Everyone’s got questions about social media. The changing nature of social networks makes it almost impossible to keep up. Whether you’re looking to build brand awareness or increase leads through your social ads, you need to stay on top of the latest updates, making sure your brand shines boldly in front of your audience. But what’s the secret? Our Paid Media Analysts, Ben and Gemma, directed a bite-size learning session dedicated to answering frequently asked questions around getting your brand out there on Facebook and Instagram (which you can watch right here). But for now, let’s delve into the Q’s and A’s.  

What is a lookalike audience?

A lookalike audience is a way to expand your reach outside of your existing customers. Facebook looks at the unique characteristics of your audience and finds people who share those characteristics. From film to flower picking, the reach to find similar audiences is massive. Just remember, you can create a closely matched audience or a broader audience depending on the objectives of your campaign.

If you’re looking to increase brand awareness, a broad lookalike audience will cast your net wide with the potential to catch nibbles from similar but not identical audiences. 

If you’re looking to target a specific audience, you’ll want to create a closely matched lookalike audience, meaning they share the majority of the characteristics of your current audience. This is useful if your campaign aims to sell to a specific customer. By streamlining your audience, you can focus your budget on those who are likely to convert, resulting in a higher CTR (click-through-rate) and help you to reduce your CPC (cost-per-click). 

Is there an optimal video length for ads on Facebook and Instagram? 

The shorter, the sweeter. We recommend snackable content between 10-15 seconds. But how do you know if this is the optimal length for your audience? Will it achieve the objectives of your campaigns? The solution? Test, test, test! As with any good marketing strategy, you need to test and optimise your campaigns. If your audience isn’t following your CTA (call-to-action), whether it be clicking through to your website, calling your shop or following your account, your video might be too long for them to reach your CTA. Test out a shorter version and see if that leads to the results you want. 

What happens when your audience is super engaged? Once you’ve captured that initial engagement and your audience is just dying to know more about your brand, it’s time to retarget them with longer video content to really bring the message home.  

What are our tips for creating reels and other content on Instagram?

Keep your content rough and ready. Think like an Instagram user – how would they create content? Would they have a flashy camera, a filming crew and a team of editors behind it all? Probably not. From experience, corporate creative doesn’t perform well on Instagram. ‘Grammers want to see native content in their feed. That means content that fits the style of the platform, like UGC (user-generated content). Include real people and stories in your approach. Perfection doesn’t produce results on Instagram.

What do you make of changes to targeting options? 

If you missed the telegram, Facebook has made some changes to what you can target on the platform. Meta wants to improve its advertising ethics, such as not using the data of those under 18 years old. This means we have to adapt the way we target audiences through Meta’s platforms. The good news is that updates like this keep us on top of our game. As advertisers, changes like this force us to think outside the box to reach audiences ethically and without breaching any rules.

Does Twitter have a place in the marketing mix? 

We’ve shown our love for Facebook and Instagram, but should you also be focusing your resources on Twitter? To make advertising waves on Twitter, you need to understand the platform. It’s a conversational channel that deals with current topics, so you need to be responding to these topics to be seen on Twitter. In short, it all depends on your brand and how flexible and reactive you can be to industry news. If your brand can leverage the caffeinated, fast-paced nature of Twitter, then go ahead. But if your brand is corporate, you might want to steer clear of Twitter and stick to decaf. 

Stay tuned for our Q&A roundups for TikTok, Snapchat and LinkedIn. Until then, If you need help with your advertising strategy on social media, get in touch with our advertising experts.