Should You Invest in Paid Social Media Ads?
- Community Futures Howe Sound
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Anyone who runs a business social media account knows just how much Meta and LinkedIn push buying social media paid ads.
For busy business owners – and especially those who are relatively new to running social media accounts – it can be hard to know if it’s a genuine need, or simply a ploy to extract dollars from your bank account.
Here’s our guide on when paying for social media advertising can work – and when not to bother.
When to use paid social media ads
There are situations when paying for advertising on Facebook and Instagram (Meta) or LinkedIn can make sense.
Generally, paid social ads work best when you have specific goals in mind from your social channels. That could be new leads, an increased following, or simply sales.
And the good news is that you can invest as little or as much as you like. Just be sure to set up spend limits for your campaign so you don’t overshoot your marketing budget.
You would work to create a campaign specifically for your goal, with custom imagery or videos, and text. And on Meta at least, you can try out some A/B testing and optimize your campaign as you go.
As a rule of thumb, these kinds of paid ads are best for evergreen messaging, rather than a single event or quick sale.
Overall, paid social media ads are highly customizable and trackable, giving you screeds of data about clicks, comments, likes, and engagements, all to help you determine if you meet your goals and if it’s worth investing in again.
When to ‘boost’ an existing post
Another option when paying for social media ads is to simply ‘boost’ an existing post. This method requires little more effort than typing in your credit card details.
Naturally, the speed and ease of this option is ideal for busy business owners, or for those less confident in building the collateral for a full campaign.
Plus, this kind of promotion is considered to be great for improving brand awareness and increasing engagement with your profile. It’s also cost effective, and excellent for time-sensitive content (such as a sale), because standard paid ads can be a little slower to pick up and show returns.
On the downside, boosting a post is more limited in the targeting options you have. While you can still choose the demographics and interests of the audience you’d like to boost to, you won’t have the same ability to fine tune who sees the post.
Also on the negative side, boosting typically results in lower conversions (which is why it’s best for general awareness and promotions).
Importantly, keep in mind that if a post isn’t doing well on its own, it’s probably not a good candidate for a ‘boost’. Instead, look for posts that are already doing well, and select those to amplify further.
When not to bother with paid social ads
Is your social media already doing what you want it to? Pulling in leads, creating a relationship with your customers, and keeping your branding active and front of mind?
Then you probably don’t need to pay for social media ads right now. If anything, you could set small amounts aside each month to ‘save up’ for a paid campaign in future if there are certain products, services, or events you know you’ll want to promote further down the track.
There are countless ways to spend your business budget, but if your social media isn’t broke – don't fix it.
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