RSS FeedWed 7 Nov 2007
Facebook is opening up new doors to advertisers by offering a new advertising system within the Facebook environment. It will be interesting to see how this goes over. Unlike other advertising systems where the ads are shoved in front of the viewers, this system sounds like it will be a bit more consumer friendly and attempt to get people to encourage each other to check out the ads.
The actual ads are also a bit different from other programs that people may be used to. These ads seem to be more along the lines of product placement then about selling the product. For example, an animated Sprite character that users can âinteractâ with.
It has been reported that there are actually three parts to this new advertising system. The first part is that the companies can create profile like pages for the products that they are trying to promote. This is probably much like the events and groups that Facebook users can already create to promote different things.
The second is a system to spread marketing messages virally throughout the Facebook network, so rather than the companies sending messages to people to tell them about the product being promoted, they are going to encourage users to invite others to check out a particular product. I wonder if either Facebook or the companies are going to set up some sort of affiliate program to help encourage and reward people that invite their friends to check out a product or company profile.
The third part of the advertising system seems almost unwarranted, but I guess at least they are telling us about it. As Jason has said, âto keep yourself out of Facebookâs data collection system: Donât use Facebook.â In this post, he reminds us that it is not just Facebook, but all sites that have the ability to do this.
Probably the most disconcerting part of this system (and this third part of it) is not that Facebook gathers and this information but that they are going to be sharing it with the businesses that advertise with them. Hmmm, this website could be considered a business and maybe I should set it up to use the Facebook advertising system and then I could âgather insights into users’ activity on Facebookâ
Aside from the whole âmarket researchâ portion of the system, I don’t think the program will be too bad because they are at least not shoving the ads down the users’ throats and making people look at them or anything. In fact, it’s kind of interesting that they are trying to make the advertisers be creative and have something fun as part of the ad. I just hope it doesn’t become a networked advertising site rather than the social networking site it currently is.
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Judging from the management history at Facebook, the chances of the site becoming a networked advertising site are slim and none. They’re too smart to sell themselves out for a quick buck today when they can make a slow billion tomorrow. I don’t think we have anything to fear on that front.
That said, I wonder what information will be shared with advertisers in the coming months and years. If I say that I like drinking Dr. Pepper, will I start getting emails from Pepsi telling me when they’re going to have some promo in the area?
I hope you’re right about them not selling out. As far as the information shared with advertisers, I too wonder what they are going to have access to and how they are going to use it.
Although, if it becomes something like how cigarette manufacturers send coupons to people who smoke their brand it might not be such a bad deal for consumers.