As a small and/or new business you want to get up and running and known as soon as possible, so you can start attracting customers and earning money. Money is always tight at the start and it’s hard to know where to spend any advertising budget you may have. Advertising in newspapers, on the radio or tv and leaflet dropping were the places to go – but was (and still is) very expensive. The new kid on the block is Social Media Advertising, and it has become the important marketing avenue even for the biggest brands.
So why should you use Social Media Advertising? We have set out some key points below, that should help you decide.
- Organic Reach is poor.
Sadly, as social media has grown at such a rapid speed, it has become a lot harder to make an impact as a business just by posting content. This is down to both the algorithms that run the social media platforms as well as the huge competition you have to compete against. Therefore, it is important to “pay to play” and help boost your new business.
- Perfect for very small budgets.
One of the wonderful things about Social Media Advertising – it provides a huge bang for your buck! It’s not as expensive the traditional forms of marketing we mentioned above, and it really will make an impact for your business. Spending £10 once a month, is very achievable for a new business and once you get up and running a bigger budget will really help drive sales.
- Targeted.
When you create an ad on social media, you can pick your target market. You can narrow down the audience by location, age, sex, and lots of other demographics. Therefore, you aren’t wasting money on advertising to people who are not interested.
- Learn about your audience.
After you have run your first ad, you can drill down into the results to see who has reacted and seen your content. This is a great way to learn about your potential customers – it might surprise you to see who really is interested in your product or service, as well as opening your business to people you didn’t initially think of. It will also enable you to target your social media content to them and reach out to them in the future.
- The more you use the better it gets.
Another amazing thing about using Social Media Advertising is that it gets better every time you use it. The algorithms behind the platforms will learn who is interested in your product or service and it will target more people in the similar subset.
- Boosts awareness.
A key thing about social media is consistency. Being seen again and again, to build up that trust and recognition with potential customers. Ideally you should be posting on your platform regularly and advertising is a great way to boost that. Advertising helps keep your business constantly in people’s newsfeeds.
- It’s not that hard to do.
Creating an ad on social media is quite easy. Just go through each section slowly, change things to fit your needs and your target market. Be sure to cap your spend limit! If you make a mistake don’t worry, you can always just stop and delete the ad.
Take the plunge and give it a go. You will be surprised at the results. Social Media Advertising really is a useful way of getting your small business out into the world in a very cost-effective way!
This article was written by Fiona Service of Litus Digital
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