When executed properly, social media marketing (SMM) campaigns, including platforms like Facebook and Instagram, can significantly enhance a company's sales while simultaneously improving its visibility and recognition on popular social networks.

It's important to distinguish, for example, that a Facebook Ad campaign is not the same as managing a Facebook Business Page profile or optimizing it for consumers and search engines.

Facebook and Instagram Ads (also known as Meta Ads) are a distinct type of advertisement from a company's Business Facebook or Instagram Page, thus requiring a unique set of success strategies.

There are several aspects to successful advertising on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram Ads:

1. Advertise One Product Or Service Per Ad

Choose a specific product or service to advertise.
General sales or services advertisements rarely work for social media ads.
Success is typically achieved when a specific product or service is promoted.
If there are multiple products or services to advertise, create a separate ad campaign for each one.

2. Provide Something For Free

Offer to solve a problem for free; provide something small, but valuable, at no cost.
Customers appreciate being tempted with a free sample of what they will receive.
Depending on the industry and the product or service for sale, the lure should solve, or attempt to solve, a minor problem with the promise of more solutions for a reasonable fee.
If offering consulting, consider providing a preview of what will be learned from the advertised program.
Pay attention to fan pages and discussions about what's wrong or could be improved.

3. Display Personality

Showcase your personality and culture.
Customers don't just buy the product/service; they buy into the people providing it.
Whether it's an individual consultancy or a larger firm, show users the enjoyable yet professional side of your company culture and the personalities within.

4. Charge For Additional Solutions

It's common knowledge that a business has bills to pay.
Companies can't give everything away, as much as they might want to.
Offer to solve more problems for a fee.

5. Start Small & Expand Gradually

Begin with a small campaign that fits within a manageable budget.
When executed properly, small campaigns can generate additional revenues that can be reinvested into larger campaigns as growth and sales allow.

6. Target Audience

Any campaign is about presenting the right offer to the right person at the right time.
Identifying the audience most likely to respond to an ad is the key to success.
Just as "Location, location, location" is crucial for a physical storefront's success, so is "Audience, audience, audience" for any online or offline advertising campaign.

7. Generate Opportunity

While offering a free sample may often attract people, creating an opportunity will motivate them to purchase more.
Provide potential and returning customers with incentives and opportunities by offering discount codes, buy one get one deals, etc.
The type of opportunity and incentive that will be most appealing depends on the industry.

8. Effective Landing Page

A successful landing page will draw attention and guide the consumer through the process using appropriate CTAs (calls to action) to finalize the offer.
With social media ads, there should be no distractions or links that could detract from the message or cause users to navigate away from the offer.

9. Maximizing The Thank You Page

The Thank You page is often underutilized.
If someone has just provided their information to sign up for an offer, they have demonstrated genuine interest.
This interest should be leveraged to provide additional opportunities for immediate action.
Encourage them to "act now" from the Thank You page with an additional discount, free shipping, or another incentive.

10. Follow-Up

All ad campaigns should incorporate some form of follow-up for a better return on investment.
Follow-up using email campaigns, marketing automation, or digital footprint follow-up services (like Google’s Remarketing Ad service or Facebook Retargeting Ad).
Such follow-up tactics keep the advertisement in front of people, continuously reminding them of the offer; not everyone buys the first time they see an ad.

Campaigns that adhere to these guidelines as a foundation for all social media marketing (SMM) will have more effective and successful paid advertising campaigns with Facebook and Instagram Ads, as well as other social media platforms.

This 3-part series continues next week with "Crafting a High-Performing Landing Page (Part 2 of 3)"