Paid Social Advertising: Scaling Your Business Through Social Media

Paid social advertising is a powerful digital marketing strategy that helps businesses expand their reach, boosting awareness through targeted adverts directed at customised audiences and gaining valuable insights.

It is an essential component of a successful digital marketing strategy.

You might be wondering why paid social advertising matters, well the benefits of it include targeting a wider reach, gaining more visibility, enhanced brand awareness and in depth market insights through the targeted advertising.

By using paid social advertising businesses can target specific demographics, interests and behaviours making your advertising strategy more efficient and beneficial.

If you’re looking to grow your brand online, paid social advertising is a game changer. 

What is Paid Social Advertising?

Paid social advertising involves businesses paying to promote their content to a specific target audience on various social media platforms.

The target audience consists of demographics, interests and behaviours. 

• Paid Social: Businesses invest in ads to reach a specific audience, drive leads and increase conversions. 
  
  

• Organic Social: Content shared without paid promotions that primarily reaches an existing audience but is not guaranteed to be shown in their feeds, the platforms may show your posts to a wider network of users based on algorithms.

Why do Businesses use Paid Social Advertising?

Businesses turn to paid social advertising, for its numerous benefits:

• Quick audience reach: Paid ads provide instant exposure

• Scalable & Flexible: Campaigns can be adjusted based on budget and goals. 

• Measurable: Social media analytics help to track ad performance, and optimise campaigns for the best results

• Cost effective: compared to traditional advertising, paid social is a lot more cost effective

Why Paid Social is Great for Business Growth

Paid social advertising is a great tool for business growth because it allows brands to instantly connect with their target audience ensuring that their message reaches those most likely to engage with their continent. 

Unlike organic posts, which rely on unpredictable algorithms, paid advertising guarantees visibility, driving engagement and brand awareness. 

With improved targeting options businesses can refine their audience based on certain desired characteristics, such as interests and behaviours maximising the chances of conversions.

 You can also collect measurable results, offering valuable data about your target audience allowing businesses to optimise future campaigns.

While organic helps build long term relationships, paid social advertising improves reach and impact delivering a strong return on investment (ROI) 

Best Platforms for Paid Social in 2025

Choosing the right platform for paid social advertising depends on your target audience, business goals, industry and advertising format preferences should guide your decision.

The following are the most popular platforms for paid social advertising:

Facebook & Instagram (Meta):

Meta is best used for B2C, building brand awareness and recognition, capturing attention of the ideal target audience, promoting products and services, driving leads, sales and revenue. The best audience for this will be 18-65+ year olds, you can target a broad demographic that can reach across the world.

LinkedIn:

LinkedIn is best used for B2B to drive engagement and leads for brands on a professional platform, showcases niche products and services to professionals. The best audience for this is 25-55+ year olds and businesses who are promoting professional products or services.

TikTok:

This platform is best used to increase brand awareness, engagement, promote products and services using viral challenges, influencers, interactive content, targeted hashtags, drive sales and revenue. The best audience for this is 16-40 year olds, trend conscious consumers, content creators and influencers.

Snapchat:

Snapchat is best used to increase brand awareness and engagement through immersive and interactive ad formats. You will be able to reach a mobile first audience and use UGC to create authentic brand experiences. The best audience for this is 13-24 year olds, who are digital natives.

How to Create Effective Social Media Ads

When you’re ready to creative effective social media adverts, you will need to keep three main factors in mind:

Writing Copy: Will need to be clear, engaging and action driven. Instead of listing the features of your product or service, highlight the benefits that it provides.

Audience Targeting: Utilise the demographics, interests and custom audiences that you have in mind. You can change this if you find it isn’t successful.

A/B Testing: Test different headlines, images and Call-To-Actions to optimise the performance of the adverts.

How to create the adverts themselves:

1. Define goals

2. Identify target audience

3. Choose the right social platforms

4. Set advertising budget

5. Create eye catching ads

6. Use precise targeting for better ROI

7. Analyse and optimise ads

Why You Should Consider Working With a Social Media Advertising Agency?

A dedicated agency that specialised in social media advertising could be key to the growth of your business.

Experts in social media platforms and creating high performing campaigns on these platforms. You can focus on the operations of your business whilst the agency handles the management of the adverts. 

Agencies use premium analytics and tools, so you can get the most out of your campaigns, whether this with the results or ongoing performance of these ads.

Advantages of working with an agency:

- Expertise and strategy

- Saves time and resources

- Access to advanced tools

If your business is struggling to see results from your current ad campaigns, you lack the time or expertise to manage ads effectively or you’re looking to grow and want expert guidance, you should hire Surge to kickstart your paid social advertising journey, or improve it today!

Conclusion

Paid social advertising is an essential strategy for businesses looking to grow within the social media world today. It offers benefits like reach, praise targeting and high ROI, making it one of the most effective forms of digital marketing.

It doesn’t matter the size of your business, if you’re looking to increase brand awareness or high converting adverts or something else, investing in paid social advertising is a smart move.
 

Partnering with a professional agency ensures your campaigns are optimised for success. Contact us today to start seeing results!

FAQs

What budget do I need?

Budgets vary but even small investments can drive results with the right targeting .

Which platform is best for my business?

That depends on your industry, audiences and goals but typically for B2C instagram/ Facebook, B2B linkedIn, TikTok to target and engage with younger audiences.

Is paid social better than organic?

Paid ensures immediate reach whilst organic takes longer but builds long term engagement.

How do I measure my return on investment (ROI)?

Track key metrics like click-through-rates (CTR), conversion rates, return on ad spend (ROAS).