Social Ads: the strategy to exceed your goals!

Starting to create content on social networks without a specific plan is the best way to miss your goals. So how do you make sure your social media strategy is the right one? What are the elements that will guarantee its success?

We explain to you!

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Social Ads: what is it?

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These are the ads you see on social networks like Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn. Generally billed on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, they are easy to spot in your news feed thanks to the “sponsored” mention.

Social ads now represent a real alternative to Google Ads ads, which have long dominated the world of online advertising. They make it possible to reach a different audience thanks to a multitude of functionalities and formats adapted to the marketing goals of brands: conversion, store visits (drive to store), application downloads, brand awareness (branding), conversational engagement, and much more.

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Want to get started with Social Ads? Here are the top 5 of the best agencies by agency:

👉 The best Google Ads agencies

👉 The best Facebook Ads agencies

👉 The best Instagram Ads agencies

👉 The best Linkedin Ads agencies

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Why implement a Social Ads strategy?

Advertising on social media is a really effective strategy for achieving your marketing goals. Let me explain to you why.

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👉Increase your visibility and your reputation

Social Ads are a great way to boost your visibility and increase your reputation. By sponsoring your content, you expand your audience and improve your brand image. Your posts not only reach more people who already follow your page, but also users with profiles similar to your ideal customer base.

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👉Highlight your content

Do you have articles, white papers, or news that you want to promote? Social Ads allow you to promote this content in a targeted manner. Thanks to precise parameters, you reach the audience that will be most receptive to your publications, thus guaranteeing better reach and more engagement.

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👉Increase your conversion rates

Social networks offer interactive formats to boost your conversions, such as pre-filled forms or direct purchase buttons. By integrating these features into your ads, you facilitate the buying journey for your potential customers, which can increase the number of sales and leads.

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👉Generate traffic at the point of sale

Do you want to attract more visitors to your physical stores? Social Ads can help you do this by targeting users located in your catchment area. So you can show specific ads to encourage people to go directly to your points of sale.

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👉Retain your customers and federate a community

Social media ads are great for creating engagement around your brand. By using interactive content like photos, videos, or quizzes, you encourage users to interact with you and each other. This helps build a loyal community that is ready to recommend your products or services.

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How to succeed with Social Ads?

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Determining a brand vision and goals

The brand vision

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To avoid mistakes, such as sending the wrong messages to the wrong place or audience, it's essential to get to know yourself well first.

Take the time to explore your vision and brand DNA in depth.

👉 What are the core values that define you?

👉 How does your brand appear on social media?

👉 What personality and image do you want to project?

👉 What messages do you really want to get across?

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Also, make sure you are in control of the discourse around these values. Are your employees who speak on behalf of the brand well informed about the elements of language to use? Do you have the ability to control this discourse across all of your communication channels?

Finally, with a clear vision of your values, define your marketing and communication goals, detailing the key interventions throughout the buying journey and the customer journey.

Don't underestimate the importance of this step!

Without a well-established communication plan, with clear and controlled guidelines (like a brandbook), you may not reach your goals.

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The goals

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Let's talk a bit about these famous goals.

Once your brand vision is well established, it's time to refine your social media strategy by setting clear, specific, measurable, and realistic goals.

Feel free to be ambitious, but keep your feet on the ground! Unachievable goals will only discourage your teams.

Then, define exactly what you're aiming for.

Do you want to increase your reputation? Generating more leads? Increase customer engagement?

Each objective must be supported by a specific strategy. Avoid plans that go off in all directions. For each of your goals, think of measurable and quantifiable results.

Only by evaluating these results will you know if your strategy is effective or not.

Without specific goals, you will not be able to measure your performance against the targets set, and therefore know if you have reached them.

Be careful not to fall into the trap of unquantifiable goals, otherwise your success will only be an impression, and you will not be able to improve continuously.

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Know your audience

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To really reach your audience, it is essential to know them in depth.

👉 Who exactly are they?

👉 What are their areas of interest?

👉 What inspires them or makes them dream?

👉 Conversely, what problems do they encounter that your product can solve?

👉 How do they consume content and what are their habits?

👉 How can you integrate naturally into their daily lives and be present where they already are?

Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience to create content that truly resonates with them.

In any marketing strategy, knowing your target audience well is essential.

If you're offering content that doesn't match your audience's expectations—whether in terms of tone, format, or story—chances are your message will go unnoticed and not retained.

