Most successful social media campaigns owe some of their success in part to a well-targeted advertising campaign. There can be a variety of aims: early fan acquisition, call to action, awareness. But to invest in building a social media campaign and prep your brand to be more social online, then to NOT invest in a targeted advertising campaign is a real waste in our view. There are certainly campaigns and brands that have been able to build large social media audiences with little to no advertising support, but this is certainly the exception rather than the rule.

For some client projects, social media promotion may not be as effective as other forms of online advertising campaigns. B2B clients or those offering specialized products or services may find this to be the case. Our clients engage us because they trust that we will provide honest recommendations about what is likely to be most effective given the campaign objectives; thus we will advise against starting with a social media campaign if we believe it’s not likely to be the most effective form of marketing in the long-run.

When considering online advertising strategies, we generally distinguish between two categories: active and passive strategies. We think about these strategies in terms of the intent of the user in finding your brand, product or service; if they are actively looking for one of those, we would consider active strategies. If they are not in the process of looking but they fall within the target audience group, we will consider passive strategies. Social media in general can straddle both, but generally speaking it is found more often within the passive strategy categorization. Let’s now spend a little time to examine these two categories and the specific strategies for each in greater detail.

Planning to run an online advertising campaign and need help in targeting the right audience? Contact us!

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