If COVID-19 lockdowns have taught us anything, it’s that an online presence is a must-have for any business.

When it comes to social media advertising specifically, there’s a few tips and tricks to help increase your chances of being seen in the scroll.

Eden Marcroft from Design Juice provides some social media insights and advice.

Gone are the days of traditional advertising where print media and billboards were the only option. Now, it’s all online.

With 55% of the global population using social media, for an average of 2.3 hours a day, Facebook and Instagram ads have quickly become one of most widely used, profitable, and accessible advertising channels.

Like anything, there’s good and bad, and the social media sphere has generated its fair share of controversy over the years. Regardless, it holds the attention of millions of eyeballs a day, making social media platforms a fantastic place to advertise services and products.

One of the biggest drawcards is the cost. Undeniably, it’s far more cost-effective than traditional advertising like print and billboards, enabling small businesses to reach their target audience without forking out thousands of dollars for short-lived campaigns.

Plus it’s accessible to anyone – as long as you have a business account on Facebook or Instagram, you can start advertising, even if it’s just boosting posts. With a DIY attitude and some help from the endless number of articles on the internet, pretty much anyone can do it (doing it well is a whole other game, however, and is best left to a marketing expert).

So, if you’re a small business, just wanting to increase your audience and boost some posts, how do make sure your posts/ads have the best chance of reaching your audience? If you don’t want to just be blindly throwing money at it, it’s all about strategically working within the algorithm.

But what does that really mean? Basically, the ‘algorithm’ refers to coding and systems that deliver posts and ads to the users most likely to be interested in them. You’ve probably noticed this at work when scrolling; the more you view a certain type of content, the more that kind of content will be delivered to you.

Outside of the obvious audience targeting by location, demographic, and interests, effective advertising is optimised for the algorithm, meaning that ads are created to hold attention for as long as possible and encourage users to click.

This allows these systems to recognise that posts/ads are relevant to certain people and deliver them efficiently. This includes everything from the format, visual elements, and wording.

Essentially, you want to make the algorithm’s job as easy as possible by creating ads that tick boxes.

 Here are our best quick tips:

Advertise where your target audience is
TikTok and Instagram are more popular with 13-30-year-olds, and Facebook is used more by 30-65+ year-olds. Think of who you want to see your ads and advertise there.

Keep it short and sweet
Try to sum up the message of your ad in two lines. You want users to get the gist of it within a few seconds without having to click See More. If they’re interested, they’ll click and learn more on your website.

Create placement-specific ads
Use square ads for Facebook and Instagram Feeds (they take up more space than landscape), and vertical 9:16 ads for Stories or Tiktok. This instantly makes it look more professional and appealing.

Use animated text or videos
Ads with movement or videos tend to perform better than images because they hold attention for longer, and the longer that users look at your ad for, the more the algorithm recognises they’re interested and delivers the ads to others.

Keep video ads under 15 seconds long
This is the limit for what will be displayed on Facebook or Instagram stories, and is the average attention span for users scrolling through social media. Get the complete message across, with a strong call-to-action to encourage clicks.

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