You sit at your desk and craft a perfect message to send. You don’t want to scare anyone off, but you also don’t want to be too timid. Will they even read your message? Are you wasting your time? Does the message get your point across in a way that gets the reader to react?
You might think that we’re talking about messaging that cute Barista you found on Tinder, but we’re actually talking about social media advertising. When a business uses its social media following to expand its brand, it’s not that different from when someone tries to get a date online.
Advertising on social media is a lot like dating. In this article, we’re going to talk about the similarities between business and dating profiles and how the first meeting between you and your clients is similar to the first time you meet someone on a date. We’ll also discuss ways you can get a callback (from a client, but hey, you might find some love advice as well). Read on to find out more!
What Is Social Media Advertising?
This seems like an easy question to answer, right? In a way it is, but there’s more to it than advertising on social media.
There are two reasons that companies advertise on networking sites: building their brand or getting a response. There are two ways that they can do this. First, they can use organic methods, which means that a business can grow its presence without spending money upfront.
They can tweet, post articles on LinkedIn and Facebook, answer questions on Quora, etc. This approach takes a while to show results, but once you get those results they tend to snowball.
If you’re looking for quick results, paid is the way to go. With paid advertising, you’ll spend money to buy ads or special placement on social sites. These ads not only increase your visibility, but they also allow you to reach segments of your audience that are difficult with organic methods.
The value of these ads is that these social sites maintain tons of data on their users. Using this data, you can narrow down who sees your ads and target a specific group of potential clients. The downside is that you’ll have to spend money upfront and understand keyword research, but these ads are more affordable than you may think.
Benefits of Social Media Advertising
Now that you have a general idea of what this form of advertising is, you’re probably wondering what it can do for you. How can you use your social media accounts to improve your brand and bring in fresh leads? Let’s look at the benefits of advertising on these platforms.
You Can Get A Great ROI For Your Investment
70% of U.S. adults use Facebook, and worldwide, 2 billion people use the website monthly. Each of those users spends around 40 minutes a day on the social site. Facebook in turn uses these members to sell advertising space to businesses.
The question that most business owners want to know is how they can reach the right people on the website. Nobody wants to spend the money necessary to market their services to 2 billion people, so how can you target your ideal customer?
To help businesses reach the right people, social networks collect massive amounts of data. They learn everything they can about them, from their geographical location and travel patterns and what they look at online, and then use that info to help you target certain people. The people that your ads target are already interested in the type of service you provide, so you’ll get a much higher conversion rate than you would with traditional marketing methods.
For example, say you decide to run a commercial on a local television station. The price you pay depends on viewership for certain time blocks. If you choose a time block that has an average of 50,000 viewers, you’re paying for that exposure, even though a majority of those people have no interest in what you’re offering.
When you advertise on Facebook and other social sites, 100% of the people that see your ad will have shown an interest in what you offer. This increases your conversion rate and gives your campaign a much higher ROI.
You Can Target Local or International Audiences As You Scale
One of the biggest benefits of exact targeting is that you can choose who your audience is. If you’re a small business that needs local customers to survive, you can target them with your ads.
As you grow, you can expand into a regional and national business. You can target customers in other areas and establish your business as a leader in your market. Then, when you decide to expand further, you can target international customers to become an industry leader on a global scale.
Using Facebook, you can target customers down to their city and zip code. This is a valuable advantage if you’re in a city like Boise. A local business on N. Eagle Rd. can target customers in the 83616 area code and grow from there.
If you were to advertise in the Idaho Statesman, on the other hand, you might have more people see your ads, but they could be from all over the state and only a small percentage of them would have an interest in your services.
Build Your Brand’s Credibility
Think about the last time you met someone that didn’t have a social media account. Did you trust them or think they were hiding something? Unfortunately, that’s what customers think about a business that isn’t on social media.
There are a few reasons for this. First, social media accounts show that a business isn’t a fly-by-night operation. For certain small businesses, like lawn care, construction, and contractors, this is important. Many of these businesses don’t have a physical address, so they need something to prove that they’ve established themselves in their community.
