It’s no surprise that allocating a portion of your advertising dollars to social media has quickly become a marketing necessity. Advertising options continue to become more sophisticated and diverse as each network continues to develop, and with that, a business’ ability to reach greater audiences. That is why it is so important to understand what each platform has to offer.
With so many social advertising options available, it can be a bit of a challenge when it comes to determining which platform will best serve your business’ needs. So, what can each format offer you? Let’s take a look at three of the most popular platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Facebook, with its more than 1.5 billion monthly users, is the most popular platform for social advertising. Through their advertising options, you can create campaigns with defined objectives, like raising brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, generating leads and so much more. You can also choose from all sorts of different ad formats with the ability to define specific targets – from age, location, gender and language, all the way to specific behaviors, interests and custom audiences.
Types of Facebook Ads
Facebook offers a wide array of ad formats built to meet all sorts of specific business needs.
- Link Ads – The most common Facebook ads, these appear directly in user’s news feeds. They allow you to use large images alongside headlines, text descriptions, URLs and Facebook interactions (e.g. liking, sharing, commenting).
- Right-Hand Rail Ads – While these probably won’t provide you with the best click-through-rates, they are a more affordable option that will show your advertisement on the right side column with a title, image, short description and URL.
- Carousel Ads – These are a great option for product advertising. You can display up to five products in a single ad that users can scroll through. Each product can have its own title, picture and link. Visibility of these ads is best through both desktop and mobile newsfeeds.
- Lead Ads – These simple ads are a great way to generate leads. They gather information from potential customers and allow them to sign up for further information as well as business offerings without ever having to leave the site.
- Canvas Ads – Though only available for mobile use, these ads were designed to give prospective customers an immersive ad experience unlike any other. They use interactive elements to draw users in, like carousels, animations, images, videos and product catalogs.
Over the years, Twitter has proven to be an effective social media advertising option, as it has a wide-reaching arm into the lives of over 300 monthly users. Like Facebook, it features a wide array of advertising formats, or categories, that consist of promoted tweets, accounts and trends. Once you select a category, you can then base your campaign on specified objectives, like increasing followers, generating leads and web clicks, as well as a number of other options.
Types of Twitter Ads
With your specified objectives in place, you can choose from several advertising formats known as Twitter Cards.
- Product Card – These are great for retailers, as they allow businesses to display their content or product in an informative way through an image, description, price, rating, etc.
- Lead Generation Card – These employ the use of expanded tweets to generate leads. The tweets allow for easy sharing and expand to reveal full descriptions of offers with a customizable call-to-action that will automatically pre-fill a user’s information, ready to submit.
- Summary Card – Summary cards are designed to give users a preview of the content before clicking to the website. They include titles, descriptions, images, thumbnails and direct links to your website.
- Summary Card with Large Image – These ads feature full-width, prominent images right alongside your tweet. They are designed to be eye-catching so that users will click to go to your website.
- Website Card – These specifically focus on driving users to your website. They are the most commonly used Twitter ad format and allow you to tweet an image with a description, link and call-to-action.
- Player Card – With player cards, you can include GIFs, music and videos allowing users to watch content within the tweet.
- App Card – These include a name, description, icon and other specifics, like rating and price that are designed to feature mobile applications. Clicking on the link will take users directly to the app store.
- Conversational Card – These make for easy user engagement to spread your message, faster. They include a call-to-action that asks users to choose a customizable hashtag. Once clicked, your pre-populated brand message will open, and users are free to personalize it and share with their followers.
The youngest of the three most widely used social advertising platforms, Instagram, by nature, is simplistic, and so are its advertising formats and capabilities.
Types of Instagram Ads
Instagram’s advertising capabilities are made up of three different formats that work simultaneously with the platform’s photo and video feed.
- Photo Ads – These are promoted images that help tell your brand’s story. The main feature here is that each image comes with a call-to-action that will send users to your landing page.
- Video Ads – These offer the same features as photo ads just in video format. Your video can even play up to 60 seconds.
- Carousel Ads – Instagram’s carousel ads are much the same as those through Facebook. There’s an image, description and a call-to-action. The main feature, here, being that you can display multiple images and videos for users to scroll through. This is a great way for businesses to advertise several products through a single ad.
There is no single solution when it comes to deciding upon the best social media advertising platform for your business because each platform offers different features and will perform differently as business needs vary. Your decision will be based on your knowledge of each platform’s capabilities, your specific objectives and your understanding of which platforms your customer-base is interacting on.
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