If you’re marketing your business, you’re spending part of your ad budget in social media – unless you’re in a very small minority. According to a report from Hanapin Marketing, The State of Paid Social 2019, 97% of all marketers are spending ad money in social media; that’s up 10% from last year.
Facebook is still number one, with 91% of marketers dedicating ad dollars to the platform. Instagram is the next most popular for advertisers, with 69% of marketers spending there. Both Facebook and Instagram are considered the most successful platforms for mobile ads, and there’s a general sense that video ads are among the most effective.
One of the top benefits of social media and other digital advertising is the supreme level of targetability. Marketers can target their advertising based on location (especially important when you have a service area), as well as interests, behavior (searching for plumbers, for example), demographics and connections (marketing to people similar to your followers).
Being able to measure results is another highly valuable factor.
Measurable numbers include impressions (the number of times people saw
your ad) and engagements (the number of time people interacted with your
ad with a like, click, share, etc.). To get the engagement rate, you
divide the number of engagements (people who interacted) by the number
of impressions (people who saw). That will give you a sense of how well
your ad is doing in capturing interest.
You can also track the number of times people visit your profile page.
As you set goals for your social media advertising, study your competitors to see what they’re doing. Also, learn from other types of businesses. You can get ideas from a local coffee shop just as well as a contractor competitor. Keep your non-paid posts going as well, providing content that is helpful to customers and uses multiple formats (video, image, infographic and text) to meet a variety of preferences.