Social network ad-targeting and its specificity
With MySpace announcing their plans to let advertisers target users based on more specific and personal information and Facebook about to announce similar improvements, this Adweek story is of real interest.
There are potholes littered through the social-network world for advertisers. For one thing, users aren’t particularly responsive to banners, with click rates dropping like a rock. Along with that is the idea that advertisers are, in essence, intruding into someone’s time spent with friends while being there.
And that’s just with run-of-site or more generally targeted ads.
Universal’s SVP of Digital Marketing Doug Neil hits the main problem with new, more specific targeting. The studio took the new MySpace platform for a test drive this fall to hit Amanda Bynes fans on the site with ads for her movie Sydney White. The problem inherent in doing that, he says, is that you risk reaching too few people. But opening up the targeting means you could reach too many who aren’t interested in the advertised product.
And right there you have the main problem with traditional advertising and its subsequent accounting and reporting.
What is really important is not how many people are exposed to your brand message as it’s displayed in a formal ad push. What adds value to a brand is when people are talking about it. That’s why Facebook’s method of prompting people to add branded widgets or what not – but making it something they choose to do – is so effective and why Microsoft paid way too much for the right to place display ads on the site.
When people add, say, the No Country for Old Men “Coin Toss” application to their site it’s something they have chosen to do because they think it’s cool, are a fan of the Coen Bros. or have some other motivation we don’t know about. But that action is then included in the feed that gets sent out to all their contacts, who then have the opportunity to do the same. The functionality encourages conversation and simplifies the process for spreading the word organically.
Targeted ads are great and can be powerful motivators for reaching passionate and enthusiastic fans. But the effects of those ads are going to be magnified – possibly in ways that are hard to quantify in Excel spreadsheet format – if you can generate a conversation that spreads among a network of friends.
A study by the agency GrF Starch showed the ads that were most successful in engaging the audiences were those for brands people already had an affinity for. Brands and products achieve that status to a large extent through the recommendations of friends coupled with a good experience by the person themselves. Make THAT happen and then advertise to your hearts’ content to reinforce the relationship.
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I would say it is a fantastic opportunity, it\’s a new business and the turnover of distributors is really low..it\’s actually really good fun and the chocolate seems pretty good as well
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