Tej Rekhi, director of innovation strategy EMEA at Sizmek, offers advice to companies looking to harness the power of social advertising. 

Based on the amount of time consumers spend using social networks, the opportunity is massive for mobile advertisers. On average, people spend 30 minutes a day on social networking sites via a mobile device. From my personal experience, my wife spends nearly three hours a day on Pinterest alone. This is the reality for today’s marketers (and for husbands like me).

Research reveals that 75 per cent of Twitter’s monthly active users are accessing the site from mobile devices and mobile accounts for 65 per cent of all its ad revenues. Facebook recently reported that mobile ads now make up a staggering 41 per cent of its total ad revenue.

Brands are struggling to find the best way to engage with consumers through social media. So how can you find success through social advertising? Your strategy should not be limited to increase likes or even shares. It can be (and this is a good place to start), but there are other ways to take full advantage of the capabilities of social networks. Here are some best practices for using social media as an advertising outlet.

Seize the moment
The advantage of social media is its immediacy. Social campaigns take just hours to set up and launch. Contrast this with online campaigns, which take weeks, and traditional TV which can take months. An Oreo social media team on site at the Superdome was able to turn a disaster into a successful promotion. When the power went out in the Superdome for 34 minutes, Oreo took the headlines by tweeting “Power out, no problem! You can Dunk in the Dark”. Viewers apparently loved Oreos message, which was retweeted 10,000 times in one hour.

Go for a multiscreen strategy
More and more consumers are using smartphones while watching TV as well, so the so-called “first screen” is often closely associated with a second screen. According to Nielsons 2012 State of the Media report, nearly 41 per cent of tablet owners and 38 per cent of smartphone owners use their devices while watching television.

One of the best ways to take advantage of the social media opportunity is to have a multi-screen approach that combines offline and online advertising. Unilever Lipton Iced Tea ran break bumpers in Britain’s Got Talent on TV, with ads on Facebook at the same time. A McDonald’s campaign invited viewers to guess which of the two Super Bowl XLVII rivals would successfully compete for their new chicken wings. The TV spot ended with a black-out prompting viewers to guess the winner by using the hashtag #MightyWings

Offer sharable content
If the message included in a promotion is compelling, viewers will share it. The traditional purchasing funnel goes from big to small, but in the digital world, a new funnel opens up over and over again each time someone shares the content. A campaign that includes sharable content doesn’t just create new fans, it also brings in new customers.

People remember and connect with stories, not facts, so promotional material on social networks doesn’t need to look like ads. Videos, photos, deeper insights, and digital tangibles (downloads) are all great, and can help drive engagement.
All content available via social media has to go through a process of being optimised to get people’s interest not only from a content point of view but also visually. Successful viral content typically has a catchy headline, eye-catching graphics, and content formatted to be visually appealing. It also typically includes key search terms to ensure that the content will be picked up by search engines.
Sharing thoughtful, timely, iconic pieces is important, since its being seen alongside content from friends and family.

Measure KPIs: you can’t manage what you can’t measure
Everything you are doing should be measurable and have a benchmark for success. The success of social media advertising needs to be measured and compared with display media, paid search and other types of campaigns to determine what is the optimal media mix. These benchmarks need to be unique to each social platform to enable planners to define the best format, and types of ad creative to leverage social/mobile platforms.

For example, a recent HP campaign enabled interaction with the company’s target audience using rich media within Facebook and Twitter feeds. This campaign resulted in 30 times more impressions and 2.5 times more clicks, compared to normal page posts. This information is critical for future media planning and creative directives.

The opportunities in social media are still evolving. There are now more integrative tools that streamline posting and monitoring which provide valuable information for planning across media. More time will be spent by consumers on social media, and it will be used even more as a resource for information about organisations, products, and services. And it will be the key to getting the greatest ROI in the long-term. Those companies that already started in 2013 will start seeing the fruits of their labour in 2014. Happy pinning, posting, and tweeting!

Tej Rekhi is director of innovation strategy EMEA at Sizmek