Mobile marketing and social media rule the marketing world. There are billions of social media users across the globe. Add to that the fact that almost all of these people use mobile devices to access the Internet, and you can clearly see why marketers are focusing on mobile and social media marketing.
If you’re not leveraging social media for your mobile marketing campaign, you’re making a huge mistake. Smart use of social networks can maximize the results of your mobile campaign. It helps you boost brand awareness and get more engagement, just to name a few.
Still wondering whether you should include social media in your mobile marketing strategy? Here are some benefits you should consider.
Top Benefits of Using Social Media for Mobile Marketing
- Access to a large audience
- Ability to connect with your audience on a personal level
- More engagement
- Effective user targeting
- Increase in sales
- The possibility of going viral
- User-generated content
- Easy to track results
How to Use Social Media for Mobile Marketing?
There’s no doubt your mobile marketing campaign can get a significant boost by leveraging social media. The two go hand in hand.
To get started, read these tips for creating a superb mobile and social media strategy. I have also included great examples for each tip to show you how it’s actually done.
Choose the Right Social Media Platform
To maximize the effectiveness of your mobile marketing strategy, you first need to choose the right social media platform.
Let’s say you want to target 40 to 50-year-old males with an interest in cars. I can bet you a million bucks you won’t find many of them on TikTok or Snapchat.
Your safest choice for this type of audience would probably be Facebook. However, it is important to mention that, when it comes to social media, there are constant demographic shifts. For example, according to App Annie, TikTok’s share of younger users is decreasing by the year. This can only mean one thing – older generations are also starting to use this platform.
Make sure you know who your target audience is and what social media platforms they’re on. Once you choose one or more networks to focus on, it will be much easier to create a winning mobile strategy for social media.
Optimize Content for Social Media and Mobile
What’s crucial for utilizing social media in your mobile marketing campaign is that you optimize all content you post. Not only does the content need to be mobile-friendly, but it also needs to follow format guidelines for each social media platform.
According to Statista, as much as 98.3% of users access Facebook via mobile devices (among other devices). A majority of them, 81%, do it from mobile phones only in 2021. That being said, it is more than clear where to put your optimization efforts. Even though Facebook has a desktop version, you should create all content and ads with mobile users in mind. For example, if you create a photo for Facebook that looks awesome on the desktop, it doesn’t mean it will look good on mobile.
The same goes for the type of content you post. If you want to optimize social media for mobile, you need to think about the users. For example, users don’t want to read extra-long posts on mobile. They also prefer short video content rather than very long videos.
Also, make sure that you create content that suits each individual social media platform. For example, the type of content and language you should use is much different on LinkedIn than it is on Snapchat.
Get Personal and Connect with Your Audience
Connecting with your audience is key to getting great results on social media. That personal touch is something that goes a long way and is very appreciated by users. Never forget the social aspect of social media.
Think about how you can make your mobile marketing campaign more interactive. Start a conversation with your audience – it shows you care about their opinions. Plus, it’s also a great way to get an insight into their interests. You can even create Facebook Groups to connect with people. The key is to get personal with your mobile campaign.
Coca-Cola did just that with their mobile social media campaign called Share a Coke. You have probably noticed Coke bottles with different names. That campaign was geared towards social media users. The ads featured the hashtag #ShareaCoke. It invited users to take a photo with their Coke bottle and share it on social media. That resulted in hundreds of thousands of user-generated photos which made the campaign go viral on social media.
Encourage User-Generated Content
Not all of your advertising content has to come directly from you. You can also encourage your social media followers to do the job for you.
User-generated content is any kind of brand-related content that users create and post on social media.
Generally, users like to see content coming from other “real people”. This is because it feels more authentic and trustworthy. For these reasons, user-generated content can help boost your social media engagement rates.
For this reason, you should encourage any type of value exchange.
Currently, one type of user-generated content is trending – video. A lot of brands are asking their users to participate in different challenges or competitions. This is a common practice on video-focused social media platforms like TikTok.
Use Paid Social Media Campaigns
Today the majority of overall social media traffic comes from mobile phones – in the U.S., the mobile share stands at 83% (Statista). Since all major social media networks also work as ad platforms and are optimized for mobile, this is something every mobile marketer should utilize.
All major social media ad networks also offer an array of targeting and bidding options, as well as ad formats. The only thing left on you is to
Facebook is the leader in paid social media advertising with a wide range of targeting options, ad formats, and ad placements to choose from. The ad formats on Facebook include image, carousel, collection, instant experience, and video ads.