Social media profiles also serve as digital storefronts 24/7. If someone goes shopping for your service, they can check out your profiles even when you’re closed. You can also have an automated chatbot that can answer basic questions, providing your business with a human touch even when no one is in the office.
With Facebook, customers can also see reviews of your business and learn more about the services you offer. You can put a call to action at the end of your posts that leads visitors to certain landing pages and websites, helping you convert even when you’re asleep.
Having an established presence on social media will give your brand credibility and lead more customers to your business.
Dating and Social Media Advertising: How To Get A Callback
Whether you’re crafting a marketing message or trying to get a response back from a match on a dating site, the goal is the same: make a strong first impression. Ultimately, your goal is to market yourself in a way that attracts your ideal match.
Digital marketers and dating experts often give similar advice on how to do this. Let’s look at that advice and learn how to use social media to get the leads you need to thrive.
Make Your Profile Direct
One of the biggest mistakes we see from companies that create a social media profile is that they try to cram as much information as possible into their descriptions. While it might seem like a good strategy to give the viewer a complete picture, this strategy has the opposite effect of getting people to contact you.
When you create a profile that has too much information, you run the risk of someone skipping over it because they get overwhelmed by all the information.
Think of this as a dating profile. Would you want to say hello to someone who goes on a rant about their exes, tells you about their family members, and volunteers information about their collection of vintage action dolls? Probably not. By the time people get past the first few lines, they’ll start to feel like you’re desperate. In dating and social media, desperation doesn’t sell.
Instead, tell potential customers what you do. What makes you different? How are you better than your competition? If you sell the best hamburgers in Nampa, say that. If you only use local ingredients or have a new method for doing something, put that front and center. These are your main selling points. You don’t want everything else to distract from what makes you unique.
Always End With A Call To Action
At the end of every dating profile, there’s always the customary “let’s talk!” line. This is the call to action. While saying ‘let’s talk’ isn’t the best call to action, it’s still there.
If you want to get more leads (or dates), make your call to action specific. You can’t just tell people to contact you without giving them a reason too. For example, if you’re looking for a date, emphasize what makes you different when you tell people to send you a message.
“Want to test out my ability to make amazing dinners? Send me a message!”
As a business, you want to end with a CTA that reinforces your value and spurs the viewer to action. Think about what sets your business apart and include it with a link to a landing page or other high-conversion page.
“Ready to increase your lower your overhead costs by up to 50% by outsourcing IT? Contact us today to learn more!”
Perhaps the most important thing to do when creating a CTA is to create a ‘yes’ question. These are questions that any reasonable person would give a positive answer to. In the example above, would anyone say no to increasing their overhead costs by up to 50%? Of course not!
Once you get someone into an agreeable mindset, they’re more likely to agree to your next statement as well. It’s why conspiracy theories and infomercials are both so powerful. They start with things that everyone agrees with, and then they hit you with the sales pitch or radical claim.
Include Power Words in Your Profiles
People are somewhat predictable. It’s one of those dirty secrets that most people know is true, but they don’t want to admit it. The good news is that you can use people’s predictability to your advantage, whether you’re creating a dating profile or a social media advertising strategy.
Certain words draw people’s attention. On dating apps, words like ‘yoga’, ‘surfing’, and ‘fitness’ drew the most attention from users. The idea is that people tend to scan through online profiles and articles and only see the things that match what they’re looking for.
The same is true with online business profiles and content. When you write content for your website, you should use short paragraphs and lots of headers so that people can easily find what interests them. On social media profiles, you have less time to impress, so you should fill your profile with power words.
Power Words Address Pain Points
How do you determine what words will work for your business? Think about your ideal customer. Every business has one goal: to alleviate pain points for their customers. If you’re a restaurant, your client’s pain points are that they’re hungry, they don’t feel like cooking, and they want a quick and easy solution.
For a marketing agency, your customer’s typical pain points are that they’re struggling to get hot leads, they want to improve their conversion rate, and they want a higher ROI on their investment.
Knowing who your ideal customer is will help you figure out which power words to include. In the spirit of keeping it simple and using yes questions, you should stick to a small description that incorporates these words.
“Are you tired of spending money on advertising that doesn’t produce hot leads? Are you ready to improve your conversion rate by 20% or more? Do you want an advertising strategy that provides a high ROI and a targeted-research based approach?
