Advertising on social networks: recommended or not?

Today social networks allow you to publish your ads, targeting your audience and according to your objectives (views, likes, sales etc.). In Switzerland, it is notably possible to advertise on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter etc., and networks such as Pinterest are gradually developing their advertising offer. By advertising on social media, you have the opportunity to reach a very large audience and generate traffic, receptive and ready to relay your communication (by sharing or tagging friends) if you attract their attention. This is why today advertising on social networks is widely recommended, provided it is well done. It will allow you to direct affected people to your site, and they will then be potential new customers. Your conversion rate will then be higher because you will have generated qualified traffic via your target audience.

Here are some tips to optimize your marketing strategy, be visible on social networks and make your advertising campaign a success.

To do this, you just need to know your typical audience according to basic criteria (age, profession, social class etc.), the social network algorithms take care of the rest. Knowing your audience also allows you to know which social networks will be the best adapted. For example, Snapchat has a very young audience (teenagers), unlike Facebook where 54% of users are over 35 years old. LinkedIn allows you to target companies, unlike other networks that target individuals. Making Facebook ads would therefore be a good digital communication tool in case you have a targeting of rather adult people.

Indeed, the format of banner ads is not the same everywhere. For example, the rendering is better with a square image on Instagram, whereas the landscape format is preferred for Facebook ads, unless you want to make a carousel ad (set of images) in which case the square format is best suited. It is therefore necessary to get informed and think about a digital strategy before creating the content of the ad so that the rendering is the best possible, and therefore that your advertising campaign is more impactful. Content with strong visuals is also appreciated.

Social networks are based on interactions between users. It is therefore a question of making them want to react, comment, tag other users. This will increase your visibility, without having to increase the allocated budget. To do this, a funny, provocative, questioning content, or a text with a direct question to the user will increase interactions. It is therefore essential to have a strong presence on social networks

The interest of advertising on social networks is, among other things, the proximity with future customers. They may wonder about the products and services promoted. Being attentive, reactive and responding to them will strengthen your brand image and can therefore allow your advertising communications to be stronger. It will also allow you to better manage possible crisis situations that can sometimes arise on social networks. To be more reactive, you can, for example, call upon the services of a Community manager whose role will only be the management of your social networks or a marketing agency.

Monitoring the effectiveness of your ads can allow you to constantly improve them: when to publish them? What type of content works best? How much money do you need to spend to achieve your goals? This will allow you to establish the return on investment of your advertising campaigns and improve it based on the results of previous ads.

Be careful not to make certain mistakes that could make your ads ineffective.

Launching an advertising campaign on social networks without having thought about the strategy to apply can hinder its effectiveness. From the beginning, you must set a goal to reach (views, clicks, traffic, etc.) and establish a budget to allocate. Setting clear objectives from the start will help you ensure that your actions are effective. An advertisement must reflect your brand, even on social networks. It is therefore important to use your graphic charter, your visual identity to clearly associate your advertisement with your brand, and the content must remain adapted to social networks.

Internet users are on the networks to be entertained, so they will be more tempted to interact with content they don’t usually see on the street, on posters, etc.