Social media websites get a lot of traffic. Facebook is second only to Google as the most visited site in the world, with YouTube as a close third. You may already be using social media to attract attention to your Ecommerce store, but if you aren't placing targeted ads then you're leaving all of the traffic that comes to your store up to chance.
We've created this blog article (and crammed it full of facts and figures) to show you how, and why, you should be using social media to drive traffic and boost your sales!
Facebook
Ten years after its founding and Facebook is still the 'top dog' of social media. With
1.28 billion active users every month, no other site can connect you with as many potential customers as Facebook can. But the greatest thing about placing ads on Facebook isn't about how popular it is, or how many users it has, it's the fact that there are no set prices -- you, and you alone, are in charge of your budget. Check out this little video to learn more about the advertising costs of Facebook:
Having complete control over your ad spend isn't the only benefit that Facebook advertising can offer you. You can also target your advertising based on a variety of factors. For example, user interests, user age, and you can even narrow your ad down by location so you're only advertising to potential customers in your area.
Facebook has proven itself as a key player in driving traffic. Studies from March -- June 2014 proved that of all website visits, Facebook alone referred
23.39%! That's almost a quarter of website traffic driven by one website!
Get started with Facebook advertising today or open your own Facebook Store now!
Twitter
In some ways, advertising on Twitter is very similar to placing an ad on Facebook, and then again, it's completely different! The way that ads are targeted between the two social networks, is very similar. An ad on Twitter is called a promoted trend. And, when you place a promoted trend, Twitter ensures that this features at the top of your followers news feeds. It also seeks out users with similar attributes to your followers so that they can see your promoted trend too.
With twitter, you can set a spending budget just like on Facebook. But the budget is used in a different way. Twitter work to a kind of PPC method, only charging you when users click, retweet, or favorite your promoted trend, or follow your account due to the ad. The greatest thing about promoted trends on Twitter, is the long lasting boost they can give to a company's advertising. Take a look at this snippet from a
Twitter infographic:
Even three weeks after the delivery of a promoted trend, the conversion lift still remains at 20%!
It's important to use both Facebook and Twitter in unison with one another so that you attract a wide range of customers, and get the benefits that both sites offer. With Facebook you have the opportunity to target billions of users across the world -- most of them in real-time as Facebook is the most downloaded and visited Smartphone app. On the other hand, you have Twitter, a platform in which you can get in touch with more hip, tech-savvy users, and get more creative with your ads as you only have 140 characters to play with.
Click here to see what Twitter advertising can do for you.
YouTube
Video is the most engaging medium available to marketers, and the quickest and most effective way to get through to potential customers. In fact,
90% of online shoppers agreed that they find videos helpful when making purchasing decisions.
YouTube's advertising is just as effective as the above social networks because they follow the same guidelines -- only targeting appropriate users, and only charging you when people watch your video. What takes YouTube to a higher level is the fact that it also offers a free analytics tool so that you can understand what works about your ad, and what might need further improvement.
If you don't already have videos out there, you should really think about having one made.
4 billion videos are viewed on YouTube daily! That's 4 billion people that could potentially be watching an ad about your store. It's surprisingly inexpensive to outsource a video these days, and because videos are so highly shareable, there's no reason not to do it!
Every famous brand has at least one video on YouTube, and the ones that drive the most traffic and generate the most sales are the ones that go viral! Videos that go viral don't do so because of luck. There are many factors that make up the perfect viral video: It's got to be short, intrigue people, and be totally 'think outside the box'. A brand that has always been great at video ads is Budweiser. Take some inspiration from these 90s ads:
...And a couple from this year:
Now you've been fully inspired, why not find out more about the benefit of YouTube ads!
So there you have it! Driving sales with three of the biggest websites on the internet is so easy, AND cost-effective! We hope this blog has given you more of an insight into the world of social ads. If you're ready to get started with one, two, or all three of these amazing social networking sites, then be sure to come back and let us know how much traffic you generated with your social ads in the comments box below!