Staying ahead with your social media strategy is important for every business. However, getting your marketing in front of your desired audience on media platforms is becoming increasingly challenging. Sometimes your content needs a little boost. These advertisements allow you to target the audience you want and get more people to see your post. 
You will also need to decide on an objective for your ad or promoted post. Are you looking to generate leads, get people to download a content offer, or start a free trial? In which case, make sure there is a clear call to action.
Copy that is compelling, raises a question or uses humor can help get people’s attention. A visual element or video is highly encouraged, and increases your chances of having the ad shared.
Here's a list of social media advertising platforms that exploded in 2016 to get you inspired and heading in the right direction.
Facebook is clearly a heavy-hitter when it comes to social media with over 1.6 billion users. You can choose the demographic you want to target with your ad, as well as the goal of the ad, such as website traffic or page likes. Facebook also tracks engagement, reach and other metrics so you will know how your ad is performing.
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- Google’s Cloud Platform:
- SurveyMonkey:
- Pardot Email Marketing Guide:
- Quip:
Aha Labs:
One of the great things about Twitter is that there is constantly something new. Tweets come and go practically as soon as they are written. This poses a challenge for marketers who are trying to use Twitter to promote their content or brand. Using paid promotion on Twitter makes it so that your best content gets in front of your desired audience. It’s a great option for businesses trying to target their local area because of the ability to filter geographically.
- DotMailer Lead Nurturing Guide:
- WordStream AdWords Performance Grader:
8. 10th Magnitude:
- HubSpot Academy:
Instagram has experienced incredible growth and now boasts 500 million active users monthly, making it a great option for advertisements. Instagram’s new business tools make it easy to create an ad from within the app. Ads are targeted to users interests based on their likes and follows (the same applies with Facebook). Instagram ads are integrated with the rest of the posts in a user’s feed, making them feel more organic and less disruptive.
- Blinkist:
- Made:
Hootsuite reports that LinkedIn is the only social networking site that has a higher usage among people aged 50 to 64, than other age groups. So if your buyer persona fits within this group, you need to be promoting your company on LinkedIn. Notably, 7 out of 10 professionals find LinkedIn to be a trustworthy source of content, so this platform should be a place to promote your premium content offers and blog posts or videos. You can segment your target audience by job title, industry and company size or geographic area.
- HubSpot:
Promoted pins on Pinterest are another option for advertisements. Advertisers using Pinterest Ads Manager on average received 20% more clicks in their first month after beginning the campaign, according to Buffer’s State of Social Media report. Pinterest now also includes the option to make a pin buyable, so users can purchase the product they’ve discovered.
- West Elm
