7 Most Popular Social Media Advertising Types in 2022
Suhith Kumar RN - October 22, 2021 - Leave your thoughts.
An abridged version of this article first appeared on WeVideo. Read it here.
In 2022, content deluge is not concentrated in one space or platform. If you’re a digital marketer, it’s almost idealistic to think: “Which platform is less competitive and so more conducive for my content to grab eyeballs, get engagement and drive user action?”
The numbers offer evidence:
- Three-hundred and fifty thousand (350,000) tweets are sent each minute
- Five-hundred and ten thousand (510,000) comments are posted on Facebook each minute
- Six-hundred and ninety-four thousand (694,000) videos are watched on TikTok each minute
- More than five billion snaps (images and videos) are created on Snapchat each day
This avalanche of content, and the subsequent challenge in standing out from the crowd, is the main reason behind the ever-increasing decline in organic reach on social media platforms.
A question-and-answer thread on Facebook explains the same in detail:
“More and more content is being created and shared every day. You’ve probably felt this change yourself. Just a few years ago, sharing important moments and experiences, articles you’ve read, and photos and videos of your loved ones was a relatively labor-intensive process. Today, thanks to devices like smartphones, many people can share this content with just a few swipes of the finger or taps of a button.
“As a result, competition in News Feed — the place on Facebook where people view content from their family and friends, as well as businesses — is increasing, and it’s becoming harder for any story to gain exposure in News Feed.
“The second reason involves how News Feed works. Rather than showing people all possible content, News Feed is designed to show each person on Facebook the content that’s most relevant to them.”
Moving from an all-organic strategy to a combination of organic and paid social media strategy requires:
- Planning
- An awareness of your target demographic and their geographic location
- A budget to make your ads generate a substantial ROI
In this article, we aim to explain the different types of social media advertising, tips, and more.
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Types of social media advertising
All major social platforms, from Facebook to TikTok, offer a wide array of advertising options that help brands directly reach the audience who are most likely to convert.
It is, however, paramount for brands to understand:
- Who is their target audience?
- Which social channels are the most popular with their target audience?
- What pain points does the target audience face and that they can solve?
- What sentiment needs to be conveyed through advertising?
Knowing your audience and their preferred channels is an important part of creating relevant ads that convert. For example, data as of July 2021 informs us that 9.4 percent of total active Facebook users are women between the ages of 18 and 24-years-old. On the other hand, TikTok is popular with teenagers, who account for 25 percent of the active user accounts in the United States.
Facebook advertising
Not only is Facebook the biggest social media platform in terms of active users per month (2.80 billion), it is also one of the foremost in helping B2B and B2C brands accomplish a wide range of campaign goals.
Facebook ads help brands generate brand awareness, gain leads, nurture them, and convert them into customers.
RELATED: How To Create A Facebook B2B Ad Strategy
Types of Facebook ads
The platform offers 11 different types of ads:
- Post engagement
- Page likes
- Video
- Event responses
- Offers
- Lead generation
- Carousel
- Slideshow
- Image
- Instant experience
- Collection
How should you approach Facebook advertising?
Facebook offers close to a dozen different ad formats, the campaign goals of certain ad types do overlap.
To narrow down your options, start by defining the goal of your Facebook ad campaign, such as:
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive website traffic
- App installs
- Video views
If brand awareness is your goal, you must choose one of the two awareness objectives - brand awareness and reach. This is designed to display your ad to the maximum number of people, based on the budget you’ve set.
If you want to drive website traffic and get people to click through to your website, then you must choose “traffic” as a consideration objective to accomplish your goal.
The Facebook app ads (also known as app installs) campaign is a targeted way of reaching an audience who are most likely to download your app.
Whatever your campaign goal, Facebook’s wide array of ad types will help you reach the right people at the right time, and drive the desired user action.
Instagram advertising
At the end of the year 2020, Instagram’s global user base reached one billion per month and, as per this article, the figure has been breached four years ahead of earlier forecasts.
