Social Media Ads: Which Platform Is Right For Your Business?
With so many social media platforms to choose from, deciding where you should market your business can be tricky. When it comes to social media ads, it is very important to choose the platform(s) that are most likely to achieve your goals. Each platform offers something different, and not all social media sites are suitable for all businesses.
Marketing has changed dramatically over the last few years. With digital marketing on the rise, businesses and agencies must adapt to utilize the ever-growing social media platforms. In addition to organic posting on a business profile, you should also utilize social media ads to help raise brand awareness, drive people to your page and website, and promote sales. To be successful in your ads management, it is important to choose the platforms best suited for your business. Each platform has different pros and cons associated with them. Let’s take a closer look shall we?
Facebook Ads
Facebook Ads are one of the most popular types of social media ads. Facebook is the largest and most-used social media site in the world. More than 2 billion people use it every month! That is a huge audience just waiting to be targeted. Over 65 million businesses have a Facebook page, and more than 6 million businesses/agencies utilize Facebook Ads. With such a huge pool of competition you may be wary to advertise on Facebook, but we can assure you, it is in your best interest. Very few businesses are NOT suited for Facebook advertising. Whether your business offers products or services, Facebook can help grow your following and brand awareness.
Targeting: Excellent targeting options make it easy to show your Facebook Ads to those it best applies to. However, Facebook has been editing the targeting options recently, eliminating any discriminatory options including race and household income.
Top Industries: E-Commerce, Fashion, Auto, Real Estate, Sports, Health and Wellness
Unacceptable Industries for Facebook Ads:
Tobacco Products Drugs & Drug-Related Products
Unsafe Supplements Weapons, Ammunition, or Explosives
Adult Products, Services, or Content Surveillance Equipment
Personal Health Payday Loans/Paycheck Advances
Multi Level Marketing Penny Auctions
Counterfeit Documents Spyware or Malware
Automatic Animation Unauthorized Streaming Devices
Circumventing Systems Prohibited Financial Products
Sale of Body Parts
Benefits: Facebook Ads are easy to create and control, making them a good candidate for those just starting out in ads management. In addition, you are able to carefully target where your ad ends up, giving you a good chance of placing your ad in front of the right people. Finally, Facebook allows many types of ads including photo, video, carousel, and boosted posts.
Instagram Ads
Instagram has really grown in popularity since it first launched in 2010. This platform is extremely useful for marketing businesses with highly visual products. Because the importance lies more heavily in the photo, it is crucial to have appealing content that showcases your business in the best light. Instagram Ads are a great way to improve your follower count. Hashtags can be used to increase organic reach but Instagram Ads place your business in front of people who likely would not have found it otherwise. This type of social media ad is extremely simple to create. Instagram allows you to boost posts that you have already created, effectively turning them into advertisements. As with Facebook, you can set a budget for Instagram Ads, adjusting as needed.
Targeting : Because Instagram is owned by Facebook, the targeting options are very much the same. This is great news for ad managers, because any and all Instagram Ads can be shown to those most likely to respond to it.
Top Industries: Travel and Hospitality, Fashion, Health and Wellness, Crafts/DIY, Food, Beauty, and Photography.
Unacceptable Industries for Instagram Ads:
Tobacco Products Drugs & Drug-Related Products
Unsafe Supplements Weapons, Ammunition, or Explosives
Adult Products, Services, or Content Surveillance Equipment
Personal Health Payday Loans/ Paycheck Advances
Multi Level Marketing Penny Auctions
Counterfeit Documents Spyware or Malware
Automatic Animation Unauthorized Streaming Devices
Circumventing Systems Prohibited Financial Products
Sale of Body Parts
Benefits: Instagram Ads are often linked to Facebook Ads. You can run the same ad on both platforms simultaneously, and there are ads management tools and teams that will post to both from one place (including BusySeed!). The highly-targeted options allow you to spend money where it is most likely to benefit your business. If your business is very visual, you will thrive on the photo-centric platform.
Twitter Ads
Twitter shot up in popularity during and following the 2016 election. It is now a place for news, updates, memes, and the like. If you are considering Twitter Ads for your company, make sure you have a proper ads budget. There are three types of Twitter Ads: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts, and Promoted Trends. Promoted Tweets boost an already-existing post and shows it on your followers’ timelines again as well as shows up in relevant search results. On Twitter, you cannot pay per impression like you can for other social media ads, and each engagement costs around $1.40. Promoted Accounts encourage more people to follow your page for a cost of $2.50-$4.00 per follow. Promoted Trends is a list of topics that are specific to each user’s account based on where they are and what they tweet. These Twitter Ads are extremely effective, but cost $200,000 per day! All three forms of Twitter Ads cost more than Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads, so make sure you believe that Twitter will truly benefit your business.
Targeting : Twitter offers a pretty extensive list of targeting options to better the chance that your promoted content is seen by your target market. Like Facebook and Instagram, there are targeting options that are not available because they move into the realm of discrimination. Twitter Ads can be targeted to devices, carriers, and OS versions in addition to the typical demographic and location targeting. You can target to audience who like certain types of pages or content, and you can target to those who tweet about products similar to yours.
Top Industries : News and Information, Retail, E-Commerce, Health and Wellness, Travel.
Unacceptable Industries for Twitter Ads:
Adult Sexual Content Counterfeit Goods
Drugs and Drug Paraphernalia Endangered Species
Illegal Products and Services Malware and Software Downloads
Prohibited Content for Minors State Media
Tobacco and Tobacco Accessories Weapons and Weapon Accessories
Alcohol Content (Restricted) Gambling Content (Restricted)
Political Content (Restricted) Financial Products and Services (Restricted)
Health and Pharmaceutical Products and Services (Restricted)
Benefits: Twitter Ads can be great for your business if you want to target people 18-29 years old. If you already have a Twitter account and get good engagement, you should definitely consider talking to an ads management team about utilizing promoted tweets. If you have the money to spend, you can see a lot of increased engagement rate , follows, and purchases with Twitter Ads.
If you are considering adding any of these social media ads to your business’ repertoire give BusySeed a call! We are experts in ads management and guarantee to grow your business. We have worked with all three of these social media ad types, as well as Pinterest, Google My Business, YouTube, and more! We want to help you succeed. Call today to get started: (888) 353-1484.
About the Author
Omar Jenblat is a powerhouse in the digital marketing landscape, renowned as the Founder and CEO of BusySeed, an award-winning agency that has scaled over $1B revenue for 550+ businesses through high-performance growth strategies. With a technical foundation in computer engineering, Jenblat bridges the gap between complex data analytics and creative marketing, specializing in aggressive revenue scaling, SEO, and multi-channel lead generation. As a member of the Forbes Agency Council, The Org, and a visionary entrepreneur behind ventures like LeadChaser.ai, The Honest Agency, and Zeed Agency, he has established a global footprint by leveraging a "human-led, AI-assisted" philosophy to drive measurable ROI for major brands and startups alike. His expertise is characterized by a focus on digital automation and performance-driven results, consistently positioning his firms at the forefront of the evolving technological landscape.
