In today's world when looking to maximise results for your PPC campaigns - paid social media platforms are becoming ever more popular with business owners. There are several benefits to social media avenues as opposed to traditional PPC platforms such as AdWords, and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation),

This article will look at and scrutinise the top 5 benefits of paid social media marketing.

1: Targeting your Audience

For PPC campaigns to run efficiently targeting the correct audience is an absolute must to attain relevant clicks and conversions. Google AdWords features some custom audience settings, that do tend to scratch the surface in comparison to social media platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn. LinkedIn now has sponsored content ads, this feature allows custom audiences to be built to target factors like seniority, turnover and more. For lead generation this is a rather epic tool allowing for specified target audience settings to be included into the advertisement. This allows you to target senior decision makers on a business to business level.

2: Versatile

A feature that all paid social platforms have is their own ad types and uses, to further engage with your target market. Opposed to the reliance of a PPC platform they show more versatility. These days image ads, video ads and mobile focused ads allow for strong paid campaigns that engage the user straight away on one of the most commonly used social media platforms.

In comparison to LinkedIn on the other hand this tool is ideal for specified lead generation with settings to harness your target audience. Instagram is the social media site to really emphasise your brand this is one the most engaging platforms to use. One of the leading social media platforms to date this is instant brand awareness. The ability to integrate and link these social media platforms is a great way to maximise the strengths of all paid social adverts, and be a great tool for analysing areas that are working and other areas that need improvements.

3: Cost

PPC (Pay Per Click) adverts across Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram can provide many clicks and impressions for a small budget and the right PPC agency managing an account can utilise these to their full advantage. Depending on the type of campaign being run the budget for the overall project can vary. There are many budget management tools that cater for quick adjustments and customisation across all paid social campaigns, this helps sticking to budget a lot easier.

4: Potentially Going Viral

This typically happens across other social media platforms such as Twitter, where the term viral has been used many times meaning where someone posts or shares an interesting or funny ad, which then gains huge success in terms of exposure resulting in likes and furthermore shares.

This can be used by companies in attempt to reach a very large audience in a short space of time. Going viral by either posting a video/page/ and sharing this to a larger audience is easier said than done and sometimes businesses can waste valuable time and other resources attempting to make the next big hit. In many instances videos with high success rates have been merely stumbled upon by coincidence and has caught the attention of the social media platforms users worldwide. Sometimes having great content is useless if not engaging with users who would want to share their experience of watching /reading your video/post.

5: User Feedback / Building Rapport

A great niche and opportunity for businesses to truly engage with their customers and even potential customers which no PPC campaign can do. As well as your target audience clicking on your advertisement, they can also engage with you and other social media users by writing comments, liking and sharing the ad like an organic social media post.

With no additional cost this is one of the main reasons to take advantage of paid social media today. Never has a business had the ability to build a strong brand relationship with their consumers, endless amounts of positive media attention and Public Relations shared in the community. Even if your adverts are not received very well to start with by your target audience, Having the feedback option will help you and your business future projects and will tell you all the do's and don'ts for your next media campaign.