Facebook Advertising and endorsement by friends
15/01/2010
Facebook advertising is a good opportunity for selling some products and services. It works well because the advertising is well targeted according to the sex, age and interests of the person. The information on interests can be gleaned from data on the person’s profile but also according to their actions (such as becoming fan of a page, or your interests).
Facebook advertising can therefore be better targeted than other forms of paid search which historically take no account of a person’s interests or hobbies. However with personalised and localised search this difference may become less noticeable. In fact Facebook advertising is simply one of many ways that online advertising is becoming more personalised.
One feature of Facebook advertising that is powerful is the ability for an advertiser to imply that a product or service is endorsed by your friends. This is currently an opportunity for advertisers and also a threat to individuals concerned about their information being dispersed around the Internet. It is this concern over personal information being used which will (maybe rightly) limit the power of this type of advertising.
For anyone concerned over their reputation, we would recommend setting the FacebookAds seeting for “ads shown by a third party applications” to “No one”. And also changing the “Show my social actions in Facebook ads” to “No one”. If many people take these sensible steps to protect their personal information, then this will make these types of adverts less powerful.
Cornish WebServices provide Internet Marketing which include Facebook advertising where appropriate; particulatly Facebook paid ads.
Business or others seeking to advertise on Facebook need to consider future trends and how long such opportunities will be available and useful. The standard paid listings in Facebook which are not linked to friends are a useful source of new leads for many businesses. The “endorsement by friends” is a newer feature that is likely to see much concern over privacy, so although there is a short terms opportunity it is not clear how long term this will be.
