Done everything possible but your social media advertising seems to fall apart?

Don’t worry.

You could be missing out on some things in your social media strategy.

In this article, you’re going to learn why your advertising on social media isn’t working.

Of all the hundreds of different marketing strategies out there, social media advertising is the only one that can help you reach a new, target audience fast and generate consistent, scalable, quality leads and customers from day one.

Social media advertising can also help encourage previous customers to buy from you again.

This is especially true given that there are over 2 billion social media users currently- almost 42% of the world’s population.

Unfortunately, if not done right, social media advertising can frustrate you.

If you’ve put your all into your marketing strategy but you aren’t getting the results you expected, we’re going to share with you some problematic reasons for social media advertising underperformance.

According to experts at Mimy Online, social media advertising encompasses the use of the following advertising strategies:

  • Facebook advertising
  • Instagram advertising
  • Twitter advertising
  • Pinterest advertising
  • LinkedIn advertising
  • Snapchat advertising

Before we talk about why your advertising in social media is falling apart, let’s learn the importance and role of social media advertising.

The Benefits of Advertising on Social Media Channels

With close to 2.1 billion users checking into their social media accounts daily and 11 new users creating their accounts every second, there is no doubt social media advertising is the largest growing trend.

If you’re not convinced about the effectiveness of social media advertising for your business, below are the reasons why you should start capitalizing on it and push advertising through social media platforms.

Improves brand awareness

With billions of people using social media each day, it’s obvious that having an active presence there could result in tens of thousands of users discovering your business.

Social media advertising helps you reach users who don’t follow your brand. People who are familiar with your brand are more likely to recommend your brand to their friends, family, and colleagues, hence increasing your brand reach.

Helps you reach a targeted audience

Social media networks provide various targeting options, thus you can narrow down your reach and only engage with people who are interested in your brand.

For instance, Facebook lets you target users based on their location, interests, connections, demographics, etc.

The targeting options can be narrowed further, allowing you to reach a highly specific audience.

For instance, under the location-based targeting option, you can target people living in a certain location, those who recently visited the location or those who are traveling to that particular location.

Drives quality traffic 

With many social media users discovering your brand and recommending it to their friends and family, it’s obvious that social media advertising also increases your inbound traffic.

And since you’ll be targeting a specific audience, the traffic you drive will be high quality.

Improves conversion rates

As many people discover your business on social media, there is no doubt that many will want to buy your products or services.

This is especially true given that brands can narrow down on the most relevant audience hence attracting users with a high chance of converting into paying customers.

Reduces marketing costs

Even though social media advertising requires money, its targeting capabilities help to reduce your overall marketing costs.

With targeted advertising, your ads will only be shown to relevant users who are most likely to be interested in doing business with you.

In simple words, your money will be used to reach people who are looking to buy from you.

That means that you’ll not be wasting a lot of money on clicks that do not convert into sales.

Improves brand credibility

With social media advertising, you can use paid ads on social media channels and you can work with influencers.

Influencer marketing on social media can help to improve brand visibility, drive sales, and improve brand credibility.

Social media influencers are people who have a huge loyal fan base within their niche.

They are perceived as experts and trendsetters by their followers.

People look to these influencers for advice and recommendations before buying products online.

When an influencer talks about your brand, it’s easy for their followers to trust in it.

People will be more willing to spend their money on your products because an influencer has vouched for them.

Improves content visibility

Another incredible benefit of social media advertising is that it allows you to promote your brand’s content.

That means that you can boost your blog posts, videos, and other relevant content, therefore improving visibility and engagement.

This helps to drive a huge and relevant audience to your blog and your social media pages as well.

This is extremely helpful for brands that want to improve the visibility of their YouTube videos.

Read this post to see how one user boosted one of his Facebook posts using just $20 and generated $2,400 in sales.

As you can see, social media advertising can be beneficial to your brand in many ways no matter your niche.

You just need to learn how to use the right campaign tactic, ad placement, format, and some creativity.

Tried everything possible but you can’t get any of the benefits shared above with your social media advertising campaign?

