If you’re looking to get your business in front of thousands of prospective customers, you’ll want to consider creating targeted ads within the most popular social media platforms and communities.
Here’s how to get started:
Instagram: http://www.Instagram.com
Boasting over 400 million users each day, and over 100 million photos shared, Instagram is a titan in the realm of social marketing. One of the easiest ways to reach your audience is with Instagram ads.
Advertisers have several options to choose from including:
- Video Ads
- Photo Ads
- Carousel Ads (
- Stories Ads
Instagram ads uses Facebook’s demographic data to display highly-targeted ads. This means it’s exceptionally easy for you to reach a very specific segment of your market.
You’ll also gain access to in-depth monitoring, tracking and historical data that provides you with the information you need to gauge the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
Instagram’s advertising model is based on CPM (cost per impressions) which means that you pay only when your ads are seen.
In addition, you can choose between a daily budget (where you cap your spending off per day once it reaches your limit), or set a lifetime budget where your ads expire only after the entirety of your budget has been exhausted.
Another way to gain followers and maximize exposure at absolutely no cost is to post content regularly, and use relevant hashtags. Hashtags are those things you see that look like: #hashtag, and they are equivalent to keywords. You must use the # sign in front of the tag, and there must be no spaces.
If you have multiple words in your hashtag, you can either combine them all into one word like this:
#thisisyourhashtag
Or, you can separate them with underscores, like this:
#this_is_your_hashtag
You can have up to 30 hashtags in each Instagram post.
Yelp: http://www.Yelp.com
With over 90 million unique mobile users every single month, you won’t want to overlook the potential exposure that Yelp has to offer.
If you own a brick and mortar business, you’ll want to set up a page on Yelp that allows for customers to post reviews and feedback.
You can further boost exposure with Yelp by paying for a sponsored advertisement.
Facebook Advertising:
One of the most popular ways to advertise to mobile users on Facebook is with their carousel format which gives advertisers the opportunity to feature multiple product images and links within one ad.
There are two different places you can create an ad on Facebook—the Ads Manager and the Power Editor. The Power Editor includes more features, but the Ads Manager is said to be a bit easier for people who are just starting out, however you can also use both in different ways.
For example, you could create your ads in the Power Editor, and then monitor your campaigns and make changes with the Ads Manager.
Fortunately, Facebook has a solid interface that walks you through the entire process.
>> https://www.facebook.com/adsmanager/manage/campaigns
Facebook advertising is one of the platforms that provides the most targeted campaign options. With their sophisticated ad system you can target your ads based on gender, location, hobbies/interests, occupation, education, age, as well as many other options.
You can also choose where and when your ads appear which makes it a powerful advertising platform when trying to reach mobile shoppers as you can choose to show your ads only to mobile users and even specific mobile devices.
Creating a great ad can take some time, and you might have to test a few different ads before you find one that has the best CTR (click-thru ratio, or the number of people who see the ad and click on it vs. the number of people who don’t.)
Facebook Pages
You can also use your Facebook business page to drive targeted traffic to your ecommerce store in a few different ways. To start, if you own a brick-and-mortar store, you should make sure you list your business hours and location in the About section of your page so that potential customers can easily find you. Also, those using Facebooks “Nearby in your neighborhood” feature will see your page.
A Facebook page provides your business with the opportunity to connect to customers, provide updates on specials, discounts or time-limited events. You could also run giveaways and contests on your page in order to boost exposure and drive fresh traffic to your online store.
You can create your Facebook business page here: https://www.facebook.com/business/learn/set-up-facebook-page
Create a Facebook store
If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to set up a Facebook store, check out https://www.shoptab.net. They make it easy to create a Facebook shop within minutes and all stores are optimized for use with the Facebook app. Another solution is available at https://www.bigcommerce.ca/facebook/
Pinterest Advertising:
With Pinterest’s Buyable Pins, merchants can sell their products directly to their mobile audience without forcing them to leave the platform.
After you’ve been approved, you can feature as many products as you wish while creating a frictionless checkout experience that makes it easy for mobile shoppers to purchase your products quickly, all from within the Pinterest app.
You’ll need a Pinterest business account in order to utilize their Buyable Pins advertising platform and once you’re ready, you can apply via Shopify at: https://www.shopify.com/pinterest or BigCommerce at https://www.bigcommerce.com/pinterest/
Tip: Review Pinterest’s policies prior to requesting approval in order to determine if your business is eligible. You can find out more here: https://about.pinterest.com/commerce-policies
Here’s how Buyable Pins work:
After you’re approved, any pins on your public boards that link back to specific products will now feature an “Add to Bag” button. You can display your buyable pins in many places including within category feeds, search results, on boards of other people who have saved your products and within the home feed.
Once you have Buyable Pins enabled, you can take advantage of Pinterest’s’ extended advertising options which enable you to promote your Buyable Pins in order to maximize exposure. And with Pinterest’s advertising channels you’ll be able to easily monitor traffic and sales from within your Ads Manager.
