If you’d have asked me six years ago when I first started my marketing career that my daily role would focus predominantly around social media, I would have laughed it off.
How are the channels I spend hours aimlessly scrolling in my spare time going to be one of the key communication platforms for clients?
But with real time results and the ability to amend adverts in a matter of moments, it’s no wonder that more than 20% of our clients are going social with their advertising budgets.
It could be said that many companies have an ‘active’ social media presence but I use this word quite loosely. Often, it’s just a box ticking exercise – a five-minute “get the job done” task. However, for a campaign to generate real results, it requires strategy, planning, research, production, analysis and review.
As a company, ICG has invested over £30,000 in the latest industry tools to help boost our clients’ social media presence.
We’ve narrowed some our winning techniques that have become staples when developing successful Facebook advertising campaigns.
Understanding your goal
Yes, it could all be done in a few clicks with a pretty picture but have you considered the end objective? We like to delve into clients’ goals to determine how the advert is delivered and where we should be directing the budget.
Often, marketing goals change as strategies develop. Think about whether you want to raise brand awareness or if you want users to carry out a particular action – for example, sign up to an enewsletter, enter a competition, make a sale.
Nailing your audiences
How many times have you received an advert on Facebook that is irrelevant to your interests and demographic? Ensuring your messages are reaching the right people is pivotal.
We particularly love the use of Facebook’s Custom Audiences where we can target users who are already interested in our clients’ products, ethos or service to seek high engagement rates and a strong return on investment.
Adapt your creative to suit
When it comes to Facebook ad creative and copy, we spend a lot of time ensuring its syncs with clients’ wider marketing materials to build familiarity and recognition with the brand.
It’s always great to understand Facebook ad placements too, what might look great on the general news feed may be cropped and distorted as a ‘story’. When using the News Feed as a placement we use assets that are 1200×1200 pixels, but as Stories fill the whole screen this sized asset wouldn’t work.
We regularly monitor clients’ ad placements to avoid wasting budget where ads aren’t being seen. If this means spending that extra time creating further assets to better suit the social media platform, then it’s worth the effort.
Changes in real time
Facebook allows us to constantly monitor and review campaigns throughout the live period, making changes in real time. We can also easily see what’s working and what needs adapting to drive those results we all want.
Post by Abi Blundell, Account Manager at ICG
If you’d like to chat about a social media project, please get in touch.
