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Why Facebook Advertising is not the Answer

Social Networks and Media

I was having a discussion with a colleague today about Facebook when he mentioned another department was considering Facebook advertising. No doubt Facebook is the social network with all the juice today, and companies are absolutely right in considering a shift from traditional PR and marketing activities – in fact it is critical.

However, companies must change the way they think about social sites like Facebook and how they can get their message to those members. Social networks are not just big websites, and most current strategies wont work on these sites. The key is to engage!

I can point to several reports that seem to show traditional advertising models don’t seem to be working on Facebook – at least not in its current form. Facebook is working on a more focused system for advertisers, and those results remain to be seen. Perhaps more focused efforts will have better results.

Now, I am not a marketing or advertising expert. But I suggest the way to reach Facebook users is to engage and participate with the community using the tools that Facebook provides. Get in there! Some thoughts:

  • Find your customers
  • Participate in Groups
  • Create your own Group
  • Don’t sell – participate in the conversation
  • Add value to the conversation – don’t just shout your message
  • Build an application

What are your thoughts on Facebook as a marketing platform?

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  • Nightgamer369
    peoples only real way of reaching the public is advertising on tv wich costs millions of dollars in many cases for prime time shows.
  • Nightgamer369
    also older information is likely to be more copied and have more results than newer information along with advertiser companies having more results to sift through than new companies.
  • Nightgamer369
    My personal opinion is the internet is what is causing the economy to collapse along with overpopulation. sure you can advertise free on facebook, etc. but if you dont have millions of dollars to advertise on tv and get search results, your going to be buried by other products. The same thing happens on google when people search for a buisness, if my buisness is listed at result 2,343,235 no one is ever going to find me, popular searches and overpopulation play a large part in stagnating the economy. The other thing that is also happening is an effect on information and information growth as generaly search engines like yahoo, google all use popular searches it means that new information and technologies arent going to be accessed because no one wants to go to search result 983, most people dont search past page 2 of a search engine result, old technology and information is going to have more hit results on a search engine wich doubly helps stagnate the economy.
  • I have advertised on Facebook now for about a month, and have had mediocre results.

    I like that you can quickly choose your target market:

    I can choose to only advertise to females, in a specific city ( google adwords you choose keywords and location), and choose all sorts of other criteria (education level, marital status, my daily budget, etc). This helps tremendously for my site.

    However,

    What I don't like:
    It is very expensive (about .40/click, but you can choose what you want to pay)

    No real customer support (so if I have questions about my google analytics discrepancy with Facebook ads manager report, good luck with getting a response.

    I need a little more time to decide if it has been worth my money, but so far I am concluding is is very costly and the results fall short.
    Hope this helps!
  • yup id go with google too
    it is the best way to show your product online
  • Yeah I am agree with you, and I still think the best way of advertising on net is through google.
  • Hi Ellen, thanks for joining the conversation.

    I think social applications require us to think differently about ROI. Just as new technologies like AJAX make measurements like pageviews obsolete, social applications require a new way of thinking about return.

    I also suspect our assumptions about what good results are in this space need to be adjusted as well. Just as online content is driving publishers to look at new business models, we are finding these new models cast off margins much lower than we are used to in the print world.

    As social applications become more mainstream these results will improve, but if we can establish ourselves here ahead of the tipping point we may be better positioned for the future.

    For most companies it's still all experimental to be sure.
  • I agree, although I am starting to wonder about ROI. Conventional media, while stodgy, old and boring, allows you to reach more customers than social networking media do. Yes, we're gaining customers and exposing them to our marketing message, but are we gaining enough to make an impact? What's the tipping point here? It's going to make for an interesting experiment!
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