Social media is the fuel that drives marketing and sales. If you have an existing presence on one of the major social networks like Twitter or Facebook, you can expect to see an increase in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. Social media marketing can easily be a highly dynamic powerhouse which solidify brand, generates quality leads, and speeds up sales. Or, it could be a time-consuming, task-orientated mess. The trick is to understand how to strategically execute, carry out, and track the overall strategy with metrics that matter.

Social marketing is an excellent way to increase targeted web site traffic and attract new customers to your business. By developing a consistent marketing mix of content, emails, & social adverts, you can improve your ecommerce conversion rates. However, to achieve your desired ROI levels, you need to carefully measure all marketing channels to ensure you are getting the most out of your marketing dollars.

Social Ads vs. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Social ads are a great way to get in front of followers while you are building organic search engine rankings. They’re also a great way to promote content marketing, which is often overlooked by ecommerce owners. As you know, content marketing is an effective way to not only draw in new customers, but also retain repeat customers once they’ve been introduced to your business. So why ignore these two important marketing pillars? Here is why you should use social ads to complement SEO:

More bang for your buck Social media marketing campaigns that incorporate a variety of high-converting ads/search results will produce more return on investment (ROI) in the beginning of your campaign. This means your advertising budget is invested upfront as opposed to re-investing it back into other forms of advertising later down the line. Many marketers who do not properly plan and execute their advertising campaigns over a long period of time to run into large advertising costs. As a result, when you begin your campaign, you will likely have a smaller advertising budget to work with.

Longer lasting impact Social media advertising campaigns tend to be more long lasting as well. Because you are investing your money in advertising and promoting other businesses, you want to make sure that all of your efforts are able to be seen by your audience. Most of the best SEO methods will not only allow you to target a specific group of buyers based on interests, hobbies, or current lifestyle choices, but you will also be able to measure statistics easily. Many of the best PPC services will offer tracking so that you can constantly monitor the success of your campaigns and spot any content that is not performing as well as you’d hoped. This is especially true in the case of SEO and PPC campaigns.

Brand consistency There is little question that social media advertising is a highly effective way to promote brand interests. Through your social media channels, you can easily build trust and brand consistency. You can also easily provide consumers with insights about your products, as well as engaging them in conversation. The most successful branding efforts will often incorporate a mix of strong brand messaging as well as effective promotional techniques. If you want to achieve consistent sales gains, you must focus your efforts on your most effective channels.

Targeted ad targeting Unlike traditional media, social advertising allows you to focus your resources on the people who will most appreciate your promotions. Unlike most other forms of advertising, you can target a specific group of potential buyers with great ease. You can focus on your target audience through segmented search results and ad targeting. You can segment your audience based on age, gender, geographical location, and other factors. This means that when you are considering your target customers, you should consider every demographic detail to ensure that you are reaching your potential customers with ads that will bring in the kinds of sales that you want.

Consistent sales There is no doubt that social media marketing is an effective way to promote brand interests in a crowded marketplace. Social media marketing takes on an even greater importance as the days grow shorter. If you want to get the most out of your advertising dollar, you have to make sure that you are focusing all of your marketing efforts on the most likely buyers to drive your business. By taking advantage of the opportunities afforded by social media targeting, you will find that you are not just reaching your target audience with ads, but you are reaching buyers who could be your best prospects and future customers. This is a winning combination for anyone interested in driving consistent sales.