Advertising on Facebook and LinkedIn

Facebook and LinkedIn (and Facebook’s competitor, MySpace) have set the standard for social advertising. They were the first social media sites to allow companies to advertise to users who were not in the company’s regular group of Facebook Fans or LinkedIn contacts.

Facebook and LinkedIn had it relatively easy because they are Web-based social media sites. They were able to develop an advertising model based on a previously used tactic (banner ads) and a payment method (PPC) that had been used before in search engine marketing. Other social media tools—like Twitter, which works best on mobile devices—have had trouble developing an effective social advertising model.