How to Market Your Business on Social Media

If you go to your favorite search engine and type in something related to “number of impressions (or touchpoints) to get noticed,” you’ll find a range of results indicating that it can take anywhere from three to twenty times to see an ad or mention of a company before people feel comfortable making a purchase. 

The most common answer is five to seven times, but this can increase depending on the market, product cost, and the complexity of your product or service. You also want to make sure those “touches” aren’t just about buying. People want to get to know your company and get a taste of what you offer before making a buying decision. 

Social media advertising is a common part of marketing. Depending on the size of your business, you may have a monthly budget in the hundreds just for paid social or have an occasional advertising strategy for launches and brand awareness. Either way, social media has its place to effectively reach potential and current customers. 

We Help with Multiple Impressions

As you may already know and may have already experienced, we also offer Social Media Packages and a la carte options for advertising connected to our social pages, accounts, and boards.

When you can also dial in your market through paid social, directly on the platform, what are the benefits to having your ad posted by our marketers?

Here are the top three: 

1. Your ad is seen by a warm market loyal to The Old Schoolhouse® brand, thus engaged with its content. In comparison to generalized ad spots by the social networking platform, a strategic ad posting on our Facebook Business account has a greater likelihood of catching more receptive followers. 
2. Your ad can be designed to appeal to our researched demographics. No need for you to make multiple decisions on reaching the right market through ad targeting on the social media site. 
3. You have the expertise of our sales and social media teams, each knowledgeable about the frequent changes and pivots on each of the platforms, as well as tuned in to the graphics and text copy which would be most appealing to homeschoolers. 

What to Write and How to Write It

To make an impact with your text, you need to make the most of the limited word count and attention spans on social media. Follow these six text-writing tips to get the click through rate that will grow your business and connect you with customers who are looking for what you offer. 

1. Outline your text ad first by writing out some key words and phrases that your ideal audience relates to. No need to get specific on what you name your products or what your company offers. (That’s good stuff for the landing page; read below.) Use the words that your customer would use to describe the reason they spend money on your products. 
2. Make your first 4–5 words about the solution or positive experience you provide. This may be the perfect spot to put your Unique Selling Proposition (USP).
3. Fill up the word count with benefit-driven words. How do your products and services benefit your customers? Work in those words and phrases your target market would relate to. 
4. Be very concise with your wording and make your sentences simple. You want someone to be able to grasp the concept of your message quickly and easily. 
5. Use direct command words to tell the viewer what to do when they get to the landing page from the ad: browse, download, sign up, explore, review, etc.
6. The message shared in your ad should be consistent with the message viewers will get when they go to the link provided. The landing page is where you want to expand on the message in the text ad, share a few highlights about your products, and ideally offer them something for free in exchange for their email address. There’s nothing wrong with offering them a good price on your products either, when that fits with the message of your ad. 

The pros on our marketing team are available to help you tweak your social media text and graphics to make the most impact with the homeschooling audience. Take advantage of our Complimentary Professional Review Option, and submit your text and graphics no later than 30 days before your scheduled posting date. 

We offer this social media ad review at no cost for two main reasons: 

1. We know our audience, and we have collected a lot of data and knowledge from advertising our own products across various platforms as well as many others. We know the type of graphics and copy that work well on each platform—because each social media platform is not created equal.
2. We saw the need to help our advertisers create the best visual representation of their brand and products to appeal to our audience. There are also specific rules to follow on the different social media sites to comply with each platform’s advertising guidelines, which are constantly changing and not created equal.

There is no additional cost for this service. Your social media ad will be assessed when the graphics and copy have been submitted at least thirty (30) days before the scheduled posting date. A professional from our marketing team, who is extremely familiar with our audience engagement, will review the components and make suggestions. Feedback on text and graphics will be provided to improve each ad’s reach and impact. 

Here’s a brief list of some of the common mistakes we see in the review process:

• Too much text in the graphics—the image should do most of the talking.
• The image doesn’t clearly show what the product is or what it’s used for—a quick glance at the image should give viewers the main purpose of the product.
• Text doesn’t speak to homeschooling families—the wording needs to be relatable to parents who educate at home, even if the product isn’t curriculum based.

The regular changes on social media can be difficult to keep up with. We’re keeping informed  about that already and are happy to pass on the information you need to create an effective representation of your business. 

While social media can be busy, many people are checking their feed daily, and it is one of the best places to be seen multiple times through strategic ad posting. 

Want more information about how social media platforms check ads? Read about this and other best practices for social media advertising in our Social Media Ads: Best Practices Cheat Sheet.

Learn more about our advertising options through our mobile app and online locations to help you reach the segment of the homeschooling market that is right for your business.