Whenever Blue Point Advertising consults with a potential client, we always ask, “what is your current social media presence?” By that we mean, does your business have organic social media accounts established on the mainstream social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.)? Having a social media presence is a marketing must because it gives existing customers a chance to follow and engage with your business, and lets potential customers discover your business through search results. Be sure to publish informative content about your services or products, and leverage as much visual content as possible in order to see what creative materials resonate the most with your audience.
A presence on social media is a great starting point for any business. Many businesses find greater success generating revenue or acquiring new customers when they utilize paid efforts, since organic reach can be limited without the proper strategy. This is where paid social media campaigns come in handy! When advertising on social media platforms, businesses have the opportunity to expand their reach, target curated audiences, and test creative components.
Every platform has the tools to advance one’s marketing objectives, but some are more effective at certain tasks than others. Here’s a breakdown of how marketing differs for each social media platform and how they support marketing campaigns.
The Power of Facebook and Instagram
Blue Point Advertising offers a paid social media package combining Facebook and Instagram. We recommend it to any client new to social media advertising. FB and IG are adaptable for businesses across all industries, with ad types that utilize all sorts of content—text, images, video, catalog product images, and more. The social package presents a huge array of ad types for little investment, supporting objectives like encouraging foot traffic, targeting local demographics, generating leads, and driving people to a website.
The Facebook pixel is an essential advertising tool. It tracks user behavior for reporting and gathers data points on users that are ideal for creating audiences for a full-funnel marketing strategy. Full-funnel campaign efforts include prospecting, but we also use the pixel data to create “warm audiences” composed of individuals who engage with a social post or ad but don’t visit the website. We call these “engagement” audiences or “remarketing” audiences of people who visit the website but don’t convert.. We target these “warm audiences” with new ads or messaging to keep top of mind awareness and incentivize them to visit the website to finalize their purchase or submit a lead form.
Get Inspired with Pinterest
Pinterest users (referred to as “Pinners”) find inspiration and ideas on the site for a range of experiences and hobbies. Pinterest describes itself as “a visual discovery engine for finding ideas.” They accomplish this by allowing users to save or “pin” interesting links, images, and more to a virtual bulletin board. Furthermore, like FB and IG, Pinterest offers tracking through a piece of code called a tag. Tags track visitors and their actions after encountering a Pinterest ad, helping to build an audience and maximize ad performance. Pinterest deals mostly with the top of funnel users, so LP concentrates on maintaining awareness in that group. Notably, more than 97 percent of all searches on Pinterest are for non-branded terms, making the site terrific for getting in front of individuals who are looking for something, but might not know exactly what they want yet.
Pinterest also offers the same range of ad types as Facebook and Instagram, but it is not as heavily dependent on video content for success. LP always likes to test a variety of content, but static images with a lifestyle focus often prove to be effective on the organic and paid side of Pinterest marketing. Multiple brands across a range of industries perform well on Pinterest. You should run, not walk to the platform if you are interested in generating brand awareness and offer products or services related to home decor, event/wedding planning, beauty/fashion, travel, gardening, food, and hobbies, arts, and crafts.
Don’t Knock TikTok
Unlike Pinterest, TikTok is heavily dominated by video content, but that content must follow certain best practices to be effective for advertising. For starters, TikTok videos must be short and sweet—no more than 15 to 20 seconds long (the shorter the better), otherwise viewers swipe up and skip them. Content also has to be fresh and follow platform trends. TikTok’s algorithm affects ads. Their goal is to get users on the platform. Even if conversions are achieved, TikTok prefers ads that generate engagement, and they prioritize accordingly. This underlines the importance of user-generated content (UGC). In a way, UGC creates ads that don’t look like ads. TikTok offers online resources showing top-performing ads, creative guidance, and even a library of experienced users for hire. They have great editing tools for making adjustments to ad video and audio content too.
What’s Your Social Media Presence?
Those are the basics of how marketing differs for each social media platform. To succeed in today’s market, establishing a social media presence and investing in creative ad content is essential. Fortunately, online advertising can be surprisingly affordable, with an array of ad types available for each platform. Not sure where to start? Blue Point Advertising can show how to leverage paid social media marketing services including Facebook advertising services and Instagram advertising services. Contact Blue Point Advertising today!
