Stuck On Your Social Campaigns? Try These 6 Social Media Optimization Tips!
Oh social media. We love it. We love to hate it. But when it comes to business, we really do love it. Social media optimization is an advertising powerhouse for countless industries and, once you crack the code, can make your business boom. It’s also frustrating if you get stuck and you aren’t getting the results you expect or need. Before you do anything to your ads or your campaign, check out these 6 tips on how to optimize everything and turbocharge your success.
1. Plan Your Creative Wisely
You may think that you can throw any semi-relevant stock photo up with ads and it will perform well. That is not always the case! You can try it and it might stick for some things, but in most cases, it doesn’t work. This is where social media optimization comes in.Try to have a solid plan of action when it comes to your creative. Produce creative images or graphics that will catch the consumer’s attention and get them to stop scrolling. The text isn’t going to do this — the photo, video, graphic, testimonial, whatever it is, will. Ask yourself: Will my ad STAND OUT? How is this going to catch people’s attention? Have custom images and/or videos for your ads. Making them more custom rather than just grabbing a stock image can increase volume of traffic. It shows that you put the time and effort. At Helix House, we have an in-house team of experts who know how to choose and use creative assets like the back of their hand. Here are some of our recent ads for clients:
2. Write Compelling Ad Copy
I know we just said that text won’t stop anyone from scrolling (and it’s true), but it has to be compelling for when they do stop and look at your ad. Have a catchy headline and to test different types of ad copy as well. This includes long and short copy so you will know what performs well and what doesn’t. Also, think about the company and your targeted demographics when you’re writing the copy. If you’re writing to pet owners, like in our example above, you’re going to want to be more empathetic in tone. If you’re writing for small business loans, testing a fun and a professional tone might be a good route to take.
3. Know Your Audience
Is your ad creative and copy on the right track? Are you still trying to figure out what the issue is? It’s time for an audience check! Creating the right audience for your business can be difficult at times. We always recommend that you start with your core audience. Make it broad to grab more traffic. After that, create one or two test audiences that you might want to try out. Split testing is always something that will benefit your campaign(s) because eventually you will be able to figure out which specific audience is best for your campaign(s). Here’s how it looks on Facebook:
Be careful! Having too many audiences to test can get messy, especially if you don’t have a significant amount of budget to spend. Speaking of...
4. Budget Properly
A great tip to know is that all social outlets, especially Facebook and Instagram, love it when you spend more(go figure right) The more you spend, the more people in your audience will see the ad. For example, a $300 monthly campaign media spend will most likely get less hits than a $1,500 monthly campaign media spend.When you first start out, keep in mind that your ads need to spend so you can start gathering data. With more data you can refine the results and start building out optimized campaigns.The more money you spend, the more data. The more data the better the results you will receive.In shorter terms: spend more and more people will see you. With that in mind, have a realistic, acceptable budget set aside for you to use and test with. Soon the expense will start bringing in a profit.
5. Know Your Campaign Objective
Even though you might have all of the above set, your campaign objective is a very important factor when it comes to getting results. Be sure to read all of the campaign objectives your specific ad platform has to offer. For example, here is what Facebook and Instagram offer:
- Brand Awareness
- Reach
- Traffic
- Engagement
- App Installs
- Video Views
- Lead Generation
- Messages
- Conversions
- Catalog Sales
- Store Traffic
Ask yourself, what is the goal of your campaign? Are you trying to sell a product? Are you wanting more engagement on your website or social business page? There is an objective for pretty much anything. We recommend trying a few out. If one isn’t working after a while, try another relevant objective for your campaign!And recognize, if you’re objective is Reach, don’t be disheartened when you’re not getting the Conversions or Messages you’re after. Figure out what is truly your goal and follow it.
6. Social Media Optimization Doesn't Happen Overnight
We aren’t kidding when we say: PATIENCE IS KEY! Even after trying all of the tips above, it is crucial to give your campaigns time to optimize for best results. It is very easy to become eager and want to see results instantly. We recommend to wait a few weeks between making major changes to your campaigns. Eventually, you will be glad you took the time and effort to make sure your campaigns are performing to the best of their ability! Don’t believe us? Take Facebook’s word on it:
If you’ve done all the above and your social media optimization still isn’t working out, contact us at Helix House. We have a stellar in-house team that lives and breathes in social media and ad design. They know how to test and they know how to succeed. Give us a call today to start getting your business out there.
