What is advertising on social media?
Advertising on social media, often called paid social, means paying to appear in the feed on Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat. Unlike search, where someone is already looking, the ad interrupts a feed. This guide explains how the platforms differ, how audience targeting works, and why the creative decides more than the budget.
By Angelica Sandblom · Partner and specialist· Published · Updated Our view
Platform follows the business, not what is popular. On social you capture no search, so the creative has to earn the attention itself. And you own the accounts, the pixel and the audiences, not the agency.
What advertising on social media is.
Advertising on social media, often called paid social, is paid ads shown in the feed between posts on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat. It differs from organic presence, where you build a following and appear without paying, and from search advertising in a fundamental way:
- The ad interrupts, it does not capture. No one is searching for you. The ad appears while someone scrolls for other reasons, so it has to spark the interest from zero.
- The accuracy comes from data about the person, not from a keyword. The platform knows age, interests, behaviour and who resembles your customers, and shows the ad to them.
- It creates demand instead of capturing it. That is why paid social is strong early in the journey, when someone does not yet know they need you.
Advertising on social media↗ and organic presence solve different things: the paid buys reach now, the organic builds a relationship over time. The most common confusion is to think that more followers automatically means more customers. Reach without targeting the right audience, and without a creative that makes someone stop, is paid visibility no one remembers.
The platforms and what they suit.
Each platform has its own logic, audience and price tag. Putting the budget where your customers actually are is half the job:
- 01Meta (Facebook and Instagram). The broadest reach and the most developed targeting. Strong for B2C and local commerce, works for B2B in the right hands. Instagram skews younger and more visual, Facebook older.
- 02LinkedIn. The obvious channel for B2B. Targeting by job role, industry and company, but more expensive per click than Meta. Worth the price when the audience is specific decision-makers.
- 03TikTok. Strong for reach to younger audiences and for content that feels genuine rather than polished. Requires its own creative format, a repurposed TV commercial rarely works.
- 04Snapchat and niche channels. Snapchat reaches a young audience in certain segments. Pinterest and Reddit can be right for specific niches, but rarely the first channel to test.
Meta↗ and LinkedIn↗ cover most business needs between them, B2C and B2B respectively. The temptation is to be on every platform at once. Better to start where the buyer is, learn what works, and broaden when the first account carries its weight. Platform follows the business, not what a competitor does.
How targeting works.
The strength of paid social is that you can choose exactly who sees the ad. Three types of audience carry almost all the work:
- Cold audiences are built on data the platform already has: age, location, interests, behaviour. That is how you reach people who do not yet know you.
- Lookalike audiences find new people who resemble your existing customers. You upload a customer list or let the pixel learn who converts, and the platform looks for more like them.
- Remarketing reaches those who have already been with you: visited the site, added to cart, watched a video. They are the warmest and convert most cheaply, but require the pixel to be in place and measuring correctly.
All of this rests on the pixel, a snippet of code on the site that measures what visitors do. Without it the targeting is blind and remarketing impossible. The pixel, the account and the audiences are yours: change agency and they come with you. An agency that builds audiences in its own account takes your most expensively earned asset with it when the cooperation ends.
Why the creative decides.
On search, relevance wins. On social, the creative wins. Since no one is looking for you, the ad itself has to earn the second of attention, and that makes the creative the biggest lever you have:
- The first seconds decide. In a feed the ad is gone if it does not catch immediately. The message and the image in the first seconds matter more than the budget behind it.
- Format by platform. What works on LinkedIn falls flat on TikTok. Vertical video, a genuine tone and the platform's own language beat a repurposed brochure.
- Creative fatigue is real. The audience tires of the same ad, and performance drops. New variants to rotate in are not a luxury, they keep the account alive.
- Testing beats opinion. Which creative wins is rarely possible to guess. Running several variants and letting the data choose is cheaper than betting everything on one idea someone was sure of.
This is also why paid social is rarely a one-off job. An account left on autopilot with the same ad slowly declines, and the decline is often misread as the channel being saturated when it is really the creative that has died. Decision support, not status: a good report shows which ads carry and which should be replaced, not just that the reach went up.
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Write to us →Frequently asked questions about advertising on social media
What is advertising on social media?
Advertising on social media, often called paid social, is paid ads shown in the feed on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok and Snapchat. Unlike organic presence, where you appear for free to your followers, here you pay to reach a chosen audience. And unlike search advertising, the ad interrupts a feed instead of capturing an active search, which makes it strong for creating demand.
Which platform should we advertise on?
It depends on what you sell and to whom. Meta (Facebook and Instagram) gives the broadest reach and suits most B2C businesses. LinkedIn is the obvious channel for B2B, more expensive per click but accurate against job roles. TikTok reaches younger audiences and rewards genuine, platform-adapted content. Start where your customers are, not on every platform at once.
What does advertising on social media cost?
The price is set in an auction, just like in search, and is governed by how sought-after the audience is and how relevant the ad is. You set the budget (the cap), the platform sets the price per view or click. LinkedIn is typically more expensive than Meta because the audience is more specific. A relevant creative to the right audience lowers the cost, a blunt one raises it.
What is the difference between organic and paid social?
Organic social is building a following and appearing for free to them, which takes time and builds a relationship. Paid social is paying to reach a chosen audience directly, including people who do not follow you. They complement each other: the organic builds credibility over time, the paid buys reach now. This guide is about the paid side.
Do we own the ad account and the audiences?
With us, yes. Business Manager, pixel, audiences and data are yours, regardless of who runs the advertising. Change agency and it all comes with you. It is especially important for paid social, since lookalike audiences and remarketing lists are often the most expensively earned thing you have. Some agencies build them in their own accounts and take them along, which you want to avoid.