The platform is best for advertisers aiming to appeal to an audience in their teens and early-twenties as Millennials and Gen-Z make up the majority of the users.
Instagram is dominated by visual content (images and videos), but advertisers are still able to accomplish different campaign goals:
- Increase brand awareness
- Increase audience engagement
- Showcase brand and organization culture
- Drive traffic to websites and landing pages
- Get app installs
While it should go without saying, campaigns that incorporate visual content tend to perform well on Instagram.
ALSO SEE: [Infographic] How to Take Advantage of Video Marketing on Instagram
Types of Instagram ads
Instagram ads can be broadly classified into six types:
- Photo
- Video
- Collection and shopping
- Explore
- Carousel
- Story
How should you approach Instagram advertising?
Instagram ad campaign setup is similar to Facebook, but advertisers must bear in mind a few key tactics to drive their campaign targets.
Create audience lists: Focus on gathering a list of audiences that will engage with your ads. The lists can be built from email sign-ups, followers, pixel tracking, and more.
Integrate custom images: Use custom images of real-life people instead of stock photos to increase brand authenticity which is key to power the success of your campaign.
Make irresistible offers: A compelling offer is an inherent part of all ad campaigns, but visual-heavy Instagram makes it particularly essential to provide your audience with something irresistible.
Optimize hashtags: The platform is entirely driven by hashtags, so make sure you’re using as many relevant hashtags to your ads so that it is discovered easily and by people to whom the ad is relevant.
Pinterest advertising
Pinterest is a highly visual platform itself, with 454 million monthly active users worldwide.
As per Statista, 71.1 percent of Pinterest users are female, with only 15 percent of the audience being men.
It is the go-to advertising platform for ecommerce brands and for brands whose product line is targeted towards a female audience. Pinterest helps people curate and save ideas that might, in many cases, lead to purchasing.
Advertising on Pinterest offers several benefits, including:
- High user engagement
- Audience intent to identify and buy creative products
- Drive app installs
- Drive traffic to individual products
- Drive website traffic
As advertisers, it’s vital to understand the different Pinterest ad types and know your advertising options before running a campaign.
Pinterest ads appear just like regular pins (images, videos, and collections), placed on the homepage of Pinterest users.
Types of Pinterest ads
The platform offers five different ad formats:
- Collections
- App installs
- Video
- Carousel
- Shopping
How should you approach Pinterest advertising?
To generate maximum ROI from your Pinterest advertising campaigns, you must ensure your ads follow certain key tactics.
Stay on top of trends: Keep on top of the posts shared by competitors, be aware of trending searches, and know what products are generating the maximum buzz. Use these to guide your ad campaign strategies.
Be elaborate: Pinterest is not too dissimilar from search engines: people come to the platform to gather new ideas and information to guide their purchasing decisions. Therefore, ensure you include long and in-depth descriptions, along with relevant hashtags and keywords, so you are easily found.
Be careful with linking pins: Ensure the page that you want users and prospective buyers to click through is indeed the right destination.
Use creativity to stand out: People on Pinterest are scanning through thousands (if not more) of pins in quick succession. Creativity is the only way to make your ads and pins stand out, grab attention, and drive the intended user action.
LinkedIn advertising
LinkedIn is a social networking platform that is centered mainly around the business-to-business (B2B) market.
People come on the platform to predominantly find business services, to connect with brands, co-workers, and professionals from across industries. As of 2021, LinkedIn has 310 million monthly active users worldwide, with the total number of professionals on the platform nudging the 700 million-mark. People in the age bracket of 25-34 account for the majority (60.1 percent) of users of the platform.
LinkedIn is the best platform to generate leads for B2B brands, given its higher conversion rate and a lower cost per lead compared to other advertising platforms.
In addition, LinkedIn advertising helps you in several different ways:
- Reach a professional audience
- Narrow down your audience with industry-specific variables such as job position, industry, organization, and more
- Lower barrier to entry
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Types of LinkedIn ads
The platform offers three different types of ads:
- Sponsored content
- Sponsored InMail
- Text ads
How should you approach LinkedIn advertising?
