Remember when Facebook was the only social media platform around? Facebook is still the biggest player, with 2.9 billion monthly active users. But other platforms are growing larger, especially with younger users. After Facebook, the top social media sites are YouTube, Whatsapp, Instagram, WeChat, and TikTok.
Are you surprised you don’t see Twitter on this list? Do you not even consider YouTube social media? Have you ever heard of Whatsapp and WeChat? Do you assume TikTok is just for kids? Whatever your answers are, don’t feel bad. Not every platform is right for every business. Whatsapp and WeChat, for example, are most popular with Chinese users. If your audience is in China, you want to be on WeChat. But if they’re not, don’t worry about paid social media ads on this social media platform. Likewise, Whatsapp is big in Brazil and India. Again, unless you do business here, you don’t need pay-per-click social media ads or social media content to drive brand awareness.
But if you are based in the US, you probably should be thinking about your social media strategy for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. And depending on your industry, you may even want to have a social media plan for LinkedIn or Twitter. Nextdoor, a hyperlocal website and app, also offers paid ads now. Again, you don’t need to be on all of these platforms. You just want to be present on the ones that make the most sense for your customer base, and potential customers.
Table of Contents
What’s Involved in a Social Media Strategy?
Social media strategies usually involve a few types of content:
- Free content that’s meant to drive brand awareness
- Pay-per-click ads
- Content that includes shoppable links
We assume you know a little bit about free content you can post on social media sites. If not, we have articles about this and can create such content for you. But today, we want to focus on the types of social media content that cost you money – paid ads and shoppable posts.
Don’t waste ad dollars on a one-size-fits-all advertising campaign across every social media platform. We can help you figure out which platforms are used by your target audience, and what your goals for social media advertising and content should be.
According to the Digital Marketing Institute, “Social media is a powerful part of any marketing strategy to drive brand awareness and ROI and is growing in importance as shoppable posts and social commerce become a reality.”
What Social Media Platforms Offer Shoppable Posts?
Once upon a time, all social media was good for was getting the word out about your company or brand. The hope was that people would share your social media content and someone would be inspired enough by that content to open a new browser, go to your website, find an item they like, put it into a shopping cart, and finally place the order. But that’s laborious for many users. By the time they click on that many links, and have to enter their credit card or shipping info, they lose enthusiasm.
Enter shoppable social media content. This concept allows a user to make a purchase without leaving the platform it’s hosted on. This is also called social shopping. Instagram and TikTok are among the most popular social shopping platforms. So if you offer products that are often passion purchases, like plants or purses, you might want to take advantage of these platforms.
You can’t argue with numbers. According to one study, social media purchases will grow three times as fast as traditional e-commerce purchases in the coming years. That means the $492 billion spent via sociable shopping worldwide in 2021 will increase to $1.2 trillion in 2025. The study also says over half of United States social media users made a purchase through a social media platform in 2021. So even if you don’t personally buy things after clicking on social media content, that doesn’t mean others don’t either.
How to Create Shoppable Social Media Posts
You can see now why it is important to make it as easy as possible for consumers to buy your products through your social media posts. But how can you do that? Each social media platform has its own method for creating shoppable social media posts.
On Instagram and Facebook, you must:
- Have a business profile listed with them.
- Set up an Instagram Shop.
- List your products and images/videos and make sure they’re tagged properly.
- Decide if you want to let people checkout through Instagram or direct them back to your website. Instagram will charge you a fee for each sale made through their platform.
On TikTok, you must:
- Create a TikTok for Business account.
- Set up a TikTop Shop.
- Decide if you want to connect your TikTok Shop to TikTok video ads.
- Create content with appropriate tags.
Sounds like a lot of work, right? Well…it can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Each platform can be connected to e-commerce platforms, i.e. systems that manage everything from a website’s design to inventory. Examples include Shopify, WooCommerce, and Wix stores.
You can also outsource this work to digital marketing experts, like us at SEO Design Chicago. We’ll meet with you regularly to explain how these platforms work together, and how they work in competition with one another. Most importantly, we will be YOUR partners in growing your sales through sociable shopping.
What Platforms Are Best for Social Media Ads?
Every social media platform, even Nextdoor, offers you a way to pay for ads. Of course they do. That’s how they stay in business. But users tend to like some ads more than others.
NextDoor will work for companies that are hyperlocal, like cannabis dispensaries or garden nurseries. Clothing stores that are online-only may benefit more from TikTok paid social media ads. Facebook Ads work well for groups that gather locally and digitally around a common interest or cause, like physical therapy for animals.
Again, you need to decide which social media platform is best for your business before you spend ANY money on ads. We can help you figure that out. At SEO Design Chicago, we’ve helped some companies see an over 200% increase in traffic from digital ads, many of which were on social media.
How to Create Social Media Ads
Every platform has its own tools to create ads on its platforms. For TikTok, it should be a video. For Instagram and Facebook, it can be any combination of text, photos, videos, graphics, and more. For LinkedIn or NextDoor, you can use any combination of words, images, videos, and graphics.
You can create ads within the platforms themselves. For example, in TikTok, you start by visiting their Ads Manager. The platforms offer access to royalty-free databases of photos, videos, and images, or you can upload your own content. They make it easy to create ads, but easy doesn’t necessarily translate into effective ads. After all, if anyone is going to see your ads, you must enter your credit card information. Whenever a user clicks on your ad, you are charged. So while you can create ads on your own, you will be paying for it.
Many companies choose to hire third-party vendors, like SEO Design Chicago, because we can create customized, unique ads and handle all of the backend work, like figuring out if and how the ads are helping your business. We follow a set of best practices for creating shoppable social media ads and paid social media ads.
Our Paid Social Media Best Practices
When you work with us to create paid social media ads, you can expect us to go through the following best practices.
Research Your Company, Competitors, and Industry
We start off by seeing what you have been doing on social media, what your competitors are doing, and what industry thought leaders suggest for your area of business. We then present you with a plan that includes samples of ads, suggested budgets, outcomes, and a publishing schedule.
A/B Testing
Before we run an ad, we test it among users. We present them with two ads and ask them specific questions about which they prefer and why. We then adjust the ad based on the results of the testing.
Early and Constant Data Analysis
We start monitoring the impact of your ads or shoppable content the second it launches. We explain the results to you, and leave you with detailed, easily digestible reports.
Next Step Strategies
We hope the first social media content we create for you has an instant impact. But we know that we can’t keep repeating the same act too often, so we’re constantly brainstorming new ideas. And we’ll run them by you, of course. Reach out to us however you feel comfortable – through our contact form, social media, live chat, or even the old-fashioned phone – to learn more about our services.
Contact Us Today!