At last count, there were 15 million Australians using Facebook monthly, 9 million using Instagram monthly, and 4.2 million on LinkedIn each month, one industry source found.
It’s statistics such as these that are convincing businesses to take their marketing onto social media; however, there’s more to it than simply posting pretty pictures or 110-character messages. So, what are some ways to make your digital marketing using social media platforms more effective?
Sponsored or boosted posts
There are many ways to ensure your target audience views your post; for example, you might have noticed that in your LinkedIn or Facebook feeds you are getting posts from companies you either aren’t familiar with or don’t follow.
These marketing messages are making it into your feed as sponsored or boosted posts that target specific audiences that include you. Typically, the cost of using sponsored posts will depend on your marketing budget and the amount you’re prepared to pay when someone sees your messages or better interacts with your company.
By paying to boost your post, you can pitch your content to the social media feeds of the prospective clients you’re attempting to target. For example, you might be zeroing in on a target audience with the job title CEO on LinkedIn. The site allows you to target this segment by adding your content to its feed. It will be clearly tagged as sponsored content but the message will otherwise present like any other post.
Boosted messaging allows you to be specific about whom you target, even reaching out to the region your prospects call home. Using region-specific options is often referred to as geotargeting.
Pinpoint your audience
Geotargeting has become a popular gizmo in the digital marketing toolkit. Let’s assume you operate your firm in Geelong, in regional Victoria. If you want to push content to Facebook users over the age of 55 in Geelong, you can pay to drive your posts to specific users matching this age and geographic profile.
You can direct your digital marketing by location, age and other demographics – even by people’s interests and hobbies. Most social media platforms have a vast amount of data about their users, which enables you to target them with precision.
Does sponsored content work?
Whether it’s called advertorial or the more recent buzzword, ‘native content’, any digital marketing devotee will tell you that boosted content represents the dawn of the latest new age for marketing. How well it works, however, is still in question.
My view is that it might be worth testing the waters with sponsored content, to see whether it delivers some extra leads to your business.
