I have to say I’m feeling pretty good at having the advice we give Technology Therapy Group clients completely vindicated by this eMarketer report which shows paid social media advertising converts more customers than organic content posting does.

Here is some key information you need to know:

YouTube and Twitter are currently the most effective platforms for paid advertising. This isn’t surprising: the advertising industry has had generations to perfect the art of the television commercial, giving YouTube a significant edge when it comes to converting social media users into active customers. If your social media strategy doesn’t currently encompass YouTube, it’s definitely time to start having that conversation!

Impulse buys are selling particularly well through social media advertising. Consider your product mix carefully when crafting social media ads; every audience has a particular ‘pain point’ – a price at which they won’t spend the money without thinking it through. One strategy is to use social media advertising to promote items that are below that pain point, using them as the gateway to get visitors onto your website where they can then be enticed to buy more.

Subscription services are also thriving on social media. The Dollar Shave Club and Birchbox (which delivers sample size beauty products monthly) have both grown tremendously via social media advertising. While not every business has the opportunity to embrace a subscription model, some clearly do. Imagine a jeweler sending out a box full of featured earrings every month – that could easily be sales you wouldn’t otherwise have had from customers who get the thrill of sparkly surprises arriving at the door once a month.

Social media advertising isn’t easy or automatic. The best practices we’ve developed serving our clientele include regular creation of ads to include emotionally compelling headlines, targeted offers, and attention grabbing graphics that are changed out regularly – often several times a month. You can’t ‘set and forget’ social media advertising and expect it to generate meaningful results: the platform just doesn’t work that way. Additionally, it’s critical to take advantage of the powerful targeting tools social media platforms make available to your business – if you ignore these, you’re wasting your marketing dollars. It’s that simple.

Interested in learning more about how to create and deploy social media advertising that generates real sales? Call us today. We’ll help you make it happen.