WHY YOUR PAID ADS ARE GETTING IGNORED
Do you ever wonder why your social media ads are getting ignored?
As the CEO of a social media marketing company, I can’t stress this enough! CONTENT IS KING AND THE CAPTION IS THE QUEEN! Let’s face reality: your social audience has the attention span of a gnat. Scroll, scroll, scroll – bam! Something catches their eye (usually a fluffy kitty sitting on a robot). Stop, read the caption, maybe read more, then MAYBE like it, maybe follow – or maybe none of the above and move on.
So, in the social media world, you’re not just competing with your competitors – but with cute fluffy kitties and everything else. What makes you think a bland, stuffy ‘buy me, drink me’ ad is going to get any love? Truth is, I see this time and time again, good products getting lost in the social media spiral due to poor social media marketing. Simply offering 10 per cent off is not enough to gain traction – trust me, I live and breathe this stuff.
Now, where does this leave your business? It’s time to get creative. Get funny! Get sad! Emotional! Even angry! Capture your audience with a damn story. Fail at this and you’ll get ignored, no matter how much you spend.
Social Media Breakdown
Facebook is a great source for sharing educational related content like this blog post (you found it somehow, right?), news, important happenings and events. The platform is great for showing off things like press success and accolades.
Instagram is strong visual social platform for vanity related posts like beauty and fashion and inspiring content like transformations of any kind and viral content that provokes engagement.
Twitter has developed into a news, television/Hollywood platform. This isn’t ideal for branding and reaching potential customers.
YouTube
Youtube is a good way for businesses to dive deeper with video content that goes behind the scenes for your brand. The possibilities are endless with Youtube and offers the chance to give thought provoking content that can go viral.
Pinterest is all about photo inspiration and idea inducing. Not within the normal social media scope, but still provides opportunity to be discovered.
Once you understand the type of content to produce and for what social media channel, you can then create the RIGHT content that will inevitably reach your target audience.
So, what exactly do I mean if I say make your ad NOT look like an ad? That doesn’t make sense, right? Remember, the focus should be on story with emotion rather than your end game: selling a product. Ads are still seen as a faux pas on social media (have no fear, they’re increasing in popularity and are not going anywhere) so trick your audience into engaging your ad by looking like an organic post.
Good and Bad Examples of Engagement Posts
Bad Example
Why it’s bad:
• Photo content is unappealing and looks like a sponsored post
• Not enough content to engage with and caption is too short and should have taken advantage of a photo scroll option to keep the audience engaged on the ad longer
Good Example
Why it’s good:
- Looks like an organic post
- Appears as someone you know posted this article
- Caption is immediately intriguing and makes you want to know more
- While photo content could be better, the caption is the real winner
Now it’s time to consider: does your brand have a story? What inspires your business? Are you changing the world one t-shirt at a time? Perhaps you’re a woman-owned start up? What sets you apart from the rest of the businesses out there? Your ads need to show this off as much as possible. Your message is your brand’s identity and without it your audience has no reason to be interested.
Now to play devil’s advocate, sprinkling some direct paid ads here and there to attract click conversions, sales or reach can be very beneficial. But in my marketing experience you don’t want to overdo this. Mixing it up works best.
- Instagram ads need to be incredibly engaging, bold 15 second videos that leave the viewer wanting more.
- IG feed ads are great for showing HOW a product or service works and for showing some sort of before and after effect.
- Facebook ads are ideal for generating and tracking conversions and encouraging shopping. More studies continue to show online consumers are purchasing from their smart phones which could mean Instagram holds the power over Facebook for shopping ads.
Remember, always test, track and compare!
Don’t have the time to implement the above social media marketing strategies yourself? Contact us today to discuss your needs and see if our expertise is what your business needs.
