There are many reasons why social media is the darling of today’s advertisers. Social media sites are free, accessible, and used by over 3 billion people. Content that used to be available only on television or radio is now easily shared through social media, which means its users are no longer just using the platform for socialisation but also entertainment, information dissemination, and business. To put this into perspective, the average time a person spends on social media is 2 hours and 22 minutes per day.
If the mere presence of nearly 50% of the world’s population is not enough as a draw, social media sites also offer business-oriented features and functions, such as paid or promoted posts and targeted ads.
People, platform, tools, and the freedom to create advertising content — with all of these elements present, social media sites are the perfect landscape for advertising.
Social Media Advertising in Action
One indicator that social media advertising works is the confidence that marketers and advertisers have in paid ads on social media.
Hootsuite‘s We Are Social Digital 2020 Report that Australian brands spent AUD2.36 billion on digital search ads and the lion’s share went to social media with AUD2.38 billion in 2019. While we’ve yet to get an update on the 2020 data, we can assume that online retailers, food delivery services, web and app development companies, and other business entities that could operate online increased their social media marketing activity during the pandemic year.
Here are other important findings from the We Are Social Digital 2020 Report:
- 71% of the country’s population have active social media accounts.
- 86% of mobile Internet users in Australia use social networking apps.
- The growth of active social media users in Australia eclipsed the population growth at 4.3% (versus 3.5%) from April 2019 to January 2020.
- The average Australian spends 1 hour and 44 minutes on social media sites per day.
Consumers have also proven that social media advertising can be highly effective. Data from Hootsuite’s Digital 2020 October Global Statshot Report reveals that 33% of Australians use social media to research information about brands.
These data prove the potential of social media advertising. Social media ad platforms enable advertisers to target the right audiences: people whose interests match with their offerings and have buying intent. The process shortens the buyer’s journey, which means that businesses can quickly generate sales and returns from social media ads.
Here are other social advertising statistics that should interest you:
- Ad engagements on Twitter increased by 23% (driven by higher click-through rates and impressions).
- Cost per ad engagement (CPE) is cheaper by 12%
- Average ad prices are cheaper by 4% in Q2 2019.
- Ad impressions rose by 33%.
- The average Facebook user clicks on 11 ads per month.
These figures show that with the right strategy, social ads can be rewarding and generate returns in the form of sales, audience engagement, brand recall, and customer loyalty. Of course, nothing is guaranteed: it takes a lot of strategy to make an ad generate the results businesses want to see.
Elements like an arresting heading, attractive header image, strategic ad placement, perfectly-timed call to action, and the FOMO or “fear of missing out” mentality — all of these contribute to the success of a social ad campaign, and it can take time and a whole lot of advertising know-how to get them right.
Unlock the Potential of Social Ads with Media Crew
You can maximise your chances of producing an effective ad by working with an ad management specialist who knows how to lay the groundwork for a successful ad campaign. Get in touch with Media Crew, one of Melbourne’s most trusted marketing and advertising agencies.
