Bite-Sized Digital Advertising Series: Should You Advertise on Social Media?

Welcome to our Bite-Sized Digital Advertising Series!

This series aims to help people get their footing regarding digital marketing terms and practices. It’s also for people interested in learning more about digital advertising, or are looking to get into online marketing and would like to have an idea about the basics.

With that said, today’s article will be tackling a popular question in digital marketing: should you advertise on social media?

Let’s get to it!

What is Social Media?

According to the Oxford dictionary, social media is defined as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.” Examples of social media websites are Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Social media has grown prevalent in the past decade due to the rise of mobile devices like smartphones and laptops. The widespread use of these devices is directly responsible to the continuing rise of social media as a popular means of communication – and, ostensibly, self-promotion.

With social media, users create an account, connect with other users by adding or following their accounts, and generating content by posting using their accounts. These posts include texts, graphics, music, and videos.

Because the majority of social media content is user-generated, users have great freedom in curating and managing their accounts’ visibility through content management.

How is advertising involved in social media?

Businesses can advertise on social media, either through paid ads or through organic marketing. We’ve discussed some types of paid ads in previous articles (the PPC ads and Facebook ads, specifically) and how they work as marketing strategies; with social media, businesses have more options on how to promote their products and services.

One example is organic marketing. This is when businesses treat their social media accounts as normal accounts – that is, posting original content that is relevant to the interests of their target demographic, and then building a following through these content. With organic marketing, a business’s main resource on top of their marketing content is time; organic marketing is free, but takes a while to grow and develop ROI.

Meanwhile, paid ads “push” a business’s exposure by utilizing social media sites’ proprietary algorithms. Each site has its own algorithm, which behaves differently, which means that there’s a bit of research involved on the advertising side to figure out how to maximize paid ad exposure.

Paid ads on social media is the most commonly outsourced means of social media advertising, because while it’s effective, it can be very confusing without expert help. Service providers like LogicBase Interactive collaborate with businesses in developing marketing campaigns based on clients’ advertising goals and budgets, while also providing campaign metrics. (Campaign metrics help identify which ads are effective and which aren’t.)

Is social media advertising worth it? If your business’s goal is to promote your products or services, and to get better brand recognition, then the answer is yes. Social media marketing offers a vast guaranteed audience compared to traditional marketing options. If done correctly, it can lead to high ROI at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

Whether you’re running a startup or an enterprise, social media marketing has considerable advantages worth exploring. Try social media advertising today!