Types of Social Media Ads for Your Influencer Marketing Collaborations

Social media ads have revolutionized the way brands collaborate with influencers to promote their products or services. They offer a unique opportunity to reach and engage with a larger and more diverse range of audiences, maximizing the impact of your campaigns and driving meaningful business results. 

This article will explore the benefits of using social media ads in your influencer marketing campaigns and delve into a few different types of social media ads that you can leverage to achieve your marketing goals. 

The Benefits of Using Social Media Ads for Your Influencer Marketing Collaborations

Before we share a few popular types of social media ads that you should be using as part of your influencer marketing collaborations, let’s take a look at some of the benefits that this advertising strategy can offer your brand.

Social media ads are paid advertisements that appear on social media platforms and are designed to promote a brand, product, or service to a specific target audience. 

Social media ads can:

• Expand the reach of your content beyond an influencer's existing followers, helping you connect with a larger audience and increase brand awareness.
• Amplify and reinforce your campaign’s key message, helping you drive increased content engagement.
• Target specific audience segments, ensuring that your influencer content is seen by the right people.
• Drive measurable results and ROI for your influencer campaigns, allowing you to track clicks, conversions, and other key metrics.
• Give you more control over the content and key messages shared by influencers. This makes it much easier to align your influencer collaborations with your overall marketing strategy so that your content resonates with your target audience.

Types of Social Media Ads You Should Be Using

Although social media ads can be a powerful standalone marketing tool, when you combine them with influencer marketing, the benefits can grow exponentially. Most notably, as we saw above, you can reach even more people with your influencer campaigns, target more precise audience segments, and gain increased control over your campaigns. 

But which types of ads are best for this?

With this question in mind, we are now going to explore 3 popular types of social media ads. We will explain what they are, why they work so well, and how you can leverage them effectively.

Sponsored Posts

A sponsored post is what might first come to mind when you think of influencer marketing. Basically, this is a type of social media ad that has been created by an influencer and paid for by a brand to promote a product, service, or campaign. These posts are typically marked as "sponsored" or "#AD" to ensure transparency with the influencer's audience. 

A good example of an effective sponsored post is the partnership between Kylie Jenner and Puma in which Jenner posted a sponsored Instagram photo promoting the brand's shoes, with the hashtags #PUMA_Ambassador and #PUMAPartner. This sponsored post helped Puma increase brand visibility and sales. 

Here are a few tips to help you with this type of social media ad:

• Select an influencer that aligns with your brand's values and has an engaged audience that matches your target demographic.
• Work closely with the influencer when you create a sponsored post to ensure that their content aligns with your brand's messaging and aesthetic.
• Clearly communicate your campaign goals and what you expect from the influencer, including content format, messaging, and timeline.
• Track the performance of your sponsored posts and adjust your strategy as needed to maximize ROI.

Product Reviews

Product reviews are a type of social media ad where an influencer receives a product in exchange for creating and sharing a review or demo through their social media channels. Product reviews can be an effective way to generate buzz around a new product launch and drive sales.

A good example of an effective influencer product review is the partnership between beauty influencer James Charles and Morphe Brushes, in which Charles posted a YouTube video reviewing the brand's eyeshadow palette. The video received over 10 million views and helped to increase the visibility of the Morphe Brushes brand.

Here are a few tips to help you with this type of social media ad:

• Select influencers that have a natural affinity for your product and are considered experts in their field so that the review is authentic and relevant to their audience.
• Provide the influencer with a product sample so they can experience it for themselves and create an authentic review.
• Provide a clear product brief. Clearly communicate what you want the influencer to focus on in their review, including key features and benefits of the product.
• Track the performance of your product reviews and adjust your strategy as needed to maximize ROI.

Giveaways

Giveaways are a type of social media ad where an influencer hosts a contest or promotion on their social media channels, offering a prize in exchange for engagement from their followers. Giveaways can be an effective way to increase brand awareness, grow your social media following, and drive engagement.

A good example of an effective influencer giveaway is the partnership between fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni and Lancôme, in which Ferragni hosted an Instagram giveaway for her followers to win a set of Lancôme beauty products. To enter the giveaway, followers had to follow both Ferragni and Lancôme on Instagram, like the giveaway post, and tag a friend in the comments. The giveaway generated a lot of engagement and excitement among Ferragni's followers, with thousands of entries and comments. It helped to increase the visibility and reach of both Ferragni and Lancôme and provided an opportunity for the brand to showcase its products to a new audience.

Here are a few tips to help you with this type of social media ad:

• Offer a prize that is valuable and relevant to your target audience.
• Set clear guidelines and rules for the giveaway, including what actions followers need to take to enter.
• Use paid social media ads to promote the giveaway and reach a wider audience.
• As with all other types of social media ads, monitor the performance of your giveaway and adjust your ad where necessary to boost your ROI.