It’s no secret that social media is a cluttered space filled with people and businesses attempting to find their audience and connect. Being able to find and reach your audience organically can sometimes feel like an uphill battle—and it is. There’s so much to compete with online, but do not fret! There is an effective way to burst through the clutter and reach your audience: social media advertising.
The Birth of Algorithmic Feeds
The ability to reach potential residents organically on social media is becoming more difficult as traffic and the number of active monthly users on popular social networking sites continue to increase. Since there is no practical way for users to see every single post in their feeds, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and soon, Instagram, have all engineered complicated algorithms and machine learning models to filter its users’ feeds. These sites display content that personalized algorithms have calculated as the most relevant to that particular user. This method is intended to increase engagement, but it could very well make it more challenging to reach potential residents.
Immediate Results
Unless you have a large, engaged following already, it will be difficult to move forward with any sort of realistic and effective organic social media strategy without including paid social media advertising in your plans. You can invest in a strategic social media campaign, hire a team to implement it, and hope that it works long term, but it might not. With paid social media advertising, you can start a campaign today and begin to see results instantly, making this method of advertising a perfect solution for advertising short-term pricing specials or any other information that requires immediate results. If you want to reach your audience quickly, advertising on social media is your best strategic move. Now, you should not entirely do away with your organic social media strategy, but you should absolutely integrate your efforts with a social media advertising strategy.
Data and Highly Targeted Ads
Each of the major players (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn) allow businesses to cherry pick who sees their ads on social media. These platforms have a lot of data on their users, which allow advertisers to identify and refine the audience they want to reach. There are options to target ads based on users’ age, income, hobbies, location, interests, where they shop, what they buy, and how much they buy, ensuring that your ads reach the right people. There’s virtually no waste. For this reason, advertising on social media is generally far more cost-effective than traditional print, radio, and television advertising. It can even be considerably lower than a Google Adwords campaign. When you have a social media advertising campaign, you may very well be reaching your consumers before they even perform a Google search.
Visual Branding
Several social media sites are using ads that mimic the platforms’ organic posts. This is called “native advertising.” You can find great examples on Instagram and Pinterest. Their ads resemble content posted by actual users of platform. This means you can brand your imaging and tailor it to fit your platform of choice. The goal is always to always create engaging content with compelling headlines and great imagery. You want to capture your audience’s attention and inspire them to share your content. This is a far cry from a Google Adwords search campaign where words are all you have to work with. Advertising on social media allows you to communicate your brand visually, which is a very important aspect of the multifamily industry. Prospective residents want to see the benefits of your location, amenities, and community.
Social: The New Search Engine
Google is still a force to be reckoned with, but social media is a very viable contender when it comes to the evolving landscape of SEO. Over 1.5 billion searches are performed on Facebook each day in comparison with the 3.5 billion searches are performed on Google. You can see how social is gaining a lot of traction. People are looking more and more to Facebook and other social media sites for the latest breaking news, local interests, and more. So if you’re only using search-based ads, you should consider diversifying your digital advertising spend to include social media advertising on platforms that are relevant to your brand as well as your potential residents.
Strategic Budgeting and Bidding
The great thing about advertising on social platforms is that you can pay based on how much you are comfortable with spending. You will typically pay based on impressions, clicks, or other actions. Space is limited on social platforms so you have to compete with other advertisers for ad placement by placing bids. You can spend as little as $1 a day on Facebook. Although you probably will not see any new leads with a $1 budget, it is possible to set incredibly low budgets. Determine how much you want to spend, set your bids, and watch how your ads are performing immediately. Test for effectiveness and keep making changes to improve your ROI.
Are you planning to invest in social media marketing and advertising? Do you need assistance designing and implementing a comprehensive social media strategy? Learn more about 365 Connect’s social media offerings!