If so, then you could be making the following mistakes:

Lack of Clear Goals or Purpose 

Undoubtedly, social media advertising can bring a lot of benefits to your business; however, without clear social media goals, you’re going to struggle to generate results with your campaigns.

Each post you make on your social media channel needs to have a purpose.

Before you run a social media campaign, you need to know what you want to achieve from the campaign.

You Don’t Have a Content Strategy

Even though billions of people are checking into their social media accounts each day, they aren’t all doing it at the same time.

Besides, different users are on social media for different reasons.

Unfortunately, many businesses just post whatever they want without considering what their audience wants.

To get the most out of your social media advertising campaigns, you should always have a strategy.

Creating your social media ads without a proper strategy can be costly for your business.

You Lack a Clear Target Audience 

The greatest benefit of social media advertising is that it allows you to target a specific audience group.

This means that only people who are more likely to be interested in your products or services view your ads.

This will save time and money while improving your conversion rates.

Unfortunately, many business owners approach social advertising without a clear target audience.

Instead of creating a super-specific target audience, they attempt to target everyone hoping that they will attract new customers and generate more sales.

Trying to target every social media user with the same ad will attract no one hence your advertising on social media will bring no results.

Start by settling on the target audience before you create your ads so you can attract the right people to your business.

You’re Not Giving Your Audience What They Want

Having a clear target audience in mind is one thing but giving them exactly what they want is another.

That’s why it’s important to research your audiences thoroughly to know what they are looking for and give them exactly that.

If you aren’t giving your audience what they want, you’ll struggle to get them to engage with your brand.

This can be hurtful to your brand given that social media algorithms favor accounts that engage with their audiences, especially comments and conversations.

Your language, messaging and content should resonate with your target audience.

You should understand your target audience deep enough so you can provide value to them.

Lack of Clear Conversion Processes 

Every social media advertising campaign should always focus on specific goals like increasing sales, subscriptions, or conversions.

Remember that people have short attention spans these days.

For that reason, you need to make the conversion processes simple and quick for your audiences.

Users will not spend too much time trying to figure out how to purchase your products or subscribe to your newsletter.

If a user has to make several clicks before they subscribe or complete a purchase, they will simply walk away from your ads, hence increasing your cart abandonment rates.

Keep your conversion processes as simple and straightforward as possible.

Don’t neglect mobile users as well.

You’re Not Tracking Performance

Tracking metrics helps to learn what’s working and what’s not.

If you’re not getting the results you expected, chances are that you’re not tracking the performance of your social media advertising campaigns.

Trying to push out posts and tweets willy nilly without knowing whether you’re getting things right can be a waste of time and money.

The good news is that most of the largest social media networks provide tools that enable business owners to analyze their social media ad performance and engagement.

Accessing your social media analytics can help you get a wealth of information like:

  • The type of content driving the most engagement and conversions.
  • The time and days that are driving the most engagement
  • The kind of hashtags that are building brand awareness and engagement.

You’re Tracking the Wrong Metrics

Chances are that you’re tracking performance, but are you focusing on the right metrics?

Many brands always track follower numbers.

They think that having mountains of followers is all they need to generate results.

The reality is that it’s better to have a few followers who are interested in your business than having tens of thousands that don’t engage with your brand.

Some brands even buy followers.

Your social media goals are what determine your metrics.

For instance, your social media goal could be to increase conversions. For that reason, your metrics could be conversion and conversion rate.

Social media reach is also another metric that determines the number of users your brand and content are getting in front of.

Now assuming your goals are to increase conversions or social media reach within a specified time, after running your social advertising campaign for the specified time, you’ll then look at the number of people your content has reached or converted.

This will help you to know whether your campaigns are bringing any noticeable results or you need to adjust.

The right social media metrics to track are social media reach, conversions, engagement, impressions, social media referrals, and click-through-rate.

You’re Not Engaging with Your Audience

Social media advertising is two-way traffic.

Once you have made your ads or tweets, you need to engage with users who comment or share.

Engaging with your social media followers personifies your brand.

