Most big companies waste most of their marketing budget.
They think Facebook ads don’t work, or that Instagram is only for kids. They have no idea how big the opportunity is right there.
You’re living through the biggest shift in human attention of your time. People have moved their attention away from television to their mobile phones.
Many companies don’t know how to make good ads for social. They’re so used to the paradigm of interrupting what people are doing, that they don’t realize there’s a whole new art to advertising on social.
It’s like the transition from radio to television.
Early TV ads were just radio commercials with a picture behind them.
Think about how that must have seemed at the time - how weird it was for a commercial to have only a still image on the screen and just a voiceover talking the whole time. Bad at drawing the viewer in. Bad at using the opportunities of TV. They didn’t know how to make something compelling for television yet. TV didn’t become the advertising juggernaut until advertisers figured out how to make ads look good, both visually and logistically.
The same mistake is happening right now with the shift from TV to mobile.
Right now, companies know they can’t just post their old ads on Instagram. They might tweak something or try to come up with a cute visual trick.
That’s why social is where all the untapped opportunity is right now. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and other platforms are modern-day stores. Stores where the attention is.
So, here are a few concrete ways to take advantage of this new reality.
LinkedIn’s organic reach is massive right now. This is what Facebook looked like some years back.
LinkedIn has a pricing floor - there’s a minimum bid they’ll accept - and that means you’ll probably pay more on LinkedIn than on Facebook or Instagram. Even so, you need to be putting out content on LinkedIn.
To get more eyes on it, just go into your email settings and make sure to link to your LinkedIn account in every email you send. Even if it’s a customer support message, in the email footer add “Find me on LinkedIn” and link it to your profile.
A lot of people will ignore this, but it’s so worth doing. All you need to do is set it and forget it. More eyes on your profile and more connection requests. Now you can organically reach them and establish a connection.
This one’s called the $1.80 strategy. Great way to grow a brand.
Search for relevant hashtags on LinkedIn. Go to the top posts under that hashtag. Leave your “two cents” as a comment. Every day, just leave your two cents 90 times, one dollar and eighty cents a day. People will appreciate what you’re adding to the conversation. This builds trust.
Break That Big Group into Lots of Small Groups
Most big businesses these days make three or four pieces of content a year, each of them at massive expense, and then they put the biggest budgets behind them to get the biggest audience.
But the more people you’re trying to reach, the more watered-down your message has to be.
Instead, break that big group into lots of small groups - make it 200 segments - and for each small segment make content about only that group’s wants and needs.
There’s power in content being specific to a person’s interests. You’ll get so much better engagement.
You might get scared because it drives up your CPM, the cost per thousand impressions.
But if you’re reaching millions you should worry, because then you’re getting too generic.
Ads used to be general. The biggest brands kept their slogans vague: Coca-Cola was “Open Happiness” and Skittles was “Taste the Rainbow.” They did this because it was one ad for millions of people, not millions of ads for hundreds of people. The medium could only ever reach the masses.
When you target people better, you make better sales. What it really means is that your message is resonating with that audience. The people you’re targeting are more valuable.
Businesses buy cheap impressions and wonder why no one does anything. They choose broad reach over any kind of interaction.
YouTube Ads with Targeted Search
A lesser-known advertising platform is YouTube ads with targeted search.
Google AdWords has always driven sales. People search Google looking for products to buy. But it’s just so expensive right now.
YouTube lets you show ads only to people based on what they searched for on Google.
Say you’re a plumber in Boise, Idaho. You make a video that opens by addressing Boise people, and then you show it only to people in the Boise area who searched for a plumber. It’s not a radio message beamed at everyone, it’s a targeted message going only to the right people.
This is the ad format I think has the most untapped value. It’s wide open right now.
About Delancey Street
Delancey Street is a premier, and award winning, business debt settlement company that helps business owners nationwide. Our goal is simple: help you escape debt in a safe and legal manner. Based out of New York, we can help in 49 of 50 states. We tell you how it is; because your business and future is on the line.
