You need to optimise your paid social media campaign, here’s how to do it

Social media is not a nice to have anymore, but a must have. It’s a medium you can use to engage directly with your target audience and give them a positive user experience to do business with you. Even though when talking about “social media” the first thing most people think about is socializing and engaging on popular social media channels, did you know that you can also run PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns on some of the top social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn?

Creating the campaigns is easy

Creating and setting up your PPC campaigns on the social web is the easy part. Measuring and optimizing your campaign to be effective if you don’t know what you are doing is not so easy. Measuring and analyzing the performance is important with any marketing campaign. Make sure that you have a couple of goals and milestones to make sure you are not wasting your money and that you are getting a good return from your campaign. How can you optimise your social media PPC campaign to be effective?

It usually depends on your service or product, but the key with any paid social media campaign is to know who you are going to target so that you can create your ads in a way they can relate toe. Make sure the context of the ads are appropriate and the tone you are using is relevant to the social media channel you are targeting.

On LinkedIn, people are looking for a more detailed and content rich message in your ad than a Facebook user that requires less formal content. What content and tone does your audience prefer? Study them and make sure your ads address them directly.

Everyone loves a freebie and a special offer. If you have any promotions or discounts that will save your target audience money, use them in your ads. By offering your audience special discounts can help encourage them to take the last step and buy from you. It’s important also to remember that your target audience might browse their favourite social media channel for a completely different reason to looking for your services or products. Your ad must be enticing and worthy enough to drag them away from their daily social media interaction.

Customise your ads with free samples, downloads or discount coupons. This can increase the click-through rate of the ad.

Make a point of updating and keeping your website, blog, and social media active with the latest information about your business. When people are interested in what you do and visit your online profiles, they want to see the latest news, special offers, and product information about your business. People don’t want to buy services and products from a company that is behind the time. Make a point of researching the latest trends and techniques to update your online profiles with new information that is magnetic and that your audience will want to read.

Engage with your audience

The better experience and engagement you have with your audience, the more likely your brand will stick with them. They will also be more likely to complete the desired action with your campaign – a Facebook like or a physical transaction from the ad.

Use catchy content to grab their attention to complete an action so that you can start engaging with them. Once they have spent time to connect with you, they will be more willing to find out more on your services and products.

Encourage sharing

Sharing is caring. Encourage your audience to share, like, follow, and retweet your social media campaign with their own social circles. Word of mouth is still one of the best marketing methods around. By encouraging and giving your audience a way to share your message, you will maximize your brand exposure and also increasing the chance of a positive ROI with your campaign.

I know this is easier said than done, but create an incentive for your audience. One way is to integrate a competition style promotion with your campaign such as “Like this page to stand a chance of winning discount vouchers” will give them a good reason to spread the message to their friends, as well as increase the overall engagement with the brand.