The problem with Facebook Advertising
I have not yet seen one relevant Facebook ad that seemed worthy of a click. The main problem is that applications like Mafia Wars have flooded profile pages with spammy, irrelevant ads. There is a lack of trust toward ads that will be difficult to gain back. The only ads that seem to be running successfully are giveaway and “Get a free something” ads. I have noticed that people who do click on Facebook ads don’t really understand why they are getting certain ads. They don’t realize that marketers are able to target ads using pretty much any piece of information on their profiles. A red-haired friend of mind just recently freaked out about a “Gingers Unite” ad he saw on his Facebook.
Something else that marketers have to keep in mind is that some people pick specific information for their profile pages to portray a certain image of themselves to other people. During the first days of Facebook I caught myself listing a certain book as a favorite because a couple of my friends had listed it on their profiles. Classics tend to be keywords that I would call somewhat diluted and should be used with care.
When you decide to buy Facebook advertising try to think of it as hanging up a poster in someone’s living room. Generally people dislike ads, especially on a site where they spend most of their online time. What I do see converting amazingly well are ads drawing people to Facebook pages. They usually include names of friends who are fans of that certain page already. This is extremely powerful and I wish Facebook would use this model and apply it to regular ads as well. The thumbs-up thumbs-down symbol next to ads should be used to endorse and ad and make it more likely to show up on friends’ profile with a little badge at the bottom showing that one of their friends liked the ad.
I’m curious to hear what you think, let me know in the comments.
Photo credit: ricardocabello.com
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MrColes
I'm Bjoern Weidlich a graduate student working on his MBA in marketing while finishing his BA in Economics. I help small businesses establish and manage an online presence. When don't do consulting or run the marketing efforts for academic programs I intern with some of the brightest marketing minds in the industry, i.e. 