Don’t waste your time and money advertising on social networking sites. People just aren’t receptive to it. Social media ads suffer from extremely low click through rates and just disrupt the flow of social media users. It’s true that there are positives of social media advertising but I think the negatives outweigh them.
Positives of Advertising on Social Media
Demographic Targeting
This is the strongest point for social media ads. Since sites like Facebook and Myspace invite users to share what they like, advertisers are able to target users by terms found in their profile.
Obviously you can use this at the most basic level targeting users by age, location, and gender. You can also go beyond that by thinking outside the box and targeting TV shows, products, books, and movies that a demographic that parallels yours.
Huge Audience
Social media users are amazingly loyal. They spend a lot of time on their corresponding sites and tend to check their profiles often throughout the day. Because of the number of page views, an ad on the site gets seen multiple times meaning great branding potential.
According to Compete’s figures for every unique visitor to YouTube there are 54 pageviews. With Facebook, a unique visitor creates an amazing 564 pageviews in a month and on MySpace each person generates a staggering 1,110 pageviews. credit
Cheaper Cost
This is a positive aspect for now, only because this could quickly change as people start to use social media ads more. Cost per click prices for usually extremely expensive keywords on Adwords are generally far cheaper on Facebook.
The low prices equals either more profit or the ability to show the ad more often.
Negatives of Advertising on Social Media
Curiosity Clicks
We already know that social media users are extremely loyal, clocking in amazing amounts of page views per visit, but that could be a bad thing.
If I surf around on Facebook for an hour looking at 100 pages, I’ll see your ad more than once. At some point I might become curious about it and click on it to see what it’s about.
I had no intention of buying anything, I was just curious about the ad, and now you’ve had to pay for that. It gets worst, even though I clicked the ad you’re still targeting me. This means I’ll still see the ad, even though I’ve shown’ I’m not interested in the product.
Right now though, while ad costs are cheap, social media advertising offers a viable arbitrage opportunity for affiliates.
Ignored Ads
Most social media users tend to be pretty engaged by the site itself. This usually leaves little room to even acknowledge the ads. A recent BusinessWeek article explained how Myspace users had built up an “Ad Immunity”.
Direct marketers say only a fraction of 1% of the people who see the ads click on them. Chernin says new targeting efforts enabling marketers to deliver ads to more than 750 interest groups are bringing results. Some marketers, he says, have seen as much as a 300% improvement in response to their ads. But that increase is off the comparatively low response rates for social-network ads in general, marketers say.
This “affliction” does not only effect Myspace, but I’d say most if not all social media sites.
Annoying and Bothersome
One of the biggest problems with social media ads is that they disrupt the conversation taking place on the site.
Imagine if you will that you’re having lunch with a friend of yours and I come along try to sell you something then get up and leave. Welcome to how the average user looks at social media ads.
Conclusion
So should you advertise on social media sites? In my opinion, no.
What works on search engines and regular web sites won’t work on social networks or other social media sites. The fact that advertising disrupts the users experience is a huge turn off, as well as the depressing CTR.
Unless your plan is to hammer in your brand (the large amount of page views help you achieve this goal), you’re better off spending your PPC budget elsewhere.
A second reason why I say no, is because most social media site give you the opportunity to advertise your product without paying for it. Why not utilize the free services Facebook and Myspace offer? Instead of spending the money on social media advertising; create a Myspace profile, a Facebook fan page, or a widget.
Social media sites need to find a way to monetize their site without interrupting the flow of conversation. What do you think? Is social media advertising viable? Is it cost effective?
{ 9 comments read them below or add one }
Very interesting read, and good advice! From my own experience, I completely agree that social media advertising can be a huge turn off. One of the things I can’t stand about MySpace is the excessive advertising.
@Burnman It’s definitely something that needs to be addressed. People can’t expect the old ways of monetizing sites to work in social media.
Great article. There’s a reason why it’s called the “old way” of advertising. Companies can’t really think that it’s as easy as a banner ad on Facebook can they? User generated content and reviews are where you need to invest your time into understanding and utilizing it’s power. Think outside the box- you don’t want to find out the hard way.
I strongly agree with you.
Well,
I’m sorry but I just can’t agree with anything said here :
First of all, the CTR on Facebook is much higher than the CTR on Adwords’ content network (adsense ads).
Second, clicks are much more expensive in all the markets i’ve tried (I’m paying 14 cents a click minimum on the same ads that give me a .05 CPC on Adwords)
BUT it does convert very well and I’m more profitable on my Facebook campaigns than my Google campaigns.
Then again, the CTR being low is not a problem at all if you pay per click. I don’t mind having a .27% CTR (easy to attain with a few tests) if I don’t pay for the non-clickers.
And last but not least, while you are having lunch with your friend, you might not notice the “Coca Cola” sign on your glass, or the “$5 coupon” on your credit card receipt – but it does work and it does convert into sales.
Tony