To accomplish your advertising goals on the platform, ensure you follow certain principles.
Create crisp, short copy: Keep your ad copy short and easily digestible - for LinkedIn users prefer shorter, crispier messaging compared to other platforms.
Target groups: LinkedIn groups offer the maximum value for advertising on the platform. Leverage them with ad campaigns targeted towards relevant groups.
Focus on solving professional challenges: LinkedIn users are typically looking to climb the corporate ladder and propel their career graphs. Your ad campaigns will bring a high ROI if you they address professional challenges.
Twitter advertising
Twitted turned fifteen in March 2021 and the graph is only going up in terms of popularity with a wide demographic audience.
People in the age bracket of 25-34 account for 38.5 percent of Twitter’s global audience. As per data, the platform has 206 million monetizable daily active users worldwide.
Part of the reason for Twitter’s soaring popularity is that it enables moment-to-moment sharing of experiences with a character limit of 280. It is also the platform where users get first-hand access to breaking news, with almost real-time insights into global events.
Twitter, it can be said, is underutilized when it comes to advertising. But the benefits are manifold for advertisers keen to take advantage:
- Low cost-per-click (CPC)
- Tailored audience
- Tweet engagement targeting
- Keyword targeting
Types of Twitter ads
Advertisers can set up four types of ad campaigns on Twitter:
- Promoted tweets
- Promoted trends
- Promoted accounts
- Website cards
How should you approach Twitter advertising?
To get the most out of your Twitter ad campaigns, you must follow principles specific to the platform.
Use eye-catching, relevant images: Ensure the image provides context, draws attention and fits your brand. According to Twitter, tweets that have images receive an average of 35 percent increase in retweets (RT).
Direct engagement: Twitter helps foster a direct connection between businesses and consumers. Designing ad copies with user engagement as the main focus is a great way to engage and convert your audience.
Short and sweet wins every time: Brevity is the name of the game on Twitter. That applies to the ad copy, landing page, and others.
Snapchat advertising
For youth-focused brands, whose target audience is made up of largely millennials and Generation-Z, Snapchat is one of the popular platforms for advertising.
Launched in 2011, Snapchat is a relatively new social channel that allows users to exchange images, videos, drawings, and text (called snaps).
As of the second quarter of 2021, the platform has 293 million daily active users worldwide. Another piece of data that’s essential for advertisers is this: on a given day, Snapchat reaches 41 percent of 18 to 34-year-olds in the US.
Advertising on Snapchat offers brands wide-ranging benefits:
- Advanced targeting
- Engaged audience
- Low budget setup
- Goal-based and automated bidding strategies
- Industry-specific advertising solutions
Types of Snapchat ads
Businesses of all sizes can take advantage of Snapchat ads to reach a target audience and accomplish their advertising goals.
The six different types of Snapchat ads are as follows:
- Single image or video ads
- Filters
- Lenses
- Story ads
- Product catalog ads
- Commercials
How should you approach Snapchat advertising?
To generate maximum value from your Snapchat ad campaigns, you must employ strategies specific to the platform.
Create visual-rich content: Snapchat, like Instagram, is a visual-heavy platform. Incorporate eye-catching visuals that contain high-quality images and engaging videos, along with a crisp, easily digestible copy.
Use shoppable augmented reality lens feature: Snapchat’s AR lenses are one of the powerful features. Whether you are an ecommerce brand, a gaming company or a fast-food chain, use the AR feature to provide an immersive experience for potential buyers.
Incorporate user-generated content: Include user-generated content as part of your Snapchat advertising strategy to not only improve the conversion rate but also add a touch of uniqueness.
TikTok advertising
TikTok is not only one of the newest social media platforms (having been launched in 2016), it’s also the fastest-growing. With 800 million monthly active users worldwide, its user base is way more than that of Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
TikTokers can record and share short videos that are 15 seconds to one minute in length. Along with that tiktokers can also watch their history under the watch history tab.
TikTok, too, is a platform popular with millennials and Gen-Z, with 10 to 19-year-olds making up 32.5 percent of users.
