The Latest Ad Formats Get Better Results
While social media has opened up more avenues than ever before for reaching your customers, it has also raised customer expectations for engaging advertising. This means that even high-quality static ads no longer have the same impact that they once did. However, there is no shortage of alternatives to traditional static ads. Whether you incorporate video, use a carousel format, or create interactive ads (i.e. virtual or alternate reality), it’s time to elevate your social media marketing.

Targeting the Right Audience is the Difference Between Success and Failure
It doesn’t matter how good your social media marketing is if it’s not reaching the right audience. In a sense, content creation is only half the battle. It is just as important to make sure you’re taking advantage of all the targeting strategies each platform provides. That means targeting by geolocation down to zip codes, creating custom audiences based on email addresses you already own, creating lookalike audiences to expand your targeting pool, and utilizing any other strategies available to you.

Don’t Be Afraid to Target the Audience of Your Competition
You shouldn’t think of the audience of your competition as unreachable. In reality, they are one of the best groups to be targeted through social marketing. For one thing, you already know that these customers are interested in what you’re selling since they’re buying it from a competitor. Within any customer base, there will inevitably be individuals who are unsatisfied with the product or service that is currently being provided to them. If your offering better meets their needs, then making them aware may be all that’s required for them to convert.

Tailor Copy and Creative to Each Platform
Almost three-quarters of Americans use more than one social media site, and you can be sure they’re savvy enough to recognize when copy is pasted from one to another. When you use the same content on multiple different sites you just end up watering down your overall impact and run the risk of annoying users with repetitive advertising. By tailoring the copy and content to each specific social platform you have the opportunity to present users with multiple different perspectives on your central message.

Leverage Organic and Paid Advertising
The best social campaigns find a good balance between paid and organic advertising. By focusing too much on one you miss out on the opportunity to reach individuals and groups that would be better engaged by the other. Paid advertising allows you to target those who are currently unaware or uninterested in your company and would not seek you out on their own. However, companies that only use paid advertising can come across as cold and unapproachable. Making use of organic as well can solve this problem, while simultaneously driving traffic to your page and engaging people that you already know to have an interest in your brand.

Get Your KPIs Straight
This is another area where finding the middle ground between two extremes is critical. Focusing too much on one metric can result in missing out on data that would give important insights into the success or failure of a social campaign. At the same time, trying to evaluate too many simultaneously will result in mixed feedback about what is and isn’t working. It may take some trial and error, but it is critical to find the KPIs that are most linked to the goals of your social campaign while weeding out any that would drown out the more important insights.