6 Paid Advertising Solutions for Small Business Promotion

John Meyer

The growth of social media as a major component of marketing has made online paid advertising a challenging and competitive forum for both customers and vendors. Falling under the heading of Native Advertising, this type of marketing is loosely defined as paid content presented in the same format as all other content on a given page.

For small businesses looking to promote themselves, native/online paid advertising is no longer an option, but a prerequisite — one that holds numerous possibilities and considerations. In an effort to sort through the clutter, what follows is an abridged version of major paid advertising avenues, all of which should be evaluated on their individual merits.

1. Promoted Posts – For promoted posts, (a paid service option on social media platforms like Facebook), content is pushed in front of as many followers as possible, thereby increasing the number of potential views over content that goes the standard route of hoping a post manages to attract the eyeballs of readers and prompt them to share it with their own social networks.

Promoted posts on social networking sites increase the odds of that content getting seen by the right people, helping them to build brand authority. High visibility with focus and targeting enhances the quality of small businesses’ content while maximizing the inherent bang-for-the-buck.

2. Display Ads and Text Ads – Display and text ads can find suitable homes with obvious paid advertising choices like Google AdWords, Bing, and Yahoo. In these venues, the content is complimented by streamlined search capabilities. In essence, advertisements are matched to highly targeted keywords with the end goal of attracting a more specialized viewership (than generic advertising) and subsequently yielding a better return on investment. The focus here is on quality not quantity.

3. Content Discovery Tools – Also worth considering are content discovery tools, such as Outbrain and Taboola. Resources such as these disseminate salient content to users, albeit utilizing a more global type of targeting methodology … in this case, quantity first, quality second. The advantage of such advertising is that its success is predicated on getting as many views on given content as possible, then letting the law of averages do its job.

4. Twitter Ads – Not to be forgotten amongst the competition, Twitter offers a unique form of advertising through its promoted tweets, accounts, and trends. With the Twitterverse operating at maximum capacity, all things Twitter have tremendous reach for dedicated users, and the trio of promoted resources focuses specifically on information sent and information received to and from the expansive Twitter audience.

5. StumbleUpon – Another paid advertising option is StumbleUpon, a highly customizable platform for users and marketers that is built around fine-tuning search parameters. The former can personalize viewable content as easily as the latter can target select demographics by using specific qualifiers. StumbleUpon is something akin to an on-line advertising sieve, where the desired content and audience is left after the filtering process is complete.

6. Reddit ads – For those looking to meld advertising with a genuine small community feel, Reddit may be the answer. Ads are designed to attract narrowly focused audiences and generate user comments, thereby passing along word-of-mouth feedback and referrals. Don’t be mislead by Reddit’s homey feel … the platform has tens of millions of users, all of whom make up countless cohorts of potential consumers for sundry goods and services.

Though the above listed six options are not the only choices for online paid advertising, they do represent a solid point of entry for small businesses to use accordingly. Once a company’s advertising message is defined, and its audience identified, the marketing content can be release through the online option that best meets its needs.

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