Image Credit: Flickr

By Lina Martinez

Once upon a time you could put up a massive billboard by the side of the road and attract thousands of people, normally bored passengers who have nothing else to do but look out of the window. These billboards would be amazing works in their own right and yet, though many still stand, the rules for creating a good billboard ad are very different from what they were.

WHY?

The Smartphone has arrived and now no one looks out of the window very much. They just look at their screens.

Social Media Advertising

Social media is a brilliant tool for creating refined ads that target only your specific audience. The intention is to make your audience as small and specific as possible in order to maximise the number of clicks you get through to your website or landing pages. Plus, if you can do it well, you should also use social media to share content organically encouraging more clicks and sharing.

There are lots of brands setting a great example for how social media marketing can be used to encourage their audience to share their content. Often some of the funniest tweets around are by brands who are interacting with their audience and posting things they know they will enjoy. It’s all about the audience.  

In-App Advertising

Lots of people spend a lot of time looking at their phones now, scrolling through social media feeds or playing games, even reading the news. This means that they are spending a lot of time on apps. It makes sense then that you would use something like  MoPub programmatic media to target these users with your own ads.

You can refine your audience on apps just as you can on social media, though you shouldn’t expect the same level of depth you get on the social giant, Facebook. The advantage, though, is that you can use real time bidding to make sure that you get the best spots to advertise, minute to minute using the MoPub Marketplace. This essentially gets your ads in front of the right people at the right time.

Mix Things Up

The thing is that modern consumers expect a whole lot more from advertisers than a simple ‘this is what it is, this is where you buy it’ type of ad. They are looking for story telling, something noticeable, something they can tell their friends about. This means that even if you are refining your audience perfectly and going where they go, you still need an interesting strategy to boost your social media marketing.

Video is increasingly popular and can be a good way to catch the eye and send a message in a few seconds. Similarly bright colors of the use of the bizarre can really draw attention and gain clicks. Whatever you do, you need to remember who exactly you are targeting, even if this means running multiple campaigns at once. You should already be on multiple platforms.

This is a new world of advertising. It’s personal, it’s refined.