Talk to your audience about the topics they care about, in the format they like, and you'll see the results follow.

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Producing engaging content

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Whether it's through impressive visuals, compelling stories, or relevant information, the key is to create an emotional connection with your audience. Content that arouses curiosity or evokes emotion is content that is remembered.

Nowadays, attention is a scarce resource. If you don't catch the interest of your audience quickly, your content may go unnoticed.

We have all heard about the famous figure of 8 seconds of attention, popularized by a Microsoft study in 2015. However, this number is not supported by solid scientific research, so it should be taken with care.

However, this highlights a reality: our attention is constantly being solicited by various media and social networks, which affects our ability to concentrate and reduces our attention time.

Other studies on attention time during screen-based tasks confirm this trend. In 2004, we could focus for an average of 2.5 minutes; that number fell to 75 seconds in 2012 and then to 47 seconds recently.

It is therefore crucial to respect your brand identity. Broadcast sensational content that attracts attention but doesn't match your values won't be beneficial in the long run.

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👉 So how do you define engaging content?

It's about getting your audience's attention, but it's also about maintaining it. The aim is for your message to be understood, remembered, and associated with your brand.

Storytelling is one of the best ways to make your content engaging.

Tell a story about your brand or products, try to arouse the emotion and support of your target audience. You can stage a fictional or real story that conveys your values.

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💬 For example, turn your audience into story heroes who overcome obstacles with your products or values.

Of course, how you tell your message will depend on the content and your marketing goals. There are many approaches to reach your target audience, such as:

👉An authentic message : share photos or videos of your teams in the field.

👉An educational message : simplify a key concept in your sector, make it accessible and illustrated with concrete examples from the daily life of your audience.

👉Arouse emotion : tell a human story that will touch people, without falling into melodrama.

👉 Humor: find the right balance between your brand message and entertaining content, without being clumsy—a delicate balance to achieve.

If you're telling an interesting story, any content format, even the longest, can work well.

Choose the format that best fits your message to make it captivating for your audience.

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Engaging with your community

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To build lasting relationships, nothing beats active interaction with your community.

Take the time to respond to comments, participate in discussions, be present. By showing that there are real people behind your brand, you'll create an authentic connection with your audience.

Social networks are, by nature, community platforms. So don't be afraid to engage in dialogue; that's exactly what your customers are looking for: authenticity and real connection.

By getting involved with your community, you are strengthening the presence of your brand in the minds of your customers.

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Implement a strategy and mobilize resources to:

👉 Respond to comments;

👉 Encourage interaction through publications designed to stimulate engagement;

👉 Communicate with authenticity, because that's what your subscribers expect above all;

👉 Highlight user-generated content (UGC) ** to share your community's creations.

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You can dedicate an in-house person to this task or use an agency that understands your DNA and the essence of your brand.

In any case, set a clear tone of voice that fits your brand and fits the social network you use.

Finally, a well-implemented engagement strategy will increase word-of-mouth about your brand and encourage the sharing of your content.

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Analyzing your Social Ads actions

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To conclude, a strategy without measurement and analysis is doomed, at best, to stagnate, and at worst, to fail.

Data analysis is critical to understanding what works, what doesn't, and why those results are working. This in-depth understanding allows you to adjust and refine your strategy for even better results.

Monitoring your key performance indicators (KPIs) helps you set up a continuous improvement process. By testing different formats and adapting them, you can improve their performance.

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It is also important to differentiate the KPIs to be monitored according to each of your objectives. For example:

👉Notoriety : monitor reach, video views, and coverage rate.

👉Commitment : Track interactions such as likes, shares, comments, comments, registrations, as well as the engagement rate and, for videos, the retention rate.

👉Conversion : Observe the clicks and the click rate.

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This is particularly crucial in an ecosystem that is changing rapidly, whether in terms of popular trends or the algorithms that determine what content is highlighted.

You need to satisfy not only the preferences of your users, but also the preferences of the algorithms!

So don't forget the importance of staying up to date on platform developments and current trends.

A social media strategy should be flexible and adaptable, based on the news on the platforms and the results you measure.

Analyze your KPIs to adjust your strategy and try new approaches to find the formula that will work best for your audience.

To carry out this analysis, discover the right insights and make strategic decisions, it is essential to have real expertise in social media and social content.

Numbers alone don't tell the whole story; it's imperative to consider the context of your brand and the overall context of the social platform.

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