We’re Not in Kansas Anymore: New Places to Advertise That Aren’t Facebook
Facebook advertising has been the bread and butter of social media promotion for a long time. They’ve kept their edge by acquiring their biggest competitor, Instagram, in 2012 and continuing to provide new advertising options. But Facebook and Instagram aren’t the only places people spend their time online. This week, we’re looking at three other platforms that are keeping their advertising fresh: YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit.
A/B on YT: Finding Your Best Video Ad
How do you create an effective ad on social media? After starting with a sound strategy, one of the best ways to optimize ads is through A/B testing. (For a refresher, this technique involves running two or more similar ads on a platform to give statistics on which performed better.) Google has allowed advertisers to experiment with ads in the past, but now it’s expanding to an exciting new medium: video. Now, advertisements on YouTube can feature experiments with different versions of an ad!
With ‘video experiments’, advertisers will gain a better understanding of what resonates with users and drives conversions. Google boasts that studies of its video experiments resulted in ads with 30% lower median cost-per-acquisition and 60% higher recall. Data from your specific ads tells you what works for your brand and your target audience specifically, which will inform the strategy for your next campaign.
What does this mean for Gainesville Businesses?
Advertising on YouTube does have a higher barrier to entry: You’ll need a video. To experiment, you’ll need multiple versions of it. However, the ads don’t need to be as different as you might think. Google recommends experimenting with small aspects of the ad, such as moving the call to action around, adding visual effects, and changing the size of text and logos. The next time you look into creating a video for your brand, see if your editor can provide a few different versions with the same footage and message. Then experiment with your YouTube ad and see what works!
All The Ways You Can Advertise On Twitter In One Nifty Chart
There are a lot of ways to promote your brand on Twitter; more than most users probably realize. This week, Twitter took a step towards clarifying all the options that businesses have while rebranding and reorganizing its advertising offerings. There are five categories of advertising with different execution options in each.
Promoted ads are displayed in a user’s feed, similar to how they’d view a post from someone they’re following. These can include images, videos, text, and more, with a few options that aren’t available for non-promoted tweets. Follower ads promote your account to a specific audience that might be interested in your content to increase your following.
Twitter Amplify allows businesses to advertise before videos on Twitter. The advertisers can either select a video category or align their brand with a specific content creator. Twitter Takeover ads give you reach across the entire platform for a period of time – all Twitter users will see your ad when opening up their timeline or when looking at what’s trending, based on your placement. Finally, Twitter Live allows you to promote a live broadcast – perfect for events, product launches, or influencer collaborations.
What does this mean for Gainesville Businesses?
The power of Twitter ads is that they feel very natural within the platform. With the right creative, you can encourage the audience to retweet, react to, or share your ads. There are a lot of options to take in, so we recommend starting with the basics: promoted ads.
Push your brand message to the next level with a creative, funny, or absurd ad to stop the scroll and capture the audience’s attention. For example, you could declare that macaroni is now a breakfast food and watch the engagement roll in. (I saw this as an ad and immediately shared it with friends. I’m still thinking about it 8 months later.)
ELI5: How Can I Advertise On Reddit?
According to Pew Research, Reddit and YouTube were the only social platforms to show statistically significant growth since 2019. About 18% of Americans are using the platform today. This is still a lot less than social giant Facebook, which still has about 69% of Americans on its site. However, Reddit’s built-in audience filtering and committed user base make it an interesting way to diversify your online advertising. To sweeten the deal, Reddit has just launched a new advertiser’s hub called Ads Formula that gives advertisers insights into the community and how to reach them.
Haven’t browsed Reddit before? Check out the platform’s guide to how everything works, Reddit 101. It explains some popular abbreviations, including TL;DR (too long; didn’t read) and ELI5 (explain like I’m 5). TL;DR: The platform is composed of different subreddits that each have a specific theme. Users post content to these subreddits and others upvote or downvote the post. The best-rated posts rise to the top and are featured on that subreddit, while downvoted posts take some scrolling to view. The most highly rated posts of all subreddits appear on the home page, which usually features an interesting mix of news, pet photos, text stories, and more.
Reddit is unique because everyone has a chance to make it to the front page since users follow subreddits (or topics) instead of other users. Another interesting feature is just how niche these subreddits can be. There’s r/Food, but there’s also r/EatCheapAndHealthy, r/MealPrepSunday, and r/PutAnEggOnIt. You can choose to advertise to users that follow specific subreddits, which is one of the best ways to target consumers who are likely to be interested in your ad!
What does this mean for Gainesville Businesses?
Ready to become a Redditor? To get familiar with the platform, create an account and start following some subreddits. Reddit is a great way to browse the internet, but it’s also a place to get inspired. Check out r/SmallBusiness, r/Entrepreneur, and, of course, r/GNV! Find subreddits that are related to your industry. You’ll get to see what content people are creating, what questions people have, and where struggles or frustrations are happening. Following these subreddits makes it easy to check out what’s happening by glancing at your home page.
Once you’ve got a handle on the platform, check out Reddit’s resources for advertisers. Find some subreddits that might work for advertising your brand. Type a keyword in the search bar to find relevant communities, or visit a subreddit on your desktop to see related communities in the right sidebar. You can also reference Reddit’s 2021 calendar to schedule a campaign, look into their suggested best practices for creative, and see case studies about how others have activated their brands on Reddit before jumping into Reddit advertising.
Ok, now what?
Now that you’re up to date with the latest industry news, it’s time to invest in a team that specializes in all things social media and digital marketing. We can help! Liquid Creative is a full-service marketing agency ready to help your business operate to its fullest potential without missing a beat.
