5 Social Media Advertising Trends You Need To Know Now

Adrian Falk, Founder of Believe Advertising & PR | Helping Brands & Entrepreneurs Scale Fast With Affordable PR & Digital Marketing.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is well and truly becoming the go-to advertising type for brands of all sizes for its return on investment and ability to scale up and down, along with quick turnaround times.

Here are five trends currently making waves in the dynamic field of social media advertising for you to ride. While some of these relate to other platforms, because Meta advertising is one of the most popular PPC platforms, I’ll mainly focus on Facebook and Instagram ads for this article.

1. The Rise Of Short-Form Video Content

Video content just got a whole lot shorter. Everybody knows that short-form videos have taken the online sphere by storm. People engage more in content that is quick and easily digestible. TikTok set the standard for this style of content and, due to its high demand, Facebook and Instagram implemented this trend with features like Reels.

When it comes to your paid ads, often the shorter, the better. Users’ attention spans are becoming limited by the minute. The trend now is to have a series of different creatives spanning no more than 15 to 30 seconds to create top-of-funnel attention and then use longer-form video content for remarketing and pushing through your funnel.

2. Integration Of Generative AI In Ad Content Creation

The rise of artificial intelligence is enhancing user experiences on social media, too.

Now, with AI-powered advertising technology, a few clicks of a button can take a brand’s existing still image ad and rework its creative with different images, music and background—all with the objective of personalizing the content, leading to more optimized ads.

To get started with these features on one of Meta’s platforms, you can simply turn on or off the functions you want in Meta’s ad manager.

3. Use Of Messenger Campaigns

No longer are companies waiting by the phone for a prospective customer wanting to buy. Considering younger audiences prefer to text rather than call, many companies are turning to direct messaging (DM). DMs now go beyond a simple text exchange.

On the advertising front, when setting up a lead-generating campaign in Messenger, thanks to the power of AI, you can now have preformatted questions and answers that will populate to help any prospective customer engage with you and your brand. This means that you can wake up to Messenger conversations that have taken place without you having to answer and that have led to booked appointments in your calendar.

I have seen firsthand how a Messenger-based campaign can be a game changer for the tradespeople I work with. Often my tradespeople clients are on the tools, so they don’t have time to answer calls or reply to text messages, but now they can have their leads booked for a quote in their calendars instantly.

4. The Rise Of Micro-Influencers In User-Generated Content (UGC)

Brands are recognizing that users relate more to real, authentic influencers who may not have a big following (known as micro-influencers) but have a particular niche. With companies not having the big budgets they used to, gone are the days of the large celebrity endorsements for paid ads. Instead, companies are using UGC in their adverts.

In my experience, the most effective Reels are engaging, no more than 30 seconds and show off the advertiser’s product or service being used in real life—ultimately making the advertising organic and authentic.

5. The Rise Of AI Targeting

When Facebook advertising first started, many may remember the painful task of doubling down and micro-selecting niches and consumer traits to best serve your ads. Now, thanks to advanced technology, its targeting has become very accurate.

To reduce your campaign’s cost per lead and improve your return on investment (ROI) on Meta’s platforms, we’ve had a lot of success using the platform’s Advantage+ audience by default. This allows the platform to do all the heavy lifting when it comes to serving ads to the right audience.

Based on my experience in running ads for tradespeople, mortgage brokers, buyers’ agents and even gyms, I have seen firsthand the benefits of using AI targeting technology, which seems to be getting better by the minute.

With accountability becoming even more paramount than ever, brands are looking for advertising and marketing campaigns that deliver a strong return on investment. Staying up to date with these digital advertising trends will enable you to make your advertising dollar go even further.

Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?