Hudson Valley Social Media Advertising 101
For small businesses, social media advertising can feel like a leap.
Maybe you’re old-school and feel comfortable with tried-and-true print and radio advertisements. Or you could be interested in social media advertising, but don’t know how or where to start. Other folks have just become so used to using social as a free marketing channel that they haven’t even considered running paid advertising on Facebook or Instagram.
Here’s the reality: 75 percent of marketing professionals today run paid social media campaigns.
Want a game plan for how to easily 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 Use Social Media Advertising
Social media is a highly targeted and effective marketing and advertising channel that offers many benefits to small businesses.
From increasing brand awareness to driving traffic to your website and generating leads, a great paid social media campaign can target the exact customers you want with immediately trackable results.
Here’s the breakdown of how social media offers such powerful results.
1. Social Media Advertising Gives Your Business Guaranteed Reach
No matter how much time you put into your organic social media posts, the number of people you will reach is never guaranteed.
Meta (Facebook and Instagram’s parent company) is constantly tweaking its algorithms for how its users will discover content in their social media feeds. The end result: what worked for you one day is not necessarily guaranteed to work the next.
Simply put: Using paid social media ensures that your posts are seen.
Adding an advertising campaign to your social media posts unlocks your ability to purchase impressions. The exact number of impressions is dependent on both the total budget and the specifics of the ad targeting, but 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 go unnoticed.
Paid advertising can also run alongside your organic social media marketing efforts.
Posting for free on your social media channels provides existing followers with consistent messaging and updates from your business, while paid ads work to introduce your business to new customers and old customers you want to win back.
2. Social Media Advertising Targets Your Most-Desired Customers
Meta’s ad targeting tools are very sophisticated. By using them, you can send your marketing messaging to customers you might never have reached through other channels.
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
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 people who work for a small, independently-owned Hudson Valley business, we understand that using a company like Meta for any advertising is a balancing act for small businesses.
On the one hand, mega tech companies like Meta and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) give small businesses access to powerful targeting tools that we wouldn’t ever be able to afford otherwise. On the other hand, they mine user data for profit, and there have been complaints about monopolization of the technologies they own and the many implications therein.
If you’re opposed to using Facebook for advertising, we totally get that.
As a company based in the Hudson Valley for almost 30 years, our approach to social media advertising is all about conscientiously helping small businesses compete with big box companies and authentically connecting with customers the same way we do our readers.
Why You Should Partner with Chronogram Media on Paid Social Campaigns
Sure, you can go out and learn the ropes of Facebook and Instagram advertising if you have the time. But why not trust your social media advertising to a company with serious marketing expertise?
We have an in-house social media specialist (that’s me!). I’ve received extensive training direct from Facebook on how to optimize social media advertising to achieve our clients’ goals.
Our team reviews the metrics and insights from all of our paid social campaigns. We’re constantly learning from and iterating on the types of ads that result in the most engagement.
Our brand name is also an authority in our region. When users see a post from one of Chronogram Media’s family of publications, they automatically link the content with our 30-year reputation for telling engaging 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.
The way it works:
1. You choose from 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.
7. The post is 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 then creates a bigger, more robust campaign with additional targeting 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 two times the ad placement locations across Facebook and Instagram
- Enhanced geographic, demographic, and interest targeting
The results: Running a campaign for four times the length of time as our single social media post 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 engaging with its content.
Depending on your budget, our 30-day campaigns can reach over 10,000 people, with upwards of 15,000 total impressions.
Whew, you made it to the end! And I bet you learned a few things along the way. With all this know-how at your disposal, now you’re ready to dive right into the deep end of the social media advertising pool.
Reach out to our team of media specialists and find out how you can get started on your own curated social media campaign today.
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