So, you have a social media advertising budget, but you’re not sure where to spend it? You’re probably already familiar with the top five social media networks to advertise on: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok, but not everyone should necessarily advertise on all of them.
Different channels can yield different results, and not every network is suited to every type of business. In this article, we’ll give you some ideas for where to best spend your social media advertising budget to make the most of it.
Which Social Media Networks Should You Advertise on in 2021?
TikTok
Since TikTok is the newest social network on the advertising scene, we thought we’d kick off the article with some information about how to advertise on TikTok.
TikTok advertising works a little differently than other types of social media advertising that you might already be familiar with. In other words, you don’t just write ad copy, add images, run the ads, and pay for impressions and clicks (though you’ll still need to know some detailed TikTok ad specs for certain types of ads).
On TikTok, you have a few different advertising options:
- Augmented Reality (AR) content – create stickers, lenses, and other AR content advertising your brand that other users can add to their videos.
- Brand takeover – splash an advertising message over the whole screen for a few seconds, which then turns it into an in-feed video ad.
- In-feed video – make video ads that pop up in the “For You” section of other users’ news feeds.
- Hashtag challenges – start a hashtag challenge that appears in TikTok’s “Discovery” section to invite user participation with your brand.
- Influencer marketing – sponsor branded content through TikTok influencers to reach larger audiences.
So, which businesses should invest some of their social media advertising budget into TikTok? Well, the channel seems best suited to B2C brands, such as clothing brands and eCommerce businesses. It’s also ideal for sharing more creative content and campaigns to really connect with your audience, rather than just pushing more traditional advertisements.
More than 25% of the world’s population is on Facebook, making it a worthwhile social media platform to invest some of your advertising budget in for almost any brand. Facebook is a particularly effective place to generate sales leads for eCommerce.
You can do this by running an ad that redirects users to a landing page with some type of special offer or incentive for them to provide their email. For example, you could offer an eBook, a discount code, or a free shipping code in exchange for users taking the time to fill out a short form with their contact details.
Really, if you’re selling any kind of product, you should consider investing some ad spend into Facebook to get leads that you can then send marketing emails to and increase your sales.
Though it doesn’t have a user base as large as Facebook, Instagram is still another extremely popular channel worthy of your social media ad spend. Since the network is very image and video oriented, it works particularly well for brands with aesthetically pleasing products and services.
For instance, hotels, restaurants, and clothing lines can create very visually appealing ads that link users directly to a landing page where they can book a stay, order food, buy clothes, or take whatever other action you want them to.
As with TikTok, Instagram also offers lots of opportunities to promote your products and services through influencers.
Twitter might not be the first network to come to mind when you think of social media advertising, but it offers a few different options for paid advertising. For example, you can promote accounts, Tweets, and trends.
Since users primarily log on to Twitter as a source of information, and it’s not as visual as other platforms, it’s better for creating brand awareness than for promoting specific products and services. That being said, you can still include a call to action in your ads and direct leads to a landing page or your eCommerce site.
LinkedIn is a great social platform to advertise on if your company is in the B2B market. In fact, since it is strictly a professional network, B2C brands should generally look to other social networks to spend their social media advertising budget.
Some examples of B2B products and services to advertise on LinkedIn are:
- Software
- Software/app development services
- Marketing services
- Business accounting/financial services
- Recruiting
You can also use LinkedIn to advertise professional events like seminars. For instance, if your software development company is hosting a hackathon, you can run paid ads to get more registrations from developers at other companies.
Conclusion
Social media advertising is a complex world, and there’s no one-size-fits all approach to running successful ad campaigns on the various networks. In fact, most brands will find the most success by advertising on some combination of the different channels we mentioned above.
The best way to get started advertising on social media is to pick 2-3 networks and experiment with different types of paid ads and different ad spends until you find a formula that works for you and your brand.
When choosing what social networks to advertise on, remember to consider the type of products and services your company offers and the style of content that is best suited to each network.
