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Social media & online ads
Social media. Love it or hate it, social media has a huge impact on your success as a marketer. With the statistics on how many people are on social, it’s a very hard arena to ignore. Check out these stats:
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Facebook (as of 2021) has over 1.8 billion DAILY active users
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On average, people access Facebook 8 times each day
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Social media platforms gained 490 million users in 2020
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Instagram now has 1.2 billion monthly users
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YouTube has 1.7 billion unique monthly visitors
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In the U.S., 62% of users access YouTube daily
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Facebook is the world’s third-most visited website, outranked only by Google and YouTube
And here’s a good one:
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94% of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from mobile—just 6% on desktop! For all of you hobbling along with websites that look horrible on mobile, pay attention!
(Source: Facebook, Hootsuite, Sprout Social)
There are plenty of reasons to be on social platforms, we all know that. But for the small business owner, how much of this activity equates to new sales or clients?
Facebook & Organic Reach
The chances of someone finding you through Facebook is pretty slim without you running a paid campaign. There’s just too much going on. Nowadays, your fans are the people who already know you.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there. Why? People want to know you’re there. They like the validation that you are visible on a social platform.
Truth be told, anyone can set up a website and let it sit in the ether. But we all know it's harder keeping a social feed going with regular posts! When people don’t know you, they will most likely look for you on social to confirm that you’re an active, operating company or professional.
Client: Livermore Valley Education Foundation
That’s why I have Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn in the Marketing Foundation category. Chances are, clients will hear about you through some other means and validate you on social. This is where having a filled out business page with a link to your website and some consistent posting is key. By the time they’re coming to you on one of these social channels, what they’re really shopping is your company’s personality, recent activity and news through your posts.
Client: Creative Healing Center
Instagram
Instagram originally started as beautiful collections of carefully curated photos and images. Now, with over a billion monthly users, anything goes.
Instagram really works for businesses who:
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Deal with anything beautiful/handsome, pretty, esthetic or nostalgic, or have any beautiful assets or photos to share
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Have an active blog and community
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Connect with a modern, “hippie” or millennial crowd
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Have an online or downloadable product
Many practitioners choose Instagram not because they have beautiful images to share, but because there is a large community of people with interests all across the board.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the professional industry’s answer to being “social”, and you may well want to represent yourself there. This is more of a platform where your experience and achievements are highlighted. If you’re interested in being a thought leader or connecting with people who are, you would be well advised to make a profile on LinkedIn.
There are of course, many other social platforms to choose from, including Pinterest, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok, and a host of new conservative social platforms that have recently sprung up. Which one you should use depends on your business!
Social media ads: Show me the money! (...said Facebook)
Ever feel like you feverishly post and post on your Facebook business page and all of your hard work results in a whopping 2 likes?! It's almost like no one is seeing your posts!? Well, guess what--there's a reason for that!
Facebook has an incredible advertising platform...and wants you to use it. So you just aren't going to get a lot of (free) organic reach and sharing from your business page.
But! In return, Facebook has delivered one of the most optimized, targeted and affordable (if you do it right) advertising tools ever seen. And anyone with a Facebook account can use it. Not necessarily WELL, but Facebook is always happy to let you try and take your money!
But Facebook can also delivering the GOODS (if they have't shut you down first). See here:
(As of 2020)
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The average Facebook user clicks on 12 ads per month
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66% of Facebook users visit a local business page at least once a week
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18.3% of Facebook users made a purchase through the platform
(Source: Hootsuite, Facebook, Bizrate Insights)
These are paid-for advertisements on Facebook's (and Instagram's) platform. There’s no denying the magnitude and reach of Facebook. And although Facebook makes placing your own ads look relatively easy, I will warn you that Facebook cares nothing about the "outcome" of your ad campaigns. So make sure you know what you're doing before you start committing $30 a day, or reach out to someone who does (like me, shameless plug!).
Facebook ads is a great promotion strategy to use if you are truly committed to a marketing budget, have your Marketing Foundation in place, and are able to scale.
And yes again, with the myriad of social platforms also comes a myriad of online ad platforms, including Google, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik Tok, SnapChat...well, you get the idea!
