Statistics show that in 2017, the global social media advertising market value was about 43.7 billion US dollars, accounting for 18% of the total digital marketing market value. North America is by far the world’s largest social media advertising market with a production value of approximately $21 billion.
With the launch of new features, 2018 is bound to be a year of rapid growth in social media advertising. So, as business owners or marketing managers, are you ready for this huge opportunity?
If your brand doesn’t currently use social media ads to expand your potential customer base, stop waiting! Noah Marketing is up-to-date with all the latest tools and features, keeping updated with the best ad categories for major social media platforms, and which devices are most effective in delivering ads.
Here’s an organized chart for you to keep track of the platforms, with the most effective features, on the most successful device and the new features to watch out for. The top social media advertising plaforms you should know:
Let’s dive into the top four: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube & LinkedIn:
Throughout the years Facebook has still proven to be the most effective social media advertising platform. It had a decrease in traffic and popularity in the past years, it bounced right back in 2017.
The most effective features are single images, carousel, lead ad form, boosting posts, dynamic product ads, promoting posts, video, canvas, and more. It’s shifted from being mostly used on desktop to now on mobile.
Though it is still the most effective advertising platform in terms of social media, they are not coming out with as many features as other platforms. The problem is that it has a lot of data privacy issues, and changes that make it risky for advertisers to go ahead with the plunge.
Though Facebook is still at the top of the most popular social media platforms, Instagram is not far behind, and it is growing at a rapid speed. They are killing it with their new features, and they are constantly thinking of a way to turn organic traffic into leads with interactive tools. Of course, mostly used in mobile, Instagram allows organic traffic to turn into key conversions by interacting with brands, and rating aspects of their accounts. Being able to contact these people with minimal effort and work, Instagram creates an interpersonal relationship between the consumer and business. Consumer’s trust and knowing that they are being heard is an important aspect of sales.
Instagram story features are becoming a powerful way to deliver ads. Studies predict that in the upcoming year half of Instagram users will be watching stories daily, though that number is not as significant today. Though businesses nowadays are not taking advantage of social media, there are 200 million Instagram users that claim they visit at least one business profile a day, which means that there are 200 million Instagram users you are missing out on.
YouTube
With Google announcing their new features for YouTube advertising, the PPC on this platform has been skyrocketing. It’s no secret that video content has been the most popular content lately, but advertising with video is expensive. The competition is quite high, and the audience is about 1.5 billion users, coming close- second to Google. Unlike most other platforms, YouTube is most effective on both mobile and desktop.
- > 1.9 B monthly users
- > 1B hours watched daily
- Overall conversions inspired by YouTube, have grown by 150% in the last year
- Over 70% of YouTube campaigns drove a significant lift in in-store
Video advertising is hard, and it takes a lot more time and just drafting up a search ad. It takes time designing, shooting, creating, and editing. However, Google wants to make this easier for all of us. If you haven’t read all the new features that are coming alongside Google’s rebranding to Google Ads, check it out right here. With six different types of Google Ads, the sky is the limit for how many people you can reach.
Though it’s the main way of interacting with other businesses and publishing educational articles, LinkedIn not quite as popular as other platforms today. The main way that LinkedIn works and is extremely effective, is through Sponsored posts. Most people surfing through LinkedIn are on a desktop, and it’s main attraction lately have been video marketing.
The reason? It’s expensive.
According to AJ Wilcox the high price is due to agencies and advertisers not having the right to a business. When it comes to B2B products and services, recruiting, and higher education, LinkedIn ads seem to be extremely effective. However, for B2C businesses who want to reach a broad target audience, eCommerce websites, or agencies, LinkedIn does not generate enough results to justify the cost for ads.
Social media is becoming an essential part of advertising for every business. Even Google AdWords has taken notice of this and has rebranded and added new features to integrate more of social media advertising. Competitors are increasing, and digital marketing is growing every day.
Stay on top of your competition and find out how you can outperform them.
