In the immortal words of Ross from Friends, “PIVOT!”
Social ads are currently dramatically cheaper than traditional forms of advertising and yet precious few businesses are taking advantage of that. With impressive targeting capabilities, smaller costs, and the ability to reach more than 3.48 billion people, if your ad budget doesn’t include social media you’re doing it wrong.
The same but different
The temptation may be to simply re-purpose your current advertising material across social media, don’t do that!
Social ads should tie in to your other marketing efforts but they need to be tailored to the platform they’re running on. Nobody is sitting through the two minute long pre-rolls on YouTube or clicking the billboard style poster they scroll past on Facebook.
When a client asks us to create a cohesive video marketing strategy we start by looking at the whole picture; who are they as a brand? Who are their current customers? What excites their social followers? From this distanced view we then begin to slowly zoom in. One idea sparks another, or a twist on it which makes it better suited to a certain platform, and we begin to build the campaign as a whole and as the individual pieces.
Making it work
The Visit Scotland marketing team nailed this concept but as we looked at their campaign in more detail our blog post about community driven advertising we’re focusing on another brand knocking it out of the park when it comes to online and offline marketing. Velux’s latest campaign, #outsidein, combines all the ingredients of great modern advertising and bakes them into a delicious, shareable content cake.
Their artistic and thought-provoking short film is perfect for airing on television and also offers beautiful stills ideal for billboards, while their campaign specific website provides a variety of articles designed for social sharing and even brings in influencer partnerships. Their branded hashtags also make it easy for them to monitor the success of the campaign and engage with the people talking about it. Shout-out to the team behind this beautifully cohesive campaign.
All industries can benefit from this kind of creative, cross platform advertising, even the financial sector. Branded hashtags are a good way to start and a place to build from. What do you want people to be sharing about your brand on social: are you #ForTheFrugal or offering a luxury financial service? Creating a campaign around this enables you to ensure every piece of marketing material offers the same message but in distinct, medium specific ways. You don’t need to include the hashtag on your printed materials for them to tie in beautifully to the online content, use design elements to bring the different areas together in a subtle but clear way.
Social ads are the future
The legend that is Gary Vaynerchuk has said many times that advertising on social will not be this affordable forever. As more brands see ever-increasing ROI from them the price and competition for news feed space will only increase. Now is the time to invest in your social marketing strategy and embrace the power of social media advertising.
Want to discuss how we can bring your A-game to your social ads? Drop us an email.