The Future of Social Advertising: Social Media and Social Experiences
Posted on 16. Nov, 2007 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Social Media Strategies
This is the first in a series of posts exploring the future of social advertising.
The explosive growth in social networking, especially amongst the highly sought after 16-35 demographic who are increasingly immune to overt advertising, is prompting widespread experimentation in ’social network advertising’ campaigns.
Global brands like Microsoft, Toyota and Universal Pictures have teamed up with MySpace to deploying HyperTargeting Ads on the world’s largest social network whilst Coca-Cola, Sony Pictures, eBay and more have partnered with Facebook to deploy Social Ads on the world’s fastest growing social network.
Considering it’s less than a year since the notion of ‘social networking’ became mainstream, ’social advertising’ is certainly this year’s breakout success.
Personally, I’m of the opinion that social advertising techniques designed to exploit virtual connections between members of social networks trivialise the key reason why people socialise in networks online:
people socialise in networks online to communicate with people they already know and to meet people they don’t know but share similar interests with
The jury is still out on how effective Facebook Ads and MySpace’s HyperTargeting Ads will be in the long run.
However, in the short term, I predict more and more brand marketers will experiment with social advertising campaigns that bring together groups of people offline around ‘special interest events’ that can then be promoted online using social media tools like blogs, online video and …Facebook Groups!
Going forward, social advertising will become more about empowering consumer evangelists than about stealth advertising via nebulous consumer–to-consumer connections.
What do you think? How important is social advertising?
Leave your thoughts in the comments.
Image Credit: Skampy
Related posts:
- Future of Social Advertising: Determining the Value Exchange
- Future of Social Advertising: Branded Content and Branded Social Media
- Future of Social Advertising: Potential Pitfalls of Using Social Media
- There are Only Two Kinds of Online Advertising: Relevant Advertising and Spam
- Future of Social Advertising: Music And Lots Of It
One Response to “The Future of Social Advertising: Social Media and Social Experiences”