Social media advertising strengths

On September 1st comScore released some information stating that social media websites, like Facebook and MySpace, are responsible for over 20% of online display advertising in the USA. As an online marketing consultant living in Kelowna, which is a relatively small town in British Columbia, Canada, social media sites are an extremely valuable tool to make use of when targeting ads to a small region. Smaller cities don’t always have that go to website. The newspapers that still exist often don’t grasp the strengths of the Internet entirely, or haven’t priced their ad rates according. For radio, a website is typically there to  support the station, and in many cases, are often reiterating news based off of partnerships with newspapers.  In a general sense, neither of these mediums have really stepped up to the plate to deliver a powerful online component. TV stations are improving as video becomes more feasible online, but, at least here in BC, local television is struggling.

So if you want to drive local visitors to your website, where can you turn? Facebook has a number of ad targeting features, such as target by connections, or target by birthday, to name some of the newer options. These targeting features can often provide insight into your business. For example, tracked properly, you might find that a specific age group tends to spend more time on a specific page than another age group. To speculate, let’s say you own a flower shop. You run ads targeted at men and women separately, and I can guarantee each group would treat your website differently. The men might be more inclined to look at pre-made bouquets, or may be interested in signing up for “important day reminders” as a safety net, just to prevent forgetting that special day two years in a row. Whereas the women might want to build a custom bouquet, because they already know exactly what they want.

Or maybe, as the flower shop owner, your website only has 1 of these functions. You built a great system to promote your pre-made bouquets, and you notice men from Facebook are converting at a higher rate than women. Not only are social media sites a great way to target your ads to a specific geographic area, but it’s easy to see how targeted advertising can drive sales as well as help your website progress and evolve over time (with the right insight).