Of course, you are well aware of search engines like Google and Bing as most likable places for brands to advertise but are probably unaware of Social Networks that now offer their own advertising programs. Advertisers who now use Social  Media PPC  are most likely to be tapping into the buying (as well as viewing) habits of Generation Y (those born after 1980), the generation that are most comfortable with internet use and so are most comfortable, too with online buying.

However, since the principal players in the social media advertising market consist of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, it may be worthwhile to take a quick peek at each of these.

Facebook Ads

Facebook’s PPC platform is supposed to be the most popularly used among the three mentioned above that offers advertisers the most user-friendly interface. Apart from outshining at collecting data which an average advertiser can leverage to ensure that they are targeting the right market in terms of age, sex, location, etc it proves effective even for small businesses with very limited budget.

What is more, the ad format in Facebook Ad allows you to sync images and text together, while letting you test your ads to find out which one suits best before your campaign is launched. When viewing from a brand building point of view, social PPC advertising on Facebook proves to be an unique way of increasing exposure, reaching the target audience and creating new customers. Incidentally, advertisers can choose CPC or CPM method of payment where the daily spend becomes as minimal as possible.

Sponsored / Promoted Tweets

With an unbelievable user base of 140 million active users, Twitter offers sponsored or promoted tweets which are targeted to search results, timelines or geographic targeting. However, since most of these paid tweets are quite clearly labeled, these can be retweeted and replied to very easily. Incidentally, Tweeter now offers three different types of promotions – Cost per Engagement, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts.

Cost per Engagement (CPE) works for individual promoted tweets and advertisers pay a bid price when another Twitter user retweets, favors or replies to their tweet. Promoted Tweets are ideal for advertisers that want to reach more users outside of their immediate following. Promoted Trends are offered to the advertiser for a flat fee, which is lump sum.

LinkedIn Ads

When you are offering B2B services (or products) then you should choose LinkedIn Advertising platform because it gives you an opportunity to zone in on business professionals and selected industries. Similar to Adwords,  it has two payment options – Pay-per-Click (PPC) and Pay-per-1000 impressions (CPM).