We often get asked about Social Media Advertising at Avocado Social. Here we answer our top 5 social media advertising FAQs.
Social Media Advertising is one of the best ways to reach your desired audience. It can generate direct results from your activity. Adverts can be put live very quickly and you can achieve a positive ROI almost instantly. You can also use Social Media Advertising to grow your community, and build brand loyalty.
1. How much does it cost?
This is without a doubt our most frequently asked question! Unfortunately, there isn’t a straightforward answer. The cost of each campaign is different. Costs can vary dramatically based on targetted audience size, campaign duration, and much more.
You can control your budgets so that you never overspend. According to Naningans, the average cost per click on Facebook in Q1 2019 is $0.48. The average cost per 1000 impressions is $7.44. These are global figures, so of course, they should only be used as a rough guide.
2. Who can you target?
You can target a long list of specifics about Facebook and Instagram users. Metrics include; age, gender, location (as specific as 1km), education, family role, job title, hobbies, specific interests (brands, TV programs, celebrities), and more.
Custom Audiences allow you to retarget visitors to your website, social media, and email subscribers.
Lookalike Audiences is a list automatically generated by Facebook. A Lookalike Audience is a group of people who look like your Custom Audience. Therefore they share similar traits with your core audience and therefore should be highly relevant to your brand.
3. What do you need to get started?
First, you need to set up an advertising account with the desired social media network. For Facebook and Instagram, this is Facebook Ads Manager. For Twitter, it’s Twitter Advertising. On LinkedIn, it’s called Campaign Manager.
Setup will involve adding a payment method and choosing your timezone. You might wish to give access to various people within your team.
To run your adverts you will need to have a good idea about your strategy and content. Think about questions such as;
- What are the objectives of this campaign?
- Who exactly do we want to target?
- What are the main messages of the campaign?
- What content do we have available (photos, videos)?
- How long will the campaign last for?
4. How do you advertise on Instagram?
You can advertise on Instagram within the app, using the Promote button. However, you will get far better results and have more control of targetting if you use Facebook Ads Manager. Here you can choose where your ads are featured on Instagram. Within Facebook Ads Manager you can also opt to run adverts on Instagram Stories.
5. What works best?
Advertising campaigns work best when the ads are highly relevant to the audience you’re targeting. This could be down to;
- The location mentioned in the ad.
- The demographics of the person featured in the advert.
- How you use the copy to engage your desired audience.
Video content can work very well if it’s eye-catching and fast-paced. It’s usually best to keep the video short to keep people’s attention. Also, bright coloured images and incentives such as discount codes often work well.
We put together a list of 5 brilliant advertising campaigns we’ve seen recently.
Hopefully, we’ve answered one or more of your burning social media advertising FAQs.
If you are looking to get started with Facebook advertising, give an Introduction to Facebook Advertising a read.
We also have a brand new online course called Social Media Advertising. This covers Facebook and Instagram ads. You can find additional on-demand and live social media courses here, including Social Media Marketing: The Complete Guide.
To see answers to other social media advertising FAQs or to ask us directly, why not join the Avocado Social Media Hub.