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Is Advertising on Social Media Effective?

The short answer? Yes, if you do it strategically.

The long answer? Social media advertising lets your brand directly reach your ideal audience. You can learn a lot about your audience’s needs, shopping preferences, values, and social media habits.

You can use all that knowledge to put together personalized ads designed to increase brand awareness, search engine performance, and leads. Then, you can deliver those ads to the right social media users at the optimal time.

The Benefits of Social Media Advertising

90% of brands use social media to increase brand awareness. In 2019, social media ad spend eclipsed print spending for the first time. Clearly, these companies know that advertising on social media is worth the time and effort. Let’s talk about the benefits of social media advertising further.

Greater Brand Recognition

Is Advertising on Social Media Effective?

Generally, people want to buy brands they recognize. Customers may choose brand-name products over off-brand or unknown brands for a number of reasons. If they know a certain brand “works,” if they want to fit in with a certain crowd, if they have strong loyalty to a brand: these are all examples of reasons customers choose familiar brands.

By making your brand highly visible, you can take advantage of this consumer behavior. Social media advertising can help build your brand recognition. It’ll get more eyes on your brand, especially if you can encourage followers to share the content to their own connections, further spreading your message.

Better Search Engine Rankings

Social media ads don’t directly increase your search engine presence, but they can help you with linkbuilding and inbound traffic. 

If a social media follower clicks an ad and navigates to your site, that tells Google that your content is worth ranking higher than your competition. In turn, higher search engine rankings can lead to higher traffic to your site.

Insight into Your Audience

What’s trending in your industry? What’s important to your audience? Which of your competitors are they following, and why? If you analyze the performance of your social media ads, you’ll learn what images, language, or deals catch your target audience’s attention — and which ads perform best, leading to sales.

These insights can allow you to strategically allocate your marketing budget, so you can gain a lot of engagement for relatively low cost.

More Leads

Is Advertising on Social Media Effective?

When done well, ads can drive conversions. That’s good news, since younger customers today respond less frequently to traditional advertising on TV or in print. Brands have to adapt to the times by using social media advertising. 

What are Targeted Ads?

We know that social media ads in general are effective, cost effective marketing tools for brands. Even better, social media also lets you narrow your targeting to specific demographics, interests and shopping behavior. It’s a more personalized form of advertising that can generate clicks and conversions. Here are some ways that targeted social media ads can drive stronger performance than more generic ads.

They Influence Customer Behavior

Is Advertising on Social Media Effective?

Target ads are effective because customers like relevant offers for products or services that truly interest them. In fact, a Harvard Business Review research study found that participants were more interested in buying a product when they thought the ad had been targeted to them. These participants felt that they already had traits implied by the targeted ads.

These ads can help your brand stand out in busy social media feeds. Not only do targeted ads influence customer behavior, they can also change what customers think or feel about themselves. 

They Reach Local Customers

Is Advertising on Social Media Effective?

Targeted ads can also help brands reach local customers using location data and demographics. We talk a lot about the benefits of localized marketing strategy — how it can help your business and what a hyper-local strategy does, for example. Marketing to potential customers in certain cities or states isn’t enough; you have to reach them where they are and at the right time.

Targeted ads let you figure out how, when, and where your ideal customers bought a certain product. Adjust your ads to meet those customers’ needs, and next time they may buy from your brand. 

Craft Custom Ads for Your Brand

There is a wide variety of benefits to social media advertising and targeted ads in particular. However, when your brand is on a tight budget or you’re working with a small team, you may not have the resources to put together targeted ads that work to the best of their ability.

Let ThumbStopper’s Brand AmplifierTM take over. With Brand Amplifier, you can create agency-level advertising campaigns that will help your brand reach your marketing goals. Plus, you’ll have access to campaign insights and performance, thanks to robust reporting and industry knowledge available on the platform.

Get the most out of what works and what doesn’t with your advertising campaigns. Choose Brand Amplifier to reach and engage your next customer on social media. Learn more about Brand Amplifier today.

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Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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What Is Social Media Automation?
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[/et_pb_column]
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[/et_pb_column]

Key Points:

 

  • Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
  • Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
  • Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.

 

 

Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.

 

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.

Social Media for All

The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.

Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.

Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns. 

 

Making Content Accessible

Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.

For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It’s one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.

None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible. 

Text

  • Use plain language that’s easy to understand 
  • Avoid text in all caps
  • Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case

Videos

  • Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
  • Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
  • Use captioning for live videos when possible

Graphics

Distribute Accessible Content

Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.

That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience – with your accessible, branded content – in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business. 

Ready to see how ThumbStopper can help your brand improve its reach? Check out our brand reach calculator or book a demo.

 

 

accessibility
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