Remember you want to make your audience feel the human part of your brand.

You’re Spreading Yourself too Thin Across Multiple Platforms 

Social media advertising doesn’t have to eat up too much of your time. However, you need to devote a few hours daily or weekly depending on your platform and advertising strategy.

The daily tasks involved in effective social media advertising include proactive and reactive relationship building, engaging with relevant influencers and your target audience, monitoring brand mentions and managing customer service, etc.

Other tasks include creating effective marketing copy, scheduling content, tracking analytics and insights to know what’s working and what’s not, etc.

A mistake we see many brands making is creating accounts on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Given the amount of work involved in managing all the platforms, it’s not easy to be effective in your social media advertising, assuming you have active accounts on all these platforms.

As a rule, we recommend being on just one or two social media platforms and focusing on making them work for your brand.

You could also be on the wrong platform.

For instance, you’d be wasting your time on Instagram if your target audiences are over 50 years.

Always identify the platform where your target customers spend most of their time and actively engage with them there.

You’re Overselling

These day’s buyers are more aware of ads than ever.

In fact, many of today’s buyers tend to skip anything related to ads.

They hate it when you shove products or services on them.

Even though you’ll educate them before they make a purchase, they want to feel like the decision came from them and not your persuasion or your sales pitch.

Besides, they know when you’re being salesy.

In fact, if buyers feel like you’re too pushy with your advertisements, you’ll struggle with a high bounce rate.

Instead of trying to push customers to buy from you, focus on generating a conversation around your products or services.

You can then nudge your audience toward a product or service once you have captured their interest.

You’re Using Low-Quality Images

Without images and videos, your social media advertising is dead.

This is because these two types of content are not only engaging but are attractive and give your ads life.

However, ensure you use videos and images that grab the attention of users in your social media advertising strategy.

Using low-quality images can make your brand look unprofessional and drive your audience away from your ads.

As a rule, use high-resolution images and videos for your social media ads.

You’re Not Optimizing Your Content Accordingly 

Different social media networks have different sets of rules and regulations for advertisements.

Content that performs on Facebook might not generate great results on Twitter or LinkedIn.

This implies that your advertisement material needs to be optimized for the platform.

So, if you intend to use the same advertisement material across multiple channels, then ensure you don’t go against the rules and regulations of each platform.

You Lack Consistency 

Being consistent with your social media advertising strategy is of utmost importance.

You have to be consistent in the way you post and interact with your target audience.

Also, even though different social media channels have different rules and regulations in terms of advertisement, some information like your contact information and address should be the same.

To maintain consistency, we recommend creating a content schedule and sticking to it.

Diversify Your Content and be Creative

In a bid to stand out from the crowd, every brand is creating and publishing new pieces of content every second.

It would be dangerous to your business if you don’t research the type of content people want to see in their social media feeds.

Besides, to stand out from the crowd, you need to be original and creative in your messages.

You also want to attract your audience with a variety of content formats including video, images, infographics, etc.

In a Nutshell…

In summary, social media advertising can be beneficial to your brand in many ways including:

  • Improved brand awareness
  • Reaching a targeted audience
  • Driving quality traffic
  • Improved conversion rates
  • Reduced marketing costs
  • Improved brand credibility
  • Improved content visibility

If your social media advertising strategy isn’t generating any or all of the above benefits, then perhaps it’s because of the following reasons:

  • Lack of clear goals or purpose
  • You don’t have a content strategy
  • You lack a clear target audience
  • You’re not giving your audience what they want
  • Lack of clear conversion processes
  • You’re not tracking performance
  • You’re tracking the wrong metrics
  • You’re not engaging your audience
  • You’re spreading yourself too thin across multiple platforms
  • You’re overselling
  • You’re using low-quality images
  • You’re not optimizing your content accordingly
  • You lack consistency
  • Lack of diversity and creativity in your content

Don’t give up though. With some adjustments, you can get the results you’re looking for.

Go ahead and adjust your social media advertisement strategy and enjoy the benefits of advertising on social media.

Happy social media advertising!