Social media is the best place for most businesses to reach their target demographic. Not convinced? Let’s review some statistics.
As of January 2017, according to Smart Insights:
- There are over 600 million active users on Instagram.
- There are over 317 million active users on Twitter and more than 300 million on Snapchat.
- Blowing them all out of the water is Facebook with nearly two billion active users.
With so much information about these users readily available by the nature of social media, it’s no surprise that advertisers pour billions of dollars annually into social media advertising.
Want to know the best ways to use social media advertising tools to your advantage? Read on.
The 10 Best Social Media Advertising Tools
Social media advertising is one of the best ways to increase brand awareness, target the customer leads you want, and see a great ROI from your ad dollars.
In fact, mobile ads on Facebook have a 9.1 times higher click-through rate than web ads, and 8.1 times higher on desktop, as reported by Marketing Land.
Use these 10 social media advertising tools to see a significant increase in your web traffic and bottom line.
1. Influencer Marketing
Let’s face it. In 2017, we all skip through commercials and ads when given the chance. How do you get consumers to view your ad? With influencer marketing, that’s how.
Influencers are social media leaders with a loyal following. The most notable influencers are millennial queens like Selena Gomez, Gigi Hadid, and Kylie Jenner. There are much, much more influencers from musicians to athletes to doctors to podcasters and everything in between.
Influencers connect with their followers by producing organic content which consumers find much more authentic and trustworthy than the typical branded ad.
By finding the right influencers for your brand, you can get your product directly in front of your target audience with a personal recommendation of someone they admire.
2. Bit.ly
Use this URL shortening tool to condense your links.
This comes in handy for the visual appeal of statuses and squeezing into the 140 character limit on Twitter posts.
That’s not all. Bit.ly also has a click tracking tool to help you collect valuable data on the content that is or isn’t driving traffic to your website.
3. Facebook Ads Manager
You can get started with Facebook Ads for as little as $5, so there’s no reason not to be using this powerful tool.
Facebook Ads offers the ability to target the specific type of people you want to advertise to through their news feed. This can bring in powerful results, but only if you’re using the tool to its full advantage.
Facebook Ads Manager allows you create your ads easily, pick your target consumers, stop and start ads, and track your results.
It even comes in the form of an app from the Apple App Store and Google Play.
4. YouTube
There’s a reason that 100% of the top 100 brands worldwide have run ads on YouTube in the past year. It works.
Similar to influencer marketing, YouTube ads allow you to target very specific demographics who are loyal followers of their favorite YouTube channels.
You can also catch a ton of customer leads by placing ads on video-driven, rather than channel driven YouTube accounts.
For example, a ton of exposure is gained by placing a makeup ad on a contouring tutorial video. The same goes for a headphones ad on a viral video of a recent musical performance.
YouTubers make a huge chunk of their living from advertisers, so more often than not they’ll be ready and waiting for ad content or sponsored videos.
You can advertise by using pre-video ads, in-video banners, product features within the video content, and more.
5. Snapchat Filters
Sponsored Snapchat filters are a great way to get consumers to interact with your brand and promote your ad content to their own following.
Big brands shell out as much as $750,000 a day to feature their customized filter.
Why is this such a powerful ad platform? Enjoyability.
Snapchatters use filters because it’s fun to use the face-morphing designs. With a fun and creative sponsored filter, you can reach millions of viewers by appealing to their sense of play.
6. Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are one of the hottest and most powerful social media advertising tools of 2017.
Verified accounts and business accounts with 10,000 or more followers have the ability to add links to their Instagram stories. This turns the casual interaction into a shopping opportunity that can drive traffic and sales.
It’s easy too. With a qualifying account, all you have to do is take or upload a picture or video to your story and click the link button at the top of the screen. This will send you to a page where you can enter the link and publish your ad.
This allows your followers and viewers to simply swipe up at the bottom of their screen to be taken to your link.
7. Social Metrics Pro
In order to make the most of your social advertising, you must be able to collect all the relevant data.
Social Metrics Pro is a WordPress plugin that tracks engagement across all your social media platforms in an organized, color-coded dashboard.
8. Content-Scheduling Apps
Content schedulers like Buffer give you a lot of power over your social ad campaigns.
Pre-scheduling tweets, statuses, photos, and other content allows you to take control of your time while still reaping the benefits of an optimized posting time.
9. Canva
Canva is a tool you can use to create web-optimized images and graphics. It’s totally free and used by top websites like BuzzFeed.
The easy-to-use interface means you don’t have to spend hundreds on graphic design software programs to create stunning posts.
10. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is one of the more popular social media advertising tools. It allows users to post the same content across all of their social media platforms at once.
This can save a ton of time. It allows your social media marketing to run more effectively and efficiently.
Hootsuite also has a “sentiment” feature that presents valuable data on the positive, negative, and neutral comments posted on your social content.
The Wrap Up
These are just some of the many social media techniques and tools out there.
For more tips, check out the rest our blog.
GRIN is your go-to resource to connect with influencers and much more. To harness the power of influencer marketing, click here to sign up.
