How Can You Use Paid Social Media To Reach A New Audience?

Social media has taken the place as the largest collection of people anywhere across borders. According to WeAreSocial 3.8 billion people hold accounts on social media. This offers unique opportunities never seen before for marketers to target their demographic in a perfected system. Social media is built for advertisers, feeding off their marketing dollars. People keep flocking onto social media platforms making the value of advertisement ever increasing.

The industry average for spending on social media advertisement is between $4000-$7000 per month surveyed by The Content Factory for 2019. This number will probably only go up as social media is estimated to keep taking shares of the global advertisement market, especially since the rise in usage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Numbers from Statista shows that Social media spending is estimated to more than double from 2017 to 2023.

Enter Your Target

Social media is full of useful tools for marketers to find their ideal demographic. The ability to target any group of interests, age or location with tailored ads puts your content straight in front of your ideal consumer. People sharing their interests, location and what they spend their time clicking on has become a gold mine for advertisers and a gift package for companies.

You can pick who you want to sell it to, where they should be and what kind of interests they should have before you show ads to them. Want to sell a new game? Promote the game to people playing similar games, interacting with influencers promoting similar products or people who like your competitors’ page.

The downside of this gold mine? People are getting tired of ads. Social media allows companies to put their message right in front of anyone, anywhere. Making it a lucrative market for advertisement agencies to sell their expertise and campaign formulas. These are starting to show their flaws. Old style slogans and posters doesn’t intrigue the consumers like it used to. Having a A-celebrity holding your product in front of an exotic backdrop doesn’t do it anymore.

Interact & Educate – Don’t Promote

Social media offers more than only promotional tools. Don’t get me wrong, promotional tools are great to get in front of people, but when you have their attention how do you keep it? You interact with them. Nobody finds a timeline full of premade promotions without personality worthwhile. People want personality, the people want to be entertained.

Personality has turned into a vital part of marketing on social media. Where companies previously left all correspondents signed with their brand name, they now sign with their names. Success stories on social media building up millions of followers is brands such as Wendy’s, Netflix and PlayStation. Their secrets? – They interact with the people buying their products.

They share fan made pictures, they respond to questions and they even pick a fight with their competitors and their army of fans. This keeps the fans entertained and bring the brand in front of consumers without them even realizing that they are exposed to marketing. What better way to market your products, but to directly talk to the people buying it and listening to why they either purchased it or intend to purchase it?

So, use the tools social media offers and use them well, but don’t expect people to stay around if you can’t offer them anything else than a paid advertisement. They get enough of those already, using paid promotions might actually make it harder to keep people than organic growth. This is because people are already sceptical, or even negative before they are exposed to your content if a paid placement has brought them there. Paid placements will get you in front of your audience just as social media companies promise, but what does a full venue matter if you don’t get on stage?

Make Your Audience Relate

Social Media currently hold 13% of the global advertisement markets according to Marketing Land and it will only increase from there. The success stories combined with improving tools to promote products some estimated show that this share of the market will roughly double within a few years. The newsfeed on the other hand will remain the same. Companies gain access to audiences around the globe of their choosing with new channels to market in. Asian and European companies can target US markets with nothing but an online presence through marketing and eCommerce. American companies can go the opposite way and access Asian and European markets without having to leave the states. Want to bring consumers on the other side of the world your products? Logistics and marketing will make it possible without setting foot anywhere close to the new market.

Companies such as Amazon and Alibaba have perfected this business model. Large scale logistics systems in central locations and a high pace delivery system making it effortless to purchase online rather than going to your local store. You won’t see many Amazon or Alibaba ads out in the physical world, that’s not where their customers are. You’ll see them in display ads, video ads and popups (Yes, those annoying ones covering your screen back in the 90s).

Social Media Can Make Or Break Your Strategy

Social media will be the part of your strategy that if utilised correctly will build you a loyal following on social media and be the marketing gift that keeps on giving. It will take a while to build up, but be more cost efficient and gain better exposure to your target audience long-term. This will require long, consist planning. You’re invading people’s personal space and they expect you to bring value to it. Watch out for growth strategies that involve spamming and aggressive promotions as these often will push consumers away rather than engage. Getting a bad reputation in social media is a stain that might never wash off again, social media is the place people never forget. Social media can be the most valuable tool and must have for any marketing department, but it’s a narrow line to walk into peoples personal space.

Download our Ultimate Social Media Guide and whitepaper.

Your online brand presence is more important than ever.

From setting up the right social accounts for your business, to creating high performing marketing content, learn how to effectively manage your community and reap the benefits of social media.

Looking for support from a social-first digital agency? Get in touch with 123 Internet Group!