Hudson Valley Social Media Advertising 101
Social media advertising can feel like a big leap for small business owners.
You might be really comfortable with tried-and-true advertising channels like print and radio. Or maybe you’re interested in trying social media advertising, but you don’t know where to start. Other folks have just become so used to posting on social media for free that they haven’t even considered running paid advertising on their pages.
Here's the reality. Social media advertising has become an important part of marketing for businesses and their customers alike.
- A 2023 report by one of my favorite social media experts, Social Media Examiner, said that 75 percent of surveyed marketing professionals today use paid social media.
- That same report said 86% of marketers use social media to generate more exposure for their businesses.
- 27% of people surveyed in Hootsuite’s Digital 2020 report stated that they found new brands and products through social media advertisements.
Ready to learn more about how you can start running social media campaigns for your business?
In this post, I’ll cover the basics of how and why social media advertising works and offer a few options for jumpstarting your journey into social media advertising with us at Chronogram Media.
Why You Should Be Advertising on Social Media
Social media is a highly targeted and effective marketing and advertising channel that offers many benefits to small businesses.
With paid social media, you can:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive traffic to your website
- Generate sales leads and conversions
- Target the exact customers you want
- Get immediately trackable results
Here’s the breakdown of how social media advertising is able to offer such powerful results.
1. Social Media Advertising Gives Your Business Guaranteed Reach
In the past few years, social media marketing has changed a lot.
Small businesses used to be able to post on social media for free and reach significantly more people with those posts than they can today.
There are a few reasons why this is, but primarily, it’s because Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company) has changed its methods for showing content in users’ feeds to prioritize paid and suggested posts.
That means that no matter how much energy you put into creating an organic social media post, the number of people you will reach is never guaranteed and what worked for you one day is not necessarily guaranteed to work the next.
This is why marketers have been increasingly turning to paid social media.
Paid social media unlocks your ability to purchase impressions for your posts and ensures those posts are seen by the people you want to see them.
While the exact number of impressions is dependent on both your total ad budget and the specifics of the ad targeting, almost any size of social media campaign will ensure your posts about next month’s big sale or the announcements about your new products or offerings don’t get buried in the feed.
And don't worry: Paid advertising can still run seamlessly alongside your organic social media marketing efforts.
It is still important to regularly post on your social media channels to provide your existing followers with consistent messaging and updates from your business. The more you post, the more likely your followers will see your content.
Paid ads simply enhance that presence, and can offer a valuable way to introduce your business to new customers and old customers you want to win back.
2. Social Media Advertising Targets Your Most-Desired Customers
Here are just a few of the many ad targeting options offered for Facebook and Instagram:
- Geographic Area
- Age
- Income
- Behaviors
- Interests
- Job Titles
- Education Level
Meta’s ad targeting tools are very sophisticated. You can send your marketing messaging to customers you might never have reached through other channels. And with the right combination of targeting, your social media ads can pinpoint the exact type of customer you’re looking for.
One Important Consideration About Social Media Advertising
As someone who works for a small, independently owned Hudson Valley business, I understand that using a company like Meta for any advertising can be a balancing act for small business owners.
On the one hand, mega tech companies like Meta and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) give small business owners access to powerful targeting tools that they wouldn’t ever be able to afford otherwise. On the other hand, their entire business model is based on mining user data for profit, and there have been complaints about monopolization of the technologies they own.
If you’re opposed to using Facebook or Instagram for advertising, we totally get that. As a company based in the Hudson Valley for 30 years, our team’s approach to social media advertising is all about conscientiously helping small businesses compete with big box companies and authentically connect with customers the same way our magazines do with our readers.
How to Partner with Chronogram Media on Social Media Advertising
You can definitely go out and learn the ropes of Facebook and Instagram advertising if you have the time and staff resources. But a lot of small businesses understandably don’t have an excess of either of those—so we’re here to help!
As Chronogram Media’s in-house social media specialist, I’ve received extensive training direct from Meta about how to create social media ads and optimize the creative, content, and targeting to achieve our clients’ goals.
But enough about me!
Here's a few more reasons why partnering with Chronogram Media can be a great fit for your small business's social media needs:
- Our team reviews the metrics and insights from all of our paid social campaigns, and we’re constantly learning from and iterating on the types of ads that result in the most engagement.
- Our magazines’ names are an authority in our region. When users see a post from one of Chronogram Media’s family of publications—Chronogram, Upstater, Upstate House, and Rural Intelligence—they automatically link the information about your business with our 30-year reputation for telling engaging, authentic stories about the noteworthy people, places, and businesses of the Hudson Valley, Catskills, and Berkshires.
Want to learn more about our social media offerings? Check them out below.
Our Social Media Products
1. Social Media Post with 7-Day Ad Promotion
Our entry-level social media product has two big pros: it’s simple and cost-effective.
Here’s the way it works:
1. You choose from one of three of our publications (Chronogram, Upstater, or Rural Intelligence) to share messaging about your business.
A paid Instagram post promoting this year’s Upstate Art Weekend.
2. You submit your materials (suggested text and photos) using an easy form.
3. We do additional research on your website and social media channels to make sure our messaging about your business is authentic and interesting to users who will see the post.
4. We create a single social media post that looks and sounds like it comes from one of our publications.
5. The post is first shared to followers of our Facebook page with your business as our partner.
6. We add an advertising budget and curated targeting to the post.
7. The post is then seen by thousands of users across Facebook and Instagram for the next seven days.
The results: On average, our single paid social media posts can reach between 1,000 and 4,000 people with upwards of 6,000 total impressions.
2. 30-Day Social Media Campaign
Looking for big-time results?
Our top-tier social media product is a social media campaign that runs for 30 days across Facebook and Instagram. You submit materials the same easy way as with the single post, and our team creates a bigger, more robust campaign with additional targeting and creative options.
A Facebook post promoting a sponsored print article we created for Halter Associates Realty to drive interest in a luxury real estate property.
The month-long campaign includes the following features:
- Optimization for views to your website
- Access to additional ad placement customization across Facebook and Instagram, including Instagram Stories
- Enhanced geographic, demographic, and interest targeting
The results: Running a month-long campaign allows Facebook’s algorithm to get pretty sophisticated. With the extra time, it can reach the people who have the most genuine interest in visiting your website, and retarget the ad to those who have clicked on it.
Depending on your budget, our 30-day campaigns can reach over 10,000 people, with upwards of 15,000 total impressions.
Ready to dive into the world of social media advertising?
Reach out to our team of media specialists to find out how you can get started on your own curated social media campaign with Chronogram Media.
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