Until far, Facebook has mostly employed MOFU promotions (read more here). This is done to encourage prospective buyers to make a purchase in the future rather than pressuring them to do so right now. Users may not be ready to make a purchase just yet, but this assessment phase is when they clarify their requirements and start looking for a suitable option. Whether through a pin, re-tweet, or like, users in the MOFU stage are the most inclined to spread content among their social networks. Hence, businesses should highlight why potential customers should do business with them and project how consumer demands and wants would be met. Webinars, case studies, data sheets, free trials, and faqs are all examples of content often provided as part of a marketing over the first few weeks after launch (MOFU). With these considerations in mind, I’d like to discuss the top ten social media advertising options now available.
Sponsored Stories on Facebook are a great way to draw attention to a customer’s post or interaction with your brand. The post will then appear on the friends’ sidebars or News Feeds. Advertisements of this sort are a great way to highlight a customer’s enthusiastic endorsement of your company. Sponsored Stories can take several forms, the most common of which are page “likes” and check-ins. While it was designed for a specific purpose, the tool may be used for any user operation.
When you reach 100 followers on Facebook, you may start using Promoted Posts. Each photo, offer, video, or status update published to your Facebook business page may be promoted to a wider audience with the Promoted Posts feature. This is because your post may be seen not just by your business’s existing followers, but also by the friends of those who have participated with it in some way (by sharing, like, or commenting). They don’t show up on the right column of Facebook, only the News Feed. There is a greater likelihood that a Sponsored Post will be viewed by its intended audience since it will show higher in the audience’s News Feed. There will be a ‘Sponsored’ mark on these as well.
You can advertise exclusive content, events, product launches, and more with Facebook Page Post Advertising. Posts on a fan page are advertisements, and they may be promoted further by paying for placement in the News Feed or the sidebar.
Using Facebook Offers, you can provide discount codes and other promotional materials to your fan base without them having to leave Facebook. If a fan takes advantage of the deal, it will appear as a story on their timeline. As the timeline is public by default, the fan’s friends will be able to view this. Followers may also forward these offers to anybody they like by clicking the “share offer” button that appears directly below each article. Formerly a free service, promoting Facebook Offers to an audience of followers and friends of fans is now a paid service, with minimum fees starting at $5.
With Twitter’s Promoted Tweets feature, you may boost tweets from your own timeline to followers or users like your followers, as well as directly address individuals during Twitter searches. If you pay to have your tweets promoted, you can potentially reach individuals that have characteristics with your current following.
Market your Twitter account in the search results and the “Who to Follow” suggestions by becoming a Promoted Account. It’s a simple approach to rapidly expand your brand’s reach to those who would be interested in what you have to offer.
With LinkedIn Advertising, you may narrow your ad’s focus to people with a specified job title, job function, industry, location, age range, gender, company size, LinkedIn Group membership, educational background, or set of skills. We provide two pricing models: per click and per impression.
Using Google+ Social Extensions, you may promote your Business Page in a roundabout fashion on Google+. Businesses having a Google+ Business Page and an AdWords account will have access to the social extension. A red “+1” button will be added to some advertisements. According to Google, ad clickthrough rates will rise by 5-10% when the +1 recommendation button is included.
Advertising on YouTube: With over a billion monthly users who collectively view over six billion hours of video, YouTube has surpassed Google as the second largest search engine. It’s important for companies to factor in the rising cost of digital video advertising when developing their own strategies for this medium. YouTube’s TrueView suite is the greatest option for social advertising on YouTube. This is built into businesses’ existing AdWords accounts and is a component of Google’s AdWords for video. You’ll only be charged when a user clicks through to watch your video. In-stream, In-slate, In-search, and In-display are the four available modes. Further details on what you may do with each choice are available at the link.
Marketing on Yelp: The site attracts more than 84 million new users every month. Ads on Yelp are a topic of much debate on the web. Yet every company must weigh the potential benefits and costs of Yelp for themselves. Your company’s ads might appear at the top of the search results page in the relevant field. In addition to removing advertisements from competing businesses, Yelp will also let you promote your own brand on sites belonging to others in your area.
They are the most popular choices for social media marketing in the middle of the sales funnel. If you’ve tried any of them, I’d love to hear how they worked out for you in the comments. Moreover, stay tuned for a whitepaper that will cover some of the most important aspects of social PPC advertising.