Pay To Play

Which Social Media should you advertise through, and how it can help your business Master it's class

Social media has completely altered the way that users advertise to their consumers. The days of Newspapers and door-to-door advertising have come to a halt as companies utilize the plethora of options given to them by "The Social Media Giants" to advertise to users on an entirely different scale. Paid Social has brought the Digital Age into the world of "Pay to Play."

"E" For Everyone

From the "Instant Create" Platform of Snapchat, allowing users to create ads ready within minutes, to the more densely analytic centered format of Facebook's Ad Manager, businesses and brands have a menagerie of options for different groups that most closely fit their focal audience. Whether you are looking to harbor more B2B Relationships with features such as LinkedIn's Sponsored InMail Campaign tools, or the more personalized organic flow of Promoting Tweets, Trends or Accounts Via Twitter, the adaptations by these Companies allow companies to further utilize their massive fan, and thus consumer, base. So which outlet is best for a brand or company?

Finding Your Crowd: Facebook

Facebook is an exclusive frontrunner in the Paid Social world and it's evident that their medium of advertisement works. Boasting a following of over a quarter of humanity's population, it's needless to say that there should be a spot saved in a brand's budget to advertise through Facebook. With Facebook's AD Manager it's seamless for companies to curate their audience and decide where to put their funds first. Facebook's AD Manager allows you to tailor your consumer outreach into three tiers: Core Audience, Custom Audience, and Lookalike Audience.

Beginning with a Core Audience is important to reaching customers at the top of your marketing funnel. It's time to figure out whom you'd like to be receiving your advertisements and who would be the best for your brand, and best for your conversions. The Core Audience sets the tone for whom you'd like to bring into your circle, with specifications for criteria such as location, age, gender, interests, and behaviors.

As you work on finding whom you'd like to introduce to your brand, it's important to focus efforts on harboring the relationship with those who know who you are. The Custom Audiences section of Ad Manager allows companies to utilize the connections in motion. Using information already gained either through your source site or other mediums, Custom Audiences will allow you to retarget your passive audiences and keep your loyal ones in the conversion loop.

As brands begin to build on and grow their Custom Audience, the use of the Lookalike Audience becomes very helpful at finding new audiences. By taking a selected Custom Audience, and choosing how the source range, a closely matched audience will be found that can be bid upon and that businesses can use to develop relationships with similar consumers. The three tiers of Facebook AdManager help brands find a new audience, find what works best for their current audience, and compile information to find other audiences who would love to engage with a brand in the future. Knowing and augmenting the crowds is crucial to giving them the best experience and the highest conversions. Facebook has a wide reach, but a big pool doesn't always translate to big fish. Specifying what Social your specific brand should advertise through can make a huge difference as to how it will be received.

"Pay" Attention

Knowing what medium of Social Media to brand through is paramount in gaining the most circulation in a specific audience pool. Twitter Ads are like an organic bridge in the B2C structure, with Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets allowing an audience to give their real-time feedback to Ad campaigns. Instagram serves as a direct link to a very responsive source group, with engagements rates exponentially larger than their media giant counterparts. With Paid Stories that flow right into the user experience to Photo and Video ads, Instagram has a very effective demographic that is highly reactive to Advertising. LinkedIn allows for content and brand marketing on a highly responsive B2B base. LinkedIn allows for features such as Sponsored Banners and Paid Personalized Campaigns that allow for professional and compelling advertising and engagement. More recreational apps such as Snapchat and TikTok utilize their base of influencers, trends, and live interactions to merge the world of paid advertising with younger focal groups.

Each "Social Medium" gives a different advantage for a different audience. Hyper-targeting and adaptation on each platform can allow brands to capitalize on multiple, extremely involved scales. The advantage of paid Social Media is the highly responsive nature of the digital age. Proper interaction with a consumer base, regardless of which app is being used, will help give a brand a hands-on look at how to constantly adapt and improve in an ever-evolving plane.