Social media marketing: what brings customers, platform by platform

Organic or paid: two different jobs

When someone says “we need to get better at social media,” they usually mean one of two things. Either posting regularly on the company’s own profiles, or buying ads that reach people who don’t follow you. The first is content work. The second is advertising with a budget, an audience and numbers per krone.

We only do the second. We make ads and run them on Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and Snapchat, and we don’t manage companies’ organic accounts. Not because organic is a waste, but because we only want to charge for what we can measure.

When organic pays off

• When the product is visual and people share it, like food, interiors, clothing or the results of skilled trades.
• When someone in the company enjoys filming and posting, and does it anyway. Then it is free content that can also be used in ads.
• When it builds trust before the purchase, for example when a customer checks the profile before she calls.

When it doesn’t

• When customers search for you when they need you, like a plumber, move-out cleaning or a locksmith. Then Google is the first channel, and social media comes after.
• When nobody has time, and the posts become a chore three times a month that nobody sees.
• When the goal is sales this month. Organic reach for business profiles is small. If many new people are to see you, you have to pay for it.

Our advice to established businesses: keep the profile alive with what you actually have (photos from jobs, people, customer quotes), and put budget and effort into ads that can be measured.

Platform by platform

Facebook and Instagram

Facebook and Instagram run from the same ad system, Meta Ads Manager, and usually in the same campaign. You make the ads once, and Meta shows them in the feed, Stories and Reels wherever they perform best. This is where most of our clients spend most of their social media budget, and where we have the most numbers.

Two examples from online stores: Mokki, which sells sunglasses for children, had 4.88x ROAS on Meta and NOK 214 per purchase in March 2026. QualiPet got 10.3x ROAS on Meta during a sales campaign in September. It was an offer, so that figure is not an average for the account. How to get started and what it costs is covered in Facebook advertising for businesses.

Snapchat

Snapchat was a new channel for Mokki in March 2026. That month it delivered 8.65x ROAS and NOK 123 per purchase, better than Meta in the same period. That is one data point from one online store, not proof that Snapchat beats Meta, but it shows the channel is worth testing when your customers are there. The ads are full screen in 9:16, so the same videos as for Reels and Stories can be used, with text kept away from the top and bottom where Snapchat puts buttons and names.

TikTok

We don’t run TikTok ads, so we have no numbers to show. The videos we make in 9:16 fit the format, so if someone runs your TikTok, they can be used there. “tiktok annonsering” (TikTok advertising) gets around 50 searches a month in Norway (Google Keyword Planner, Oct 2026), so the interest is there, but we don’t recommend channels we haven’t tried ourselves.

LinkedIn

We don’t run LinkedIn ads either. For B2B, LinkedIn can be right, because you can target by job title and industry, but we have no numbers of our own from there. How we think about B2B on Google and Meta is covered in B2B marketing.

What works creatively

On Meta and Snapchat, the ad matters more than the audience. The algorithms find the people themselves if the content stops them. That is why we spend most of our time on the ads, and make 10+ new ones a week per client. Over 5,000 so far. This is what we see working:

• UGC: a person talking straight to camera, filmed on a phone, with a script we write and edit ourselves. It looks like what people otherwise see in their feed. More on UGC.
• Statics: simple images with the product, the price or a customer quote. They are quick to make, so we can test many angles. Mokki’s CMO, Mattis Ohana Goksøyr, on statics we made: “Wow, even statics working this well! Great job, fantastic.”
• Motion graphics with voiceover: animated ads with a Norwegian voice, made without filming. How we make them.
• Review ads and catalog ads: real customer reviews, and product catalogs for online stores.

Three rules we always follow

1. The hook in the first second. A real product, a real result, a situation people recognise, or a number. Pretty typography on an empty background stops nobody.
2. The right format. 9:16 for Reels, Stories and Snapchat, 4:5 and 1:1 for feed. On a 1080×1920 video, all text sits between y=400 and y=1520, so it doesn’t end up under the buttons.
3. Real people and real claims. We never show a person who isn’t the one speaking, and we take claims from the client’s own website. For clinics we never use before and after images.

A plan for a business starting with paid social

The order we would spend the budget in, for an established business with no social media ads today:

1. Tracking before ads. The Meta pixel and Conversions API must record real leads and purchases. Without it, Meta optimises for clicks and impressions.
2. Google first if people search for what you sell. Services people look for when they need them usually get the cheapest customers from search. Then social media becomes step two. Google Ads or Meta Ads?
3. Meta with one ad set and 3–5 ads. A broad audience within the area you serve, the budget kept together, and different angles: UGC, a static with a price or offer, an image of the result.
4. Retargeting people who have visited the site. People who have seen the product but haven’t bought or got in touch.
5. Snapchat as a test once Meta is working. Use the same 9:16 videos. Compare cost per purchase or lead against Meta after a few weeks.
6. More ads when the budget can carry it. Replace the weakest and test new angles regularly. On a small budget, ten new ads a week each get almost nothing.