In the growing age of social media, researchers are scrambling to study how effective advertising on social sites really are. Research by SEO and paid search PPC firms find that users do spend time clicking paid ads on social networking sites. Some studies show that users look at the paid ads before clicking on the actual search results. In a recent study, 65% of participants clicked on sponsored ads during the first ten seconds of their search. But what does it mean and how are these studies useful?
These results are surprising and shows that social media has changed the way people normally search online. Traditionally, users look at search engine results starting at the top left hand side of the page and move downwards to the right. The first few search results that appear at the top or near the top of the page are most likely to be clicked. But this isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to search results on social networking sites. Users typically pay more attention to pay per click advertising before they scroll down to look at the fourth or fifth search engine result.
Since this is a growing online trend, it means that more research needs to be done in order to effectively understand how users respond to advertising patterns on social media sites. Facebook advertising can be a helpful tool for your company but you need to keep some things in mind:
- Do your research and perform an updated analysis on competitors and consumers. The more you know about how they behave, the better.
- Tests, tests, and more tests. Testing your ads will help you differentiate the winners and losers.
- Keeping track before and after an ad campaign. It is important to take notes on how much traffic you’re receiving before and after a campaign. Without numbers, it is impossible to quantify whether your efforts have been successful. If the results aren’t as good as you’d like, your notes will help you learn from mistakes
