When it comes to advertising, it’s important to have an understanding of your target audience. Developing ads without any knowledge of your target audience is like trying to navigate an unfamiliar city without a map or anyone to ask for directions. Imagine putting your blood, sweat and tears into creating clever ads that you were proud of, only for them to bring you no business. Sounds frustrating, doesn’t it? Luckily, the Fat Guy has a few tips to help you deepen that understanding so you can extend your reach in the competitive world of Long Island social advertising.
Remember: Research with Social Marketing
Getting a feel for who your target audience includes is all about doing the research. Fortunately, there are some great programs that can provide you with detailed information about who’s interacting with your social posts. For example, we use HubSpot to monitor the details of our posts. When you’re able to use a platform like HubSpot to see who interacts with you on social media and organize them into buyer personas, your Long Island social advertising target audience becomes much clearer.
Learn about Long Island Social Advertising by Platform
After you’ve done some work to figure out who you want your ads to target, it’s time to create them. Advertising differs between social media platforms, so it’s important to understand the nuances of the one on which you’re advertising.
Facebook ads can be tailored to specific audiences. This is where you’ll put all that research to use. When creating a Facebook ad, you’ll be able to select traits of people that will likely be interested in your business. You’ll also be able to choose the objective of the ad. For example, ads can be created with the goal of drawing more traffic to your website. If you have contact information of customers you’d like to reach, such as phone numbers or email addresses, you’ll be able to create a custom audience list of who your ad will reach. Creating a “Lookalike Audience” will allow you to target non-customers with similar traits to those of people who are already your customers.
To be eligible for Twitter ads, you first need to be active on Twitter. In other words, you cannot start a brand new account and immediately start creating ads. Twitter ads can be priced in a number of ways: per website visit, per new follower, per engagement (retweets, favorites), per app install/engagement (provided your business has an app), per lead or per video view (if your ad is a video). You’ll be able to target your ad campaigns based on gender, language or geographic location, which is particularly useful for the niches you’ll encounter in Long Island social advertising. Twitter ads companion allows you to easily optimize ad campaigns from your iPhone or Android. You’ll also be able to target users based on the type of device they’re using to access Twitter, their interests and the keywords they use in their search terms. 
Instagram yields the most interactions per post on any social media platform, so advertising on it has some serious potential. At the moment, Instagram advertising is really only feasible for large businesses. However, Instagram is working on expanding its advertising to that it will be available to businesses of all sizes. If you’re planning on moving into the Instagram section of the Long Island social advertising scene once Instagram extends that availability of its ads, there are a few steps to follow to prepare. It’s a good idea to set some goals for your Instagram content, integrate those goals into a cohesive theme and finally, put in the time and effort to create high-quality content. As always, you’ll want to be sure your content resonates with your target audience. If you’re struggling to develop great content, take a look at some case studies of larger companies to see the types of ads they used to fuel their success. Conquering the Long Island social advertising scene is no easy task. Hopefully, these tips about different social platforms will help you strengthen your ad campaigns. If you’d like more information on social advertising, feel free to email our team at sales@fatguymedia.com or call us at 516.535.5353.
