Facebook’s potential advertising reach is 2.11 billion people and as Facebook is the world’s most populous social platform, it’s also the one with the highest potential advertisement reach. For businesses that are serious about growth, a Facebook presence is essential. When you’re running a small business, you want to be visible to the most relevant audience possible – people in your local area who need the goods or services your business provides.
While organic social media tactics are another important way to connect and engage with customers of your business, you should incorporate social advertising in your marketing strategy if you want to reach new customers and leads.
What are social ads?
While organic social media includes creating a profile for your business and sharing content with your customers and followers, social ads go one step further to reach new customers – those who don’t already know your business.
Social media advertising allows you to target specific audiences on each platform. By analysing your existing customer/follower base, platforms such as Facebook and Instagram help direct your advertising to consumers with similar profiles based on the demographics (age, gender, location, industry, job title etc.) that are most relevant to your business and overall marketing strategy.
How can social ads help small businesses?
Small and local businesses have a much more segmented target audience – you want to engage with people who are in your local community, but who may not yet be familiar with your business or the product/service you offer.
Social ads allow you to target consumers based on geographic location. If you have a physical location, you can display your advertising to people who are in your business’ location or nearby – this is also handy If your business is based in multiple locations or does not have a physical location but provides services/products in specific locations.
Small and local businesses have a harder time with brand awareness in comparison to big brands. While it’s true that you can grow your business’ word-of-mouth reputation via organic social media tactics, it can take a while for these efforts to generate brand recognition if you’re only use unpaid channels.
Paid advertising across social media platforms like Facebook allows you to increase your brand awareness quicker, by featuring your ads in front of new audiences more frequently. The more frequently you can feature your business and branding to your local audience via social media platforms, the more likely they are to become a customer.
How do social ads work together with other digital marketing strategies?
Social media advertising can give a great boost to your organic social media efforts. When people encounter your business through a social ad, they are much more likely to visit your organic social pages to learn more about your business. In addition, social media advertising can be used to boost your organic content, sharing it with a larger audience. If the content shared links to your website, you have the advantage of exposing your site to a wider audience through your social channels.
Paid social plays a pivotal role in generating brand awareness. As social advertising is relatively low-cost, it’s a fast and efficient way to generate brand recognition with a broader audience. With so many social media platforms, it can be hard to choose the best one for your business.
We are here to help
Discover smarter digital advertising with LocaliQ’s Social Ads, designed to help you get in front of one of the world’s largest audiences. Complement your existing online strategies with a solution that’s optimised to help your business reach its goals. Our team of marketing experts have gained their certifications through the extensive Facebook Blueprint program and are highly trained to provide exceptional insights and resources to give you the best results.
Jayde Nguyen