Social Media Advertising
Introduction
Social media advertising is an effective way to leverage the power of the most widely used platforms in the world to reach and engage with target audiences. Whether your goal is to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, lead generation, or retarget previous website visitors, advertising on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok allows for ad delivery to highly targeted audiences.
Our social media advertising services are designed to enhance your brand’s visibility and drive measurable results while optimizing ad spend.
What is social media advertising?
Social media advertising is using paid ads on social media platforms to promote a product, service, or message. These platforms offer various ad formats to capture the attention of your audience—such as images, videos, carousels, and stories.
Social media display and video advertisements appear in user’s feeds mixed in with user posts. The ads have highly customizable targeting to reach any kind of audience on social, even if they don’t follow your brand’s page or account. There are more elaborate, creative options with ads than with organic posts.
Why is advertising on social media important?
Advertising on social media is essential because it allows businesses to connect with a highly engaged audience where they spend a lot of time online. With billions of users around the world actively scrolling through their feeds daily, brands have a unique opportunity to reach potential customers, build brand awareness, and create a community.
Additionally, social media advertising provides access to advanced targeting options, which allows brands to be more precise with reaching the types of users who fit their niche. Social media is also a great platform to continue to engage your audience with organic social content.
How does social media advertising work?
Social media platforms use advanced algorithms to deliver content to users who are most likely to engage. This powerful technology can be a huge benefit to advertisers, as the social platforms deliver ads in the same way, with even more advanced targeting options.
By leveraging the power of social media advertising, brands can access even more precise targeting with demographics, interests, behaviors, location, and more. Advertisers can set goals, such as clicks, conversions, or app installs, and the platform optimizes ad delivery to meet these objectives.
What are the different types of social media advertising?
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Ad Types
Single Image or Video
This ad type showcases a still image or video. Some benefits of using a single ad image include clarity and simplicity with messaging, which can be effective when the goal is to quickly capture attention with a focused message and visually compelling image. It also has a native look—blending seamlessly into the social feed.
Carousel
Show multiple images or videos in a rotating slideshow—each with its unique headline, description, link, and call to action. This ad type is helpful to feature multiple products or services with different slides and landing pages. Tell the story of your brand in a step-by-step format with one advertisement.
Collection
This Facebook-specific advertisement showcases your entire business with one ad. A large hero image or video is used to draw the user’s attention. Viewers can quickly discover what your business is about by displaying the most appealing products and services below the hero image or video.
facebook instant experience
Shorten the path from ad impression to deep engagement or conversion with Instant Experiences. Instead of a click to direct to your website, Instant Experiences immediately puts a customized page or storefront in front of potential customers without leaving the social app. This deepens the impact of the advertisement and increases the chances of conversion.
story ads
Full-screen vertical ads on platforms like Instagram and Facebook stories are designed to be fast, memorable, and fun. Story ads are an effective ad type as they tend to have higher engagement rates and include interactive features.
lead generation
Capture information from users who are ready to convert without making them leave Facebook or Instagram. Meta Lead Generation Ads use the same precise targeting options as traditional Meta ads but persuade users to provide their information right at the moment.
facebook device id
Device ID targeting is a historical geo-fencing solution that allows marketers to target users based on where they have visited in the past. These audiences can now be published to Facebook.
Targeting options:
- Visitor targeting
- Demographic targeting
- Category targeting
- Household extension
Reports provided:
- Audience insight
- Foot traffic attribution
TikTok Ad Types
vertical video
These ads are full-screen video content appearing in a user’s feed, blending naturally with organic TikTok videos. Vertical video ads are ideal for delivering a compelling message as users scroll—perfect for storytelling and driving engagement through interactive elements like likes, shares, and comments.
display carousel
TikTok’s display carousel ads allow brands to showcase multiple images or videos in a single ad, offering users an interactive way to swipe through various pieces of content. This format is great for e-commerce, highlighting multiple products or key features, and provides a richer experience by showcasing multiple products or offers within one ad.
Pro Tip:
Test multiple formats. Don’t stick to one ad type. Experiment with video, carousel, and story ads to see which perform best. Sky Digital Media provides guidance with this strategy.
Advertising with Meta (Facebook and Instagram) vs TikTok
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) Advertising
Meta, which includes Facebook and Instagram, continues to be the dominant force and leader in social media advertising. With 2.9 billion monthly Facebook users and two billion monthly Instagrammers, brands can target the most desirable customers in any niche.
One of Meta’s core strengths lies in its advanced targeting capabilities. Advertisers can segment based on location, age, interests, behaviors, and more, ensuring their ads reach highly relevant users. Businesses can leverage Meta’s vast data to create custom audiences, retarget website visitors, and use lookalike audiences to find new potential customers.
TikTok Advertising
TikTok has exploded in popularity in recent years, with over 150 million users in the U.S. with a user base that skews younger than Meta. The platform is known for its viral potential. If an ad resonates with its audience, it can spread quickly through organic shares and trends—amplifying reach.
TikTok is a mobile-focused social media platform for highly engaging, shareable content consumed on the go. The full-screen, vertical video content takes over the entire screen, so the ads always reach their audience. 47% of users engage with TikTok without distractions or multiple screens—increasing visibility.
TikTok users enjoy viewing genuinely authentic videos compared to other platforms, which prioritize more polished content. This makes creating TikTok ads budget-friendly as there is no need for expensive video production costs. Content creation can be as easy as recording a video on your phone of an employee enthusiastically talking about your business.
Key differences between Meta and TikTok Advertising
Sky Digital Media can help you decide which platform (or combination of platforms) is best for your business goals and marketing strategy.
Meta excels with highly granular targeting options, whereas TikTok is catching up but is not as sophisticated. Meta is better for precise segmenting and retargeting.
Meta favors a mix of polished and casual content, while TikTok thrives on authentic and creative videos that engage users with spontaneity.
Meta’s audience is broader and spans all age groups, while TikTok has a younger user base, with 55% of its users between ages 18 and 34. This makes Meta suitable for a wide range of industries, while TikTok is especially beneficial for brands looking to reach younger consumers.
TikTok focuses on full-screen, short-form video content. Meta offers a wide variety of ad formats, including images, videos, and carousels across multiple placements like Facebook feeds, Instagram stories, and Reels.
Unlike Meta advertising, a TikTok account isn’t necessary to advertise on TikTok.
What audiences can be targeted with social media advertising?
Meta (Facebook and Instagram) can target:
— Employment – employers, industry, job title, employment status
— Life Events – birthday, new job, recently moved, newlyweds, new parents
— Interests – politics, sports teams, hobbies, food and drink, entertainment, life-stages
— Custom audiences – built from how users have interacted with a brand on social or their website
— Geography – people living in, recently located in, or traveling in zip codes
— Demographics – gender, age, language, income, education, relationship status
TikTok can target:
— Geography
— Interests
— Demographics
— In-market audiences (e.g. someone shopping for an SUV)
— Retargeting
Why it’s important to advertise with a Meta Business Partner
Advertising with a Meta Business Partner provides unique advantages when advertising on social media. Their expertise and tools maximize the effectiveness of campaigns.
Meta Business Partners have been vetted and certified by Meta (formerly Facebook), ensuring they meet high standards in digital advertising. They’ve also demonstrated a deep understanding of Meta’s advertising platforms, tools, and strategies. Partners have access to advanced tools, beta features, and dedicated support from Meta.