Branded Pages Lead Social Marketing Efforts

Business owners looking to get the most out of social media advertising do not need a big budget to do so. In fact, new research has found that most businesses rely predominantly on creating branded pages when marketing their businesses on social media.

That is good news for small businesses, considering those Facebook pages are free to set up. Overall, 73 percent of respondents say they have created a branded page and post messages on that page in an attempt to market their business, a new eMarketer report found.

Companies have good reason to focus on those branded pages. Additional research by social media marketing research firm Lab42 found that half of Facebook users say they find brand pages more useful than the company's website. That research also found that people were more likely to follow those pages to receive special offers and build their connection with that brand.

Businesses are also looking to take full advantage of social media marketing by buying ads on several platforms and paying to promote content across a number of social networks. Businesses also say they have built branded apps and created product pages to market their company.

All that activity has pushed estimates of social media ad spending to $4.2 billion for this year, up more than 31 percent.

"But brands are looking deeper than just pumping money into targeted display ads delivered on social media platforms," the eMarketer report said.

Instead, brands are focusing on creating engaging content when marketing on social media. Sixty percent of companies say they create multiple advertising forms when advertising on social media. Additionally, companies say they take advantage of targeted advertising by catering ads toward a specific group of consumers. Companies also say they utilize testing and automated bid management tools when creating ads.

The research was based on the responses of advertisers who had spent at least $100,000 on social media ads annually.