Not all brands feel the need to use social media advertising, and for smaller businesses perhaps budgets will stretch to sponsored posts. If there is money in the pot though, like and form of advertising however, investment can lead to greater growth of brand awareness (if done properly).
Social media advertising offers great targeting and profiling opportunities for brands to really reach a very specific audience including remarketing and 'look-a-like' segments. Commonly though, brand set up advertising and let it run without tweaking and optimizing creative.
It's important to remember therefore that sponsored activity does not replace the effort you need to put into the management of your social media profiles, and that poorly managed advertising strategy will also not contribute as efficiently.
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
- Decide upon the right network to use for sponsored advertising, if budgets are small, try to not spread yourself too thinly.
- Likewise, be realistic about your budgets - ensure you are getting a good ROI for any spend
- Decide what your goals are --- this may also help you to decide upon network
- Don't forget about ads -- don't let them go out of date e.g. special offers, pricing changes, out of stock products etc.
- Report on your creative -- use insights to assess if the targeting and creatives are working and direct future ads