The proliferation of digital devices and the continuous evolution of digital technology has ensured a high level of interconnectivity and redefined how business approach marketing the world over. Marketers are increasingly looking at new avenues to strengthen their digital marketing strategies and grow the outreach of their online advertising methods. As a result, most businesses today have a presence on social media, where a big part of their online advertising takes place. Businesses and individuals alike are drawn to social media advertising because it’s free. However, more and more companies are now going down the paid social media advertising route to boost their digital marketing strategies. American research and advisory firm Gartner found that marketing technology represented 33% of the average marketing budget in 2016, and for a good reason too: In the same year, Facebook was found to have 1.13 billion active users daily (Satista). Being able to reach such a vast store of potential customers would certainly boost business revenue substantially! Below, we take a look at how paid social media advertising can really up your game when it comes to digital marketing strategies.

1. Drives targeted traffic

It’s common for businesses to put up news, latest updates and other promotional material on their social media pages in an effort to gain publicity for their brands, products or services. Although a high traffic volume is good for growing outreach, it’s even more important to ensure that the traffic largely consists of your target audience. Paid social media advertising gives you the option to do just that – once you identify your target audience (age group, ethnicity, salary range, etc.), you can curate the paid social media advertisement to appeal to that target market. For example, Facebook Ads lets you identify your target audience by age group, interests and other demographics, essentially bringing your paid social media advertisement right to your target market’s doorstep. Being highly customisable, it’s not only a great way to reach new audiences, but also keep your existing audience engaged! When you pay to advertise with Facebook, the information you have about your target market will also lead you to other groups of people related to your products, industry and customer base. By posting links in these groups, you’ll be enticing potential customers to also recce your site or at least share the links, leading to higher traffic, greater outreach and more publicity. Different social media platforms are popular with different demographics, e.g. LinkedIn caters to experienced professionals while Instagram is more popular with the younger generation, so it makes sense to spread out your paid social media advertising across various social media platforms to get the most out of your online advertising.

 

2. Promotes wider outreach

This is possible, but only if you take advantage of all the social media platforms available out there to boost your digital marketing strategies. But regardless of the platform you choose, paid social media advertising should be a staple in your arsenal of digital marketing strategies, and resonate with your brand, product or service. According to a survey by marketing software developer HubSpot in 2016, 73% of those surveyed revealed that they use Facebook for professional purposes, so it’s definitely a hotspot for online advertising. However, you can get even more mileage out of your paid social media advertising efforts if you use Facebook in tandem with other social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The idea behind this is to have your marketing channels complement each other, as different social media platforms cater to different demographics and offer different ways to boost your business outreach. Apart from the type of platform, it’s also important to utilise different advertising mediums to advance your paid social media advertising strategy. Considering the widespread use of mobile devices today, it would make perfect sense to incorporate paid social media advertising into your mobile marketing campaign through the use of highly-engaging infographics, videos and images. According to online magazine TechCrunch, approximately 100 million hours of video were watched every day on Facebook in 2016, while HubSpot found that 45% of people watched more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos in a week. That should give you plenty of motivation to raise your paid social media advertising game by growing your business’ cross-channel effectiveness through a myriad of mediums and methods. With the right online advertising avenues, paid social media can greatly broaden your potential customer base!

3. Strengthens content marketing efforts

When you really think about it, all your digital marketing strategies and online advertising approaches boil down to a key ingredient: content. Your videos montages, images, infographics, audio clips, and of course, text-based posts, are all different forms of the same thing – content. So, shouldn’t it be such that your paid social media advertising channels are used for content marketing purposes? A well-defined key message expressed in the form of an engaging story that contains a strong call-to-action is surely well worth the amount expended on paid social media advertising. Whether it’s through a business blog, a website or even a series of Facebook posts, well-crafted content widely disseminated to the target audience can greatly increase your sales potential and garner you a faithful following or fan base. That’s where paid social media advertising comes in handy. Twitter, for instance, can be used to give short and quick updates about your latest products or services, or a succinct comment about a news article that ties in with your offerings. This not only gets traffic to your Twitter page, but can also catalyse discussions, which are great for public relations. Instagram and Pinterest share a common denominator in the form of images, which are suitable for fashion retailers looking to promote their latest clothing lines. A single eye-catching shot of the latest fashion must-have, followed by a short call-to-action in the form of a link to your online shop can generate countless leads to your target market and jumpstart hundreds of shares and likes!

We here at ThunderQuote hope this article was of good use in helping you. For more useful and informative articles as such, come head on over to our blog ThunderQuote .

ThunderQuote is the most comprehensive business services portal in Singapore, Australia and ASEAN , where hundreds of thousands of dollars of procurement contracts are sourced every month by major companies like Singapore Press Holdings, National Trade Union Congress and more.