The Importance of Creative in Your Paid Social Advertising Strategy

You might be wondering how important creativity is in your paid social strategy. Social media has boomed over the past decade and you’ll find that most people are on at least 1 social media platform. The paid social team at Embryo understands that every social media channel is different, however, we know that one of the key integral parts of every paid social strategy is the creative.

I’m going to delve into the top platforms and discuss how crucial creative is to that channel and also what possibilities your brand has on each social platform. If you want to learn more on the specific opportunities in your industry feel free to get in touch with our team after you’ve read this blog by phone at 0161 327 2635 or email [email protected]. 

Pinterest is Built on Creative

Are images and videos essential on Pinterest? The short answer is yes. Pinterest is a creative platform, users go on there looking for visual inspiration. You won’t be able to upload pins on the platform or create campaigns without imagery. 

So, if you’re looking to launch on Pinterest both organically and paid then you need to access what imagery you have in the bank. Lifestyle imagery tends to outperform static product imagery, so it’s a good idea to look at your current portfolio and identify gaps in your creative.

Creative is the foundation of this platform so once you’ve got started there are endless possibilities to test with different types of creative. Use a mix of lifestyle imagery with product imagery that has a strategic CTA highlighted. Try out overlaying keywords on your images and test different styles of branding. You may find that a branded frame around a lifestyle image increases traffic but a more subtle logo in the corner drives better engagement.

When creating your Pinterest paid social strategy you can be as granular as you like when it comes to your creative. You can look to create boards that target upcoming trends or popular keywords that have worked on other marketing channels like Meta, Google and email. 

Types of Creative on Meta

There are many different forms of creative on Facebook and Instagram advertising. It isn’t necessarily always the static single image or the animated video. The creative for your ad can be pulled directly from your website, therefore the image chosen for your ad will be dependent on what the featured image is on the URL you’re using. 

So while it is important to use high-quality images for your campaigns, don’t forget that the images used on your website can also impact your paid performance if you’re relying on the featured image to be pulled from your website. Normally you tend to use this type of creative when pushing blog posts to encourage people to visit your website, which you can later retarget with your bottom-of-the-funnel (BOF) campaigns. 

Another type of creative you can utilise on Meta is using your product images. You will be able to use these types of images if you’re looking to create a dynamic carousel that pulls your products from the catalogue you’ve integrated with your ad account. 

You may have thought that the quality and quantity of your product image on your website would have little impact on your ads, however, if you’re looking to implement a dynamic carousel across your campaign then this will have a huge impact on performance especially when looking at your click-through rate of each ad.

We’d recommend using an image that will make someone stop scrolling as the first image for your products as this will be the image pulled through for your dynamic ads.

If you’re unsure about choosing the right creative for your ads and need clarification on the specifications, check out our blog The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Ad Creative which explains everything you need to know about the different media types you can use with Facebook and Instagram paid advertising campaigns.

Creative on TikTok

Like Pinterest, the foundation of TikTok is built on its users uploading video and image content. TikTok is a primarily video-sharing platform, however, you’re able to share multiple images that can be turned into an interactive carousel organically that is delivered as a video with music.

You can use images for your creative however it is best practice to use videos when looking at creating your TikTok paid social strategy. There are so many opportunities with video, one route is to look at portraying a story to your consumers, how can you bring them on a journey? Start with a pain point of theirs and look to solve this in the video, you can either stick to just using commercial music or you can incorporate text. 

Text in your videos can help the user understand what is going on in your video and you can take it a step further by overlaying an audio voice-over. People love people, so if you have the opportunity to film people or include voiceovers in your TikTok videos then this will work really well in terms of increasing the engagement on your ads. 

Importance of Creative on LinkedIn

Creative isn’t necessarily crucial on LinkedIn however it helps massively when it comes to engagement on your ads. Like the other social media platforms you have the usual static images, carousel and videos, while on Facebook you can boost organic posts which includes imagery on LinkedIn it’s not required to have this.

You can boost organic posts on LinkedIn that are just text, if you feel like you don’t have an appropriate image to accompany your post, however as you’ll see by most LinkedIn advocates, including creative helps massively for organic growth on the platform. 

So, if you’re looking to advertise on this platform you will need to look at the current style of your images. LinkedIn is professional compared to the other social channels so you may need to change the way you approach your creative. Unlike Instagram where you would prefer to keep your images more visual than text-based, you might find this strategy works especially well if you’re turning infographics into carousels for your LinkedIn paid social advertising.

Creative on Twitter

Twitter is quite like LinkedIn in terms of you don’t always need an image, video, or a carousel when advertising on the platform, however, it’s deemed as not best practice when creating your Twitter paid social strategy. 

Creative can be used to paint a picture, what takes a thousand words to get your point across can be achieved within a 15-second video. Think about how you can use the creative aspect of your ad to condense down your ad copy, you want to grab the user’s attention and the easiest way to do this is by utilising scroll-stopping imagery. Ask yourself if would you stop to read a post that has no image, and if you do, how often do you do this when the post is sponsored on Twitter? 

With the rise of TikTok, people want to consume as much content as possible as quickly as they can. Media is the easiest and most efficient way they’re able to achieve this. If you haven’t already incorporated different media types then look at what opportunities your business has, for e-commerce brands you can test different USPs, themes/styles, and product focuses to start with, and then seasonal events. 

Creative can massively affect your paid performance if your objective is brand awareness, like most platforms it’s cheaper to reach users when you have some sort of creative involved. You’ll see that the cost to reach a person will decrease and your engagement will go up. This is great if you’re looking to build up your audience data on Twitter. For those that engage with your business you can later retarget with a bottom-of-the-funnel ad that looks to get the consumer to purchase or enquire about your brands depending on what you offer.

Creative is an Integral Part of Any Paid Social Strategy  

So to summarise what we have discussed, social media as a whole is very visual compared to other marketing channels, Pinterest and TikTok are built on the principles that their users share pictures and videos, while on the other end for LinkedIn, it’s not a requirement but can help massively with your engagement and general reach on the platform. 

At Embryo, creativity is one of the most crucial pillars when we’re developing our paid social strategies. We can help you identify gaps in your creative across multiple social media channels by getting in touch with our team at 0161 327 2635 or emailing [email protected].