Brands that advertise on TikTok gain certain key benefits, such as:
- A diverse audience demographic
- Lower cost of ad setup
- High engagement
- Increased brand exposure
- Authenticity
Types of TikTok ads
Advertisers can reach a varied audience demographic with the five different types of TikTok ads:
- In-feed video
- Brand takeover
- Branded AR content
- Hashtag challenge
- Custom influencer package
Related: 13 Graphic Design Trends in Digital Marketing You Cannot Ignore
How should you approach TikTok advertising?
Generating a high ROI on any social media platform involves best practices. If you’re advertising on TikTok, the strategies outlined below are essential.
Review campaigns for inspiration: To understand what works best on TikTok, review previously-run brand campaigns of competitors and brands in your niche. This will not only help guide your own campaign setup but also provide a peek into audience engagement.
Browse Discover tab: Visit the Discover tab to take stock of trending topics. This is a great way to also identify hashtags related to your brand.
Influencer campaigns: Don’t ignore the power of influencer marketing on TikTok, which is a great platform to promote your business with content with a high potential for reach.
How you can run your social media advertising campaigns
Brands with a dedicated social media strategy can run their social media campaigns in three different ways:
- Manually
- Automated software
- Through social media agencies
Manually
One of the cost-effective ways to run a social media campaign is to manage them yourself or within your team.
Not only will you be able to allocate the entire budget to advertising and focus on generating maximum ROI, but it will also allow you to learn and build your own expertise.
This is best for companies with in-house social media marketers with deep expertise in online advertising, and that don’t wish to spend a portion of the budget hiring an agency.
Automated software
Yes, your social media campaigns can also be fully automated, thanks to native and third-party tools that aid effective management and seamless performance tracking.
Facebook for Business, Twitter Ads, and LinkedIn for Business are three native advertising tools that help marketers track their ad campaigns, optimize them, and report essential metrics. HootSuite, Sprout Social, and Sprinklr are some of the third-party software that also help manage social media advertising campaigns.
These tools save you precious time that you’d otherwise spend in manually optimizing your ads for different channels.
Through social media agencies
It is arguably the easiest way to run your social media campaigns. Hire an agency, communicate your advertising goal, inform your budget, and get your ads set up.
If you have chosen the route of outsourcing, you will have plenty of time to focus on your core tasks and KPIs, while the ad agency concentrates on generating the ROI for you.
Outsourcing can help generate outstanding results, albeit it can be expensive too.
Conclusion
Social media platforms, with their wide array of targeting options, enable online advertisers to reach the right people at the right time and generate high-quality leads. From Facebook to TikTok, advertisers have access to a handful of channels to reach their target audience and accomplish different campaign goals.
- Facebook offers 11 different types of advertising that range from generating brand awareness and app installs, to generating website traffic, downloading e-books and more.
- Instagram offers six types of advertising that help advertisers accomplish campaign goals such as increasing their page followers count, driving app sign-ups, website visits, et cetera.
- Pinterest offers five advertising options that allow advertisers to drive user engagement, generate traffic to individual products, and more. What sets Pinterest apart from most other platforms is that it’s better at driving purchase intent from its users.
- LinkedIn, which is one of the most powerful social platforms for B2B marketing, offers three different advertising options. Advantages of LinkedIn advertising include its low barrier to entry and the option of narrowing down your audience based on their job title and other professional details.
- Microblogging platform Twitter offers four advertising options. Benefits include a low cost-per-click, keyword targeting, and a higher audience engagement.
- Snapchat offers six different types of advertising, while the platform’s key benefits are its highly engaged audience, a low-budget setup, advanced targeting options, among others.
- TikTok, which is one of the newest social media platforms, offers five different advertising options. The benefits of advertising on the platform are its diverse audience demographic, the ability to radiate brand authenticity, increased brand exposure, and more.
- And finally, you can run and manage yourself social media advertising campaigns in three ways. You can choose to do it manually, use an automated software to optimize your campaigns and save time, or hire an agency to run your campaigns.
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