Most companies are advertising on Facebook. It’s been around a long time, it’s a familiar interface, and it’s very easy to both place new ads and analyze their performance.
But even if they’re seeing a higher-than-average “return on ad spend” (ROAS), that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t explore other places to advertise on more niche social media channels.
For example, compared to Facebook, Instagram is newer and it may be less familiar to a lot of Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, and even the older half of Millennial marketers. For this reason, a lot of companies might not consider advertising on it as much as they would on Facebook. Make sure that your own team’s familiarity with advertising on this channel isn’t holding you back. We guarantee there is someone in your office who grew up on Insta who can help out, if need be.
(Or — of course — there are agencies like Mad 4 Marketing that come to the rescue!)
Many companies don’t even have an account on Instagram yet. But it doesn’t matter if you’re even on Instagram (though that might help). It’s simply important to remember that your audience might be there. Even if they’re also on Facebook, it only boosts your brand if people are seeing your ad across different digital spaces, increasing awareness and familiarity.
However, this does come with a small caveat. You won’t get the same success by running the same ads on Facebook and Instagram. User experience is vastly different on each platform. With Facebook, people might come across your ad while scrolling through their own feed; and the more natural it looks among their other content, the better it will perform. You’ll want to gear those ads very specifically to the look and feel of Facebook posts. On Instagram, though, it’s a visual-first format and involves double-tapping to get “likes.” additional engagement can be hard to garner; but even more importantly, people tend to scroll by pics very quickly. Your ad needs to not only feel native to the Insta environment, with a graphics-first formula, you also need creative that’s so eye-catching it will make people pause while they’re scrolling to learn more. You definitely need to create unique ads for each interface and audience.
That couldn’t be more true than when it comes to YouTube. With over 2 billion monthly active users on YouTube as of June 2019, it’s ripe grounds for reaching your audience (or cultivating a new one). Again, it doesn’t matter if your company operates its own YouTube channel; your ads can direct people to your website instead. These ads, which will play at the beginning of relevant videos, will also be in video format. If you can catch people’s attention before they realize they’re even watching an ad and try to skip over it, even better. If that’s a reach for your marketing team, there are partners you can reach out to while you get up to speed and start reaping the rewards of this high-ROI channel that you’re currently missing out on.
The main idea is this: It’s important to step outside of your comfort zone when it comes to paid ads on social media platforms. Though it might take slightly more time, effort, and strategy, there’s potentially big payoff if you take the time to diversify your advertising on social media.
If you need help branching out in any new areas — even Snapchat or TikTok (it’s a thing!) — feel free to reach out to the digital media experts at Mad 4 Marketing.