It's bewildering that advertisers were 'shocked' when their Facebook adverts appeared next to undesirable groups (i.e. British National Party). Did they really not understand the advertising structure behind Facebook? Or the structure of Facebook itself?
These companies, such as Vodafone, are incompetent for not realising that their adverts can easily appear alongside a 'I hate Vodafone group'. New Media Age got a great scoop by using BNP as an example when many more less desirable groups could have sufficed. I would also suggest that the advertisers weren't shocked at all and only pulled the adverts to avoid showing support for the BNP.
Really though, every single penny spent on advertising through social networks should instead be spent boosting your own employees profiles on social networks and connecting with the influential people in your industry. But when advertising and PR departments/agencies have their own budgets, is this really likely to happen anytime soon?
21 August 2007
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2 comments:
Hmmmm. Not sure about that- think if the there are reservations about advertising it should be the relatively poor success achieved by advertising on Facebook when compared with rival online ad space. I've now lost the tag I saved the research which informed me of this nugget, but hey ho.
Also, companies helping employees boost their porfile? Seems antithetical to prinicples of social networking to me. By all means reap rewards of employees having good profile, but employ individuals who inspire strong followings, not attempt to create them.
I don't see it as anti-ethical, though i wasn't clear on exactly how to do it. But why not use that money to train employees about the benefits from using social networks. Give them freedom and room to talk about the company through these channels, use the money to give them the time to connect with people on social networks - the key influencer types.
Because this will yield far better results than throwing money for advertising on a medium which is rarely an advertising getaway.
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