Are you ready to dive into the world of social media marketing but not sure where to start? You've come to the right place! In this post, we'll explain everything you need to know about how to run a paid social campaign. 

We've covered everything, from crafting a solid social media marketing strategy to planning and creating engaging campaigns and content. Whether you're a total beginner looking to sharpen your skills or smash your business goals, Soar With Us will help you navigate the ins and outs of paid social media, ensuring your efforts are effective and rewarding. Let's go!

Why Implement a Paid Social Media Marketing Strategy

A social media marketing strategy is a business's master plan for creating and posting content on social media platforms to engage with your target audience. 62.3% of the world's population uses social media, so implementing a paid marketing strategy is a huge opportunity to increase engagement and build brand awareness on social media platforms to increase conversions and promote your brand.

Implementing a strategic paid social media marketing strategy is not just about improving your brand's visibility on social platforms, although that is a priority. Successful social media campaigns can help brands reach their overarching business goals and objectives, which could mean increasing sales and revenue. 

How to Run a Paid Social Campaign 

When creating a paid social media campaign, it is important to follow some clear and tight guidelines to ensure a successful strategy. 

• Define Your Target Audience.

Defining your target audience is non-negotiable and is where your social strategy begins. When it comes to your next paid social campaign, determine exactly who out of your target audience you want to reach. This will help you understand the social media platforms your audience is using, their needs and pain points, and how to communicate with them. 

Ask yourself, who is your ideal customer? Who's needs are met by your products or services? What type of person experiences the problems your products or services solve?

• Determine Your Platforms

From in-depth research about your target audience and creating buyer personas, determining your platforms should be easy. Research other businesses in your niche; where do they best perform? For example, visual platforms such as TikTok and Instagram are great for video content showing off your products and also support in-application shopping. Applications like Twitter are better for text ads and still images. 

But remember, just because TikTok works for one business doesn't mean it will work for you! You need to focus on a few key social channels and maintain a cohesive paid social media strategy that resonates with your audience and persuades them to take action on your ad, whether it be clicking through to your website, signing up for a discount code or getting in touch.

• Streamline Paid and Organic Social Media Strategy

Are you looking to turn up and make an impact on social media? You should consider running an organic social media campaign alongside your paid social media strategy.  These channels serve different purposes and require different budgets, assets, research and insights. However, they can be used to ensure your brand is targeting and reaching both your current audience and new potential customers through more advanced, paid social media campaigns. 

For more information, see our recent blog, 'What is the Difference Between Organic and Paid Social Media?' 

• Understand Your Targeting

Running a killer paid social media campaign utilises information about your target audience and uses it to pique their interest using sponsored ads and posts on social media platforms. Use your buyer personas and audience research to build customer profiles based on demographics, interests, behaviours, and location.

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow brands to utilise advanced targeting options to create custom audiences from website visitors, email lists, specific traits, demographics or past customers. Building these target audiences can also help brands incorporate retargeting to engage users who've previously interacted with their content or website.

• What Do You Want to Say?

So you have set up your buyer personas and social media accounts; what now? It's all good knowing who you're trying to talk to, where you're trying to reach them, and how you're delivering content to your users, but what exactly do they want to hear? 

Are they looking to solve a problem using your products? Maybe they want offers and promotions to push them over the sales line? Or perhaps even just looking for information and learning. You need to understand what your audience will relate to and create content that speaks to them, is relatable and showcases your legitimate connection between brand and consumer to convince them to click on your ad. 

• How Do You Want to Say It?

Now that you understand your buyer, the platforms that are right for your brand, and your messaging, you can begin to create different types of content for your paid campaigns. Consider the social media platform before hitting the post button; for example, video content is vastly more successful on applications like TikTok and Instagram, while other social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are better suited to image and text ads. 

Another key consideration for brands looking to maximise their paid social media strategy is how different content performs on different platforms. Your content should feel native to the platform you advertise on. If you want to advertise on TikTok, review your ad assets, ask yourself if your content feels right for the platform, and maximise the platform's advertising features and opportunities.

For some social media marketing inspiration, see our recent blog post 'What Are the Different Types of Social Media Ads? (10 Examples)' 

• Measure Your Results

Now that your social media marketing strategy is in place and you have been posting, promoting and advertising for a few months to a quarter of the year, you can measure its effectiveness. Here, you can understand what content works and any content your audience doesn't enjoy. Evaluate metrics such as CPMs (cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions), click-through rate, conversions, and CPAs (cost per acquisition). 

• Adjust your tactics.

After you have evaluated your social media marketing efforts, you can adjust them. This includes tweaking assets and ad copy, rethinking content that doesn't resonate with your audience, and iterating on winning concepts to optimise results further. Research has shown that almost half of social media users (48%) have bought something after seeing an ad; this number rises to 53% and 56% for millennials and women, respectively.

Our Final Thoughts 

Running a successful paid social campaign might seem daunting at first, but with the right strategy, it can be advantageous. By defining your target audience, choosing the right platforms, and balancing paid and organic efforts, you're on your way to social media success. Remember to optimise your social channels, focus on key platforms, and create standout brand elements. 

Understanding your audience's needs and crafting engaging content tailored to each platform is crucial. Don't forget to measure your results and adjust your tactics to improve your campaigns continually. 

Our savvy social media specialists utilise dynamic social strategies to unlock exponential growth for ambitious E-Commerce brands. Check out our Paid Social Media Services today!

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