When it comes to low-cost social media marketing, getting results worth boasting about can sometimes seem like a challenge.
You see great examples of social campaigns that had an endless budget and question how to decode those tactics into something with drastically fewer spending power behind it.
Producing something that looks great is just phase one; social media marketing content should provide value and information, and stick in people’s minds long after they’ve interacted with it.
And of course, the smaller the budget, the more important it is that your targeting is on point. If you’re setting up a new social campaign and you’re keen to get the most for your money, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Quality Content Over Quantity
Even if your social campaign has a great idea or promotion behind it, it can be completely undermined by low-quality visuals, captions, and copy.
It’s hard to be objective about quality if you’re responsible for every step of a campaign, versus if you’re working with copy creators and graphic designers who are producing your ideas for you. So, get second, third, and fourth opinions on whether your content really is great before you distribute it.
If there is no budget for a graphic designer and that isn’t your area of specialty, use a free graphic design website like Canva to bring your ideas to life. Just remember to follow the 20% text rule if the social marketing campaign is for Facebook so that you can guarantee it’s seen by the maximum number of people and your reach isn’t limited.
Be straightforward with yourself about whether the campaign has actual value to viewers. Questions to ask yourself include:
What do viewers gain from seeing this?
What information does this provide?
Is there something genuinely significant about this?
On a tight social media budget, it’s all the more important to get it right first time – and a smaller spend doesn’t have to mean lower-quality work.
Target The Right Audience
Organic social has gone from having reasonable reach to almost no reach at all in recent years, and it can be very frustrating. Opting out of paid promotion altogether isn’t really an option either. Finding new ways to increase your social media performance fast is key to a successful campaign strategy.
Instead, the focus requires getting the targeting of paid-for social ad content entirely perfect.
In this area of consideration, ask yourself:
Who is the social campaign for? (Your targeted audience or current audience)
What is the objective of this social campaign? (engagement, sales, leads, brand awareness)
And of course, double-check the details that might seem so obvious they get neglected. If you carelessly target the wrong location because you’re rushing to get something live, you can wipe out your chances to receive the desired results and wasted valuable ad spend.
From targeting specific age groups on Instagram to focus keywords and interests on Pinterest, there are plenty of different angles to approach your campaign from, whether that campaign is based on retargeting, exclusive offers, or a completely new promotion.
Targeting a smaller number of people more likely to convert will likely be a better use of a small budget, than reaching out to a wider audience that will drain your ad budget quickly.
Website Links Are Important
Just as it’s important to make sure your social accounts are linked from your website, the opposite is also a must. Make sure that social audiences don’t have to work to visit your main site, by including site links in posts and on feed bios. This encourages overall audience growth, turning viewers of paid social ads into likely website traffic.
It’s also important to ensure you monitor campaign performance to see which channels are driving the most traffic to your website if you’re able to carry out a multi-channel campaign.
For example, there is an older age group that tends to be on Facebook, does your product or service benefit them? On Tik Tok there is a younger age group that resides in this social platform, does your product or service benefit them? You get the point.
Which pieces of content perform the best over both website and social, and is there any way you could further optimize these or recreate similar work?
As well as including website links, it’s also desirable to include your contact details either on the advert itself or in accompanying copy, so that people know how best to reach you. Work smarter, not harder.
Have a Social Media Strategy
If your budget doesn’t extend far enough to target the best audience on more than one channel, pick the most significant and guarantee cohesion across the board by making organic posts on other platforms too. For example, even if it’s only the Facebook side of your campaign that’s being advertised, ensuring audiences visiting you on Tik Tok, Twitter or Instagram see consistent messaging aids to keep things working their best.
Of course, you’ll want to arrange things so that your messaging isn’t completely identical – but the call to action should be repeated throughout. If someone sees your campaign in one place and remembers it to come back to later, it should be visible whichever channel they visit you through. And uniformly, people who are only visiting you through channels without paid promotion should still be able to see your message and content.
If you’re not sure which social media channel is the one to put your money behind, the answer will usually be the one where you believe your audience spends the largest amount of their time online. It’s also worth thinking about which channels your competitors are focusing on, and which channels best suit particular objectives. Using social media advertising really helps see what you are working with and can adjust accordingly.
Analyze Your Social Media Engagemement
Last but not least, and perhaps one of the most important points to keep in mind if you’re working with a tight social media marketing budget, is engagement. Though your posts should generally encourage people to interact through comments, likes, and shares, it’s smart not to simply push things out the door and leave them to their own devices.
Once you distribute your content and your campaign is live on your desired social media channel, follow people who engage with it. Respond to their comments and invite them to like your page through a personalized DM. Monitoring the campaign once it’s live enables you to be very reactive, and prevents you from missing any potential leads or important customer service inquiries.
Social engagement works both ways, and your campaigns should feel like an ongoing conversation rather than a one time deal. This doesn’t have to mean you’re stuck to your accounts all day. Be sure to schedule in time to actively check in on each channel, when to post, and build relationships with new and existing audiences throughout your social media campaigns.
Producing something that is visually appealing, useful, and correctly targeted may be easier said than done. But a small budget doesn’t have to mean poor results. By monitoring analytics and performance, and keeping your audience’s needs and preferences close, it’s possible to accomplish great things on any budget, large or small.
If you’d like any advice on your social media campaign including how best to maximize your social media strategy, feel free to reach us at any time!