Social Media Advertising for local businesses

Facebook is a huge platform with 2.8 billion monthly active users. More impressively, the largest site also boasts more than 1.8 billion users a day! Understatement of the year forthcoming–that is a lot of people. Not all those people will be your customers. But, that’s a huge pool of people from which to attract potential clients. 

A benefit of using Facebook is the customization. There are a lot of choices to make. First, you choose a set of goals. Then, you create ads and advertising campaigns. Finally, you analyze the extent those ads helped reach your goals. Also, you provide the videos, photo, and text for your ad. 

Running a Facebook ad campaign takes time to successfully manage. You are responsible for a lot of tasks. For instance, when you create the ad campaign you also determine objectives. Then, the next task is audience analysis. Finally, you decide the right people to connect to your ad. 

Another thing that you have to manage is the budget and ad placements. You will need to design your ads. Then, you will have to copy your ads and find places for your ads to go on Facebook. 

Facebook advertising is a great advertising opportunity. The sheer number of visitors daily and monthly make the platform’s reach enormous. By their own admission, “Facebook moves fast.” 

That means you need to stay on top of the trends on Facebook and monitor how your ads are performing. That process can be time-consuming and a bit overwhelming.  The time spent on marketing takes your attention away from your business.

With one billion monthly users, Instagram is another giant. Like its parent company, Facebook, Instagram has an enormous pool of people that it reaches. Without a doubt, your target audience is out there killing time on Instagram. As they relax, they casually scroll through their feed of photos and videos. 

 Instagram’s appeal and popularity come from letting users share and edit photos and videos. Instagram claims, “84% of people on Instagram are more likely to shop from small businesses.” As you begin to advertise on Instagram, it is important to know the value of a catchy hashtag phrase. If you misfire on that phrase, your advertising won’t work as well. Another thing you must understand about Instagram is that the audience is primarily young adults with ages ranging from 18-34. Knowing your audience’s age determines the type of Instagram content to produce. Instagram users spend almost an hour a day scrolling through their feeds. The reason for the platform’s success and such a high rate of engagement is the video and photo options. Most people have a smartphone in their pocket capable of taking high quality videos and photos for upload to Instagram. A part of a successful Instagram ad is timeliness. Your ads need to be available when your audience is most active. What’s really neat is the ads aren’t as apparent on Insta, and that makes for a better customer experience. 

 Another thing that enhances customer experience on Instagram is how ads work. With videos and photos, you have the chance to tell the narrative behind your company. Instagram offers sleek designs for ads. The designs create engaging marketing opportunities for your brand. 

 Capturing your audience’s attention and keeping it key for Instagram success. You will need to work your account consistently by replying to your followers’ comments. Also, you need to stay on top of the trends in tags, hashtags, and ways to share. This can be time-consuming, but rewarding work.

Kajiji is Canada’s largest classified ad site. Over 16 million Canadians actively use the site to buy, sell, and trade their goods and services. The major benefit of the platform is that it facilitates a direct connection between the seller (you) and a customer. 

There are over 7 million classified ads across the site. Getting noticed among the ocean of ads is tough, yet vitally important. With more than 450 million monthly searches on Kajiji, it is Canada’s busiest classifieds website. The visitors are people on a mission to buy a product or service. 

Crafting the perfect ad is paramount on Kajiji, otherwise your message and brand will get swept away in the wave of other retailers jostling for business. A strategic plan, good understanding of analytics, and dedicated time are essential for a successful ad campaign.

LinkedIn has 740 millions members worldwide, and 17 million in Canada. That’s 17 million people that will use LinkedIn to find solutions for their problems.

LinkedIn is the most accessed news feed by professionals. Those professionals have more money and higher purchasing power. Their audience includes decision makers and executives. That’s what makes LinkedIn in the #1 business to business (B2B) lead generator. 

The biggest benefit of LinkedIn has to be its audience. Unlike other platforms, LinkedIn’s users are older, educated, and are wealthier than users on all other sites. An average LinkedIn user is a 30 something college educated business professional with a salary more than $75,000. This is not the platform for teens, or lower wage earners. 

If you are looking to target an audience of professional business people, LinkedIn is perfect for you!

Twitter has 192 million active daily users. It’s where people go to directly connect with each other. That’s what makes the platform so popular. Users can follow and interact with famous people: celebrities, athletes, and world leaders. 

With Twitter, you can engage directly and immediately with your followers. That ease of connection makes Twitter a great business to customer (B2C) platform.

Twitter users are young, financially comfortable, and educated. The Millennial generation makes up the bulk of the user base. The biggest single group men aged 25-34. Twitter is the best of the companies to reach a targeted audience with three types of promoted ads. 

Promoted Accounts: Twitter suggests your account to people who aren’t current followers. This service is ideal for new Twitter accounts.

Promoted Trends: Users see conversations and content that are timely and relevant. This type of ad is ideal for something that has a specific brand or hashtag. 

Promoted Tweets: Advertisers sometimes purchase Promoted Tweets which are just regular Tweets. The only difference is that the message has a subtle “promoted” label. These are meant to cast a wider net and get more people to engage with your existing content and followers.