyword Research Into Your Posts

If you’ve heard about SEO in the past, you’re one step ahead of the masses when it comes to social media advertising. SEO is the bedrock of social advertising as integrating keywords into your organic and paid posts can help them get more views and clicks.

For those of you that aren’t familiar with SEO yet, get familiar. You can learn the basics through this guide.

The process of using SEO to find common keywords people use when searching for things online can be cumbersome. If you run into trouble, consider bringing on a marketing agency to help.

2. Pick Appropriate Platforms

It takes work to run a successful social media presence as a business. One of the best ways to ensure your success is to focus your effort on the platforms that are likely to bring you the most value.

So, before you get started on social media, ask yourself, “Which social media platforms are the most meaningful to my audience?”

For example, if your business targets 35-year-old professionals, LinkedIn would probably be a more effective social platform to target your ad campaign on than Instagram.

3. Share Value First and Products Second

Social media is a marketing channel that demands authenticity. Showcasing authenticity as a business is done by providing value to followers.

As an example, if you were a business that sold admittance into online technology courses, you might post a free infographic that teaches people how to save TikTok videos and then at the bottom of that graphic, invite people to learn more about the platform through one of your courses. Providing free value up front and then pitching your audience after will foster trust towards your brand.

4. Don’t Forget Paid Advertising

One of the best aspects of social media is that your business can create an account and start posting advertisements for free. Getting people to see those “organic” posts/ads can be tricky though.

If you want to ensure eyeballs on your posts so you can start driving results for your business today, invest in paid advertising.

Paid advertising is when you create a post/ad that you pay your social platform to push to relevant audiences. Paid ads are the chief product that social platforms sell and the reason why they’re able to stay in business.

Most social media platforms offer free ad credits for new advertisers so give your platform’s paid ad tools a try to see what they can do for you.

5. Keep Organic Content on a Schedule

When it comes to posting free, organic content, to build a following, you’ll want to be consistent with your posting schedule. By sending out a constant drumbeat of valuable content, you’ll find that your follower base starts to expand.

If you’re having trouble keeping your organic content posts consistent, consider hiring a social media manager that can streamline that task for you. You might also choose to use tools like Tailwind or others that enable you to schedule posts across multiple platforms.

6. Get Intentional With Your Paid Ad Targeting

When you pay for advertisements on social media, platforms will ask you to identify who you’d like to see your ad. The more intentional you can get when answering that question, the higher your return on investment will be.

Being able to target the perfect person with your paid advertising comes down to knowing who your audience is.

Is your audience male or female? What are your audience’s political leanings? Where do they live?

The more you know about who’s likely to buy your product, the more information your social platform has to work with to make sure ad impressions you pay for have the highest chance of converting into sales.

7. Make Adjustments As You Go

As with any marketing strategy, you need to pay attention to how your course of action is performing. If you find you’re pouring money into a campaign that’s not netting you the results you’re looking for, hit pause on your marketing to re-access.

Running a successful advertising campaign on social media is almost always a process of starting, stopping, adjusting, and starting again. Embrace that process and you’ll start to see serious traction!

Social Media Advertising Is a Marketing Channel That You Need to Value

We’ve heard chatter about how social media advertising is diminishing when it comes to returns. That’s not true.

While plenty of people use social media advertising and don’t see the traction they’re hoping for, that failure is almost always due to lack of knowledge regarding social media advertising or a company selling low-quality products/services.

We hope our guide helps you unlock the benefits of social media advertising and we welcome you to explore more of our tips and tricks on our blog!