Advertisers like to go where the crowds are and, on the web, social networking sites are definitely gathering those crowds. MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook are routinely among the most popular sites on the web, reaching millions of people on a daily basis. Even niche sites such as Black Planet, LinkedIn, and Gaia are demonstrating big increases in both traffic and market share. Not only are the masses visiting these sites on a regular basis, but they stick around for quite a while when they do log on. In December 2007, for example, visitors to MySpace and Bebo stayed for an average of 30 minutes on each visit.[1]
An added bonus is that all this traffic is paying off in converting social networkers to shoppers. Between March and September 2006, for example, MySpace was responsible for an 83 percent increase in traffic to shopping websites—in just six months.[2] The traffic surge doesn’t show any signs of stopping in the near future either.
All of this is great news to advertisers, who are increasing their social network advertising budgets to tap the huge potential that this form of advertising offers. In just one year, worldwide online social network ad spending is predicted to increase from $1.2 billion in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2008.[3] The key, however, is understanding what makes a social network advertising campaign successful.
In many ways, advertising on social networking sites is similar to advertising in print media. You still need to understand audience demographics, analyze readership, and create a compelling campaign that resonates with your target customers. But there are also big differences. Social network advertising requires that you make the most of your traditional advertising expertise, while at the same time be willing to think out of the box and, in many cases, take a risk on untested campaigns. To get a better idea of what the opportunities—and challenges—are, let’s take a tour of the advertising possibilities with some of the top social networking sites: YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
YouTube (www.youtube.com/advertise) offers five distinct advertising options. These include traditional online advertising such as skyscraper, leaderboard, large rectangle, and small rectangle banners; video ads that appear on the YouTube home page, category pages, or search pages; and InVideo ads that appear within the video content of YouTube premium partners. You can target YouTube ads by age, gender, location, and time of day. YouTube also offers less traditional advertising options that provide the opportunity to engage with customers. These include custom brand channels and contests encouraging customer involvement and interactivity.
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/static?key=advertising_info) offers four different types of ad placements on its site: text links as well as three types of banner ads using either static images or rich media. Like most other sites, LinkedIn enables you to target ads based on profile data. Because of the business orientation of the site, however, LinkedIn states that its profiles are ten times more accurate than many other sites’ registration data. In other words, people who create a LinkedIn profile to connect with their work colleagues—or boss—are less likely to be deceptive in their profile data. Although there is nothing particularly innovative about LinkedIn’s rather traditional advertising options, the site’s solid demographics make it a desirable option for anyone looking to reach the professional and executive market.
Facebook (www.facebook.com/ads) launched its new advertising program in November 2007 with three main offerings. Social Ads enable you to create targeted ads by age, gender, location, or interests, purchasing through either a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model. Facebook Pages represents the relationship-style advertising that’s become popular in the social networking world. A Facebook page gives businesses, nonprofits, politicians, bands, authors, and more the opportunity to create a more customized presence than a traditional user profile offers. The third component, Facebook Beacon, gives businesses the power to enable customers to share their purchases and other online activities with their social networking contacts. The launch of Beacon, however, caused an uproar within the privacy rights community. One month after its release, Facebook executives issued an apology and announced that users could now opt out of Beacon entirely.
When creating your own social network advertising strategy, there are several things you can do to increase your opportunity for success. Two of the most important are thinking long-term and thinking outside the box.
Making social networking a long-term, strategic investment is crucial. People who visit social networking sites do so because of the social interaction. Customers aren’t looking to be marketed to; they’re looking for genuine communication—a conversation. It takes time to build up this kind of presence, and the only way to do that is with a long-term campaign that builds over time.
In addition, don’t be afraid to mix it up a bit. Combining traditional display advertising with newer forms of advertising is key. Branded content, sponsorships, and contests work well in a social networking environment because of the noted fact that social networkers crave connectivity. Even though banner and text ads continue to be the most popular form of online advertising today, many users have become conditioned to ignore them or only recognize them subconsciously. Remember that social network advertising is still in its infancy. Avoid focusing on old paradigms, and instead create a new way of advertising to and connecting with your customers.