When it comes to social media marketing, we have to hold our hands up and apologise...
For a while now, we've been busy discovering, explaining and sharing the general story of social media and inbound methods, like blogging and keyword marketing.
What we haven't done, is really shouted from the rooftops about social media advertising for SMEs and the big fish too.
Not prone to shying away from admitting we're wrong, we accept that we should have been telling you more about this excellent tool...
Whether your social media strategy means your focus is on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or somewhere else - we need to get your brand and website "out there".
This does not - as you may have thought - mean creating a page and "letting the magic happen".
Our previous blog posts ought to have opened your eyes to the sheer hard work in developing and building your social media presence and the content creation that goes with it.
Additionally, you should be advertising your page/s and sharing them with the potential customers you must reach.
Social Media Advertising Today
What is interesting is just how behind the majority of marketers are when it comes to Social Media Advertising today, not just the methods we first learned when such advertising boomed a couple of years ago.
This graphic from Social Bakers provides a real insight into just how limited the majority of marketers are when it comes to this powerful tool (everyone's still focusing on Facebook - a platform that is declining in popularity):
Facebook: Starting with the most popular platform for advertising, Facebook has done masses of work when it comes to their advertising sub-platforms. With Power Editor, Promoted Posts, an improved Ads Manager and business pages themselves, they've put heaps of time into making this a great tool.
The one we love is Power Editor, designed to allow advertisers to segment and target messages more than ever before, as well as creating the much-gabbed-about Dark Posts tool.
LinkedIn: The LinkedIn Campaign Manager hasn't undergone any major updates of late, but it is an incredibly targettable tool, which marketers aren't making the most of. If you're looking for clicks to your website, this can rival Facebook's capabilities. Disagree? All of the workplace skills, defining professional information and industry facts can be found on every LinkedIn member's profile and the Campaign Manager uses this information brilliantly.
If you're segmenting by business profession or job seniority, you should be looking at LinkedIn.
Twitter: We've already spoken about Twitter Advertising in 2014 in our recent blog post on the subject, but what are the must-knows? Well, Twitter isn't used anywhere near as much as it should be. At least not when you consider the majority of businesses who have a social presence are using Twitter and most of their audience is on there too, looking for answers to buying problems!
Our favourite Twitter advertising campaign tool is the Tailored Updates, which means that you can now segment audiences in the same way as Facebook and LinkedIn. There is also the capability of getting your Twitter ad to the top of the Tweets feed (particularly successful for mobile advertising) which is a great coup for any business!
These platforms and updates aren't secret, but they're so easily missed by marketers and businesses alike.
When you next think about a strategic review of your marketing plan, ask us about up-to-date social media advertising!
Statistics, Facts & Figures
- 8 out of 10 SMBs use social media for their business to drive growth. (Source: HubSpot)
- 94% of SMBs who use social media use it for marketing. (Source: HubSpot)
- 3 out of 4 SMBs believe LinkedIn helps them build credibility. (Source: HubSpot)
- 83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business. (Source: Social Media Examiner)
- 62% of marketers said social media became more important to the marketing campaigns in the last 6 months. (State of Inbound Marketing, 2012)