At Boise Boys SEO, we’re here to help! We’ve helped hundreds of businesses like yours develop new leads that convert. We deliver amazing results and a high ROI. Check out some of our case studies below and get in touch today to get started”
Something like the example above hits your major selling points, incorporates power words, and encourages the reader to take action. It’s also short enough to keep the attention of your followers but long enough to let them know exactly who you are.
Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
You’ve seen these types of profiles before:
“I’m an amazing person to be around. There’s nothing about me that I can think of as a negative. You should be as driven as I am. I’m the most driven, hard-working person I know. I look good, I smell good, I have great hair, and there’s no way that I’m ever wrong.
I should also mention that I’m humble.”
If you only talk about how great you are, you’re going to turn people off. No one wants to feel like perfection is the standard that they have to meet. While you don’t want to list off all your faults, you should be willing to have a laugh at yourself.
Use humor in your profiles to show that there’s a human side to your business. While you want to stay away from controversial issues like religion and politics, you can post goofy pictures of your staff wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. Take a picture of an employee “sleeping” at their desk the day after Thanksgiving with a #TurkeyHangover hashtag.
Find ways to incorporate the people that work in your office. Companies that only have executives in their posts come off as uncaring and robotic. Including your employees builds morale and puts a human face to your business.
If you want a good example of how to use humor, check out Wendy’s Twitter account. They’re known for trolling their competition and responding to people with witty responses. If there’s something weird about their business, they don’t hide from it, they own it and laugh about it.
Their Twitter account is one of the most followed food chains in the world, allowing them to get their message out to millions of people with one tweet.
A Picture or Video is Worth A Thousand Words
Much like a dating profile, you should include pictures for social media marketing. 65% of the population learns visually, making images a great way to get a point across. Pictures serve two purposes when you’re building your social media presence: first, they let you show off the human side of your business, and second, they help your social media SEO.
For the first point, people want to do business with companies that they feel a personal connection to. They want to know who they are talking to when they contact your company. You can help your customers know more about you by posting employee spotlights, where you put up a picture of someone on your team and have them fill out a quick questionnaire.
It’s important to remember that not everyone is comfortable with being on social media, so you shouldn’t force your employees to take part in this. If they are okay with it though, you can post a new “team member spotlight” once a week or once a month.
You should also post pictures of your office space and other interesting things that involve your business on your social media pages. These pictures not only build your profiles up, but they’ll also help build trust for your business.
When it comes to social media SEO, it’s important to understand that images and videos are quickly becoming the most popular types of search results. If you post pictures and tag them with keywords, more people will discover your business and online accounts.
Videos Connect You With Your Audience
When you post videos on your social media profiles, you’re getting a two for one deal. You can use these videos for your social sites and create a Youtube account. There are more than 1.5 billion people using Youtube a month, making it the second most popular search engine after Google.
For videos, get creative! Show a day in the life of your office or of certain employees. Post holiday videos that wish your customers and followers a merry Christmas, happy Valentine’s Day, and other important dates. You can even show your product at work and post case studies in video form.
If you really want to attract people to your social media profiles, post Facebook Live videos where you answer questions and talk about the services you provide. This will establish your expertise in your niche and connect you with your audience.
You don’t even need expensive equipment for videos. Many businesses use their smartphone camera or laptop camera to put up videos on Facebook Live. Just pick a quiet place and start recording!
Need Help With Your Social Media Management?
Social media advertising is a great way to grow your brand and realize an amazing ROI on your advertising budget, but it can also be complicated and time-consuming. Between audience testing, figuring what ad messaging works best, and discovering what makes them respond to your posts, you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best strategy.
At Bear Fox Marketing, we’ve helped businesses of all sizes with their Facebook and social media advertising. We’re an ROI focused agency that wants to help you get the most value out of your marketing budget. Our mission is to generate a 5x return (or better) on your investment in under 45 days.
When you choose us as your social media marketing agency, you get the expertise you need. You’ll have a team of professionals dedicated to getting you the maximum return possible on your spending. Are you ready to crack the social media marketing funnel and grow your business? Get in touch with us today to get started!