Also managed via the Facebook ad platform, Instagram ads are perfect for mobile marketers as this is a mobile-focused platform. Here, you can also choose between plenty of formats: photo, video, carousel ads, as well as Instagram stories and stories canvas.
Another important mobile advertising platform is Snapchat. Here, you can find 6 different ad formats with unique features such as engaging filters and augmented reality. If your target audiences are Millennials or Generation Z, this is where you want to place your ads.
Another platform perfect for reaching young audiences is TikTok. With approximately 1,1 billion monthly active users, you don’t want to miss out. It offers a variety of ad formats for your ad to appear in the feed. If you’re looking for more details, check out our TikTok advertising guide.
Get More Engagement with Mobile Video Content
According to Statista, video advertising revenue will reach $35 billion by 2024. Most of this will come from mobile video ads. Social media played a crucial role in the growing popularity of mobile video ads.
The thing is, video content is very engaging and attention-grabbing. A moving image will almost always be more interesting than a photo. Generally, users pay more attention to video than other content types. According to Facebook, they pay 5x more attention to video than static content. For this reason, 92% of marketers highlighted the importance of video in their advertising strategy (Smartsinsights).
When it comes to mobile video for social media, there are some best practices for mobile video ads. Here are some tips that will work for any kind of business:
- Highlight important features at the beginning of the video
- Include a call to action
- Make it short and clear (15 to 30 seconds)
- Create several variations of the same ad
Most importantly, these videos should grab the users’ attention and make your product look interesting. In order to achieve this, you should do proper market research, write a video ad script, and produce quality videos.
When I say variations, I mean test different elements. It can be anything from call-to-action, copy, duration, colors, to aspect ratio. Sometimes, a small element like this can make all the difference.
3 Examples of Mobile Video Ads for Social Media
To show you how it’s done, I’m going to show you 3 great examples of video social media ads. As I have mentioned before, optimizing social media content for mobile is crucial. These brands do it well.
VSCO
VSCO app had a cool video ad for Instagram. It’s quite simple, but it showcases all the main features of the app. The users get a taste of what the app is for and how to use it. That’s one of the most important things when showcasing a new app.
As you can see, the video ad is optimized for Instagram video ad format and it looks good on smartphones. It’s short and instantly grabs the attention of users, which is also a plus.
The New York Times
Here’s something a bit different. The New York Times went for a social media ad that uses only text and it’s highly effective and eye-catching. Because it’s quite different and unique, it instantly grabs the attention of Instagram users.
It shows you that you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on super expensive video production. Sometimes it’s all about minimalism and simplicity. However, you do need to have a great video ad idea.
Once again, the video ad is meeting Instagram’s format guidelines. Plus, it looks great when watched on mobile devices.
DRM Bracelets
This is an example of an Instagram Story video ad. As you can notice, the Story ads are full-screen and mobile-friendly. It includes the copy, brand logo, products, and finally a CTA (in this case it’s “swipe-up” since it’s a Stories ad).
It’s all the most important ingredients for an ad in just a couple of seconds. Instagram Story video ads are a great format because they bring you a lot of engagement and you can easily track the performance of your ad.
Want to see more examples of social media ads? Check out these 5 great and not-so-great Facebook ad examples.
Partner Up with Influencers
If you want to take your mobile marketing campaign to a new level, you should get in on influencer marketing. Influencers are producing amazing results for all kinds of brands on social media.
According to Mediakix, Instagram is still the most popular influencer marketing platform. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t use other social networks if it fits your goals better. The key is finding an influencer that shares your target audience, has influence in your niche, and a great connection with followers.
We’ve also created a guide for using influencer marketing for mobile campaigns.
An Example of Influencer Marketing Campaign on Instagram
Boat shoes brand Sperry created a great influencer marketing campaign by partnering up with hundreds of micro-influencers. They searched for Instagram users who were already fans of their brand and made a deal with them to create content for their Instagram page.
This is an interesting strategy because they didn’t go for one or two macro-influencers, but hundreds of micro-influencers. That resulted in a lot of great content that gave Sperry a lot of exposure and an increase in brand awareness.
A Summary of Mobile Marketing and Social Media
No successful mobile marketing strategy is complete without social media. The two should be integrated. According to research by The Manifest, social media apps are the most frequently used apps. So if you want to reach mobile users, you’ll find them on social media. As simple as that.
What’s your experience with using social media as a part of your mobile marketing campaign? If you need any help, reach out in the comments below.
Comments