Personalized Advertising Hits Social Networks

Facebook has announced today that they have created a new advertising campaign called FacebookAds. Among the 60 advertisers already signed up, include global brand giants like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Sony and Blockbuster. FacebookAds is a new, strategic way to target the interests of users on a more personal level.

Founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, says that "Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people”. He continued, "It's no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. So we set out to use these social actions to build a new kind of ad system."

FacebookAds will allow companies to create their own Facebook profile page and use it as a spring board to launch brand stamped viral apps like games and e-commerce apps. Users will only be exposed to ads that come from the applications their friends are using. The most important feature of FacebookAds for participating companies is that users cannot avoid the ads, which will appear the in their news feed.



There is controversy surrounding the introduction of this new campaign. Some are saying that tailoring ads specifically to users based on their interests is a betrayal of trust. Furthermore, the Federal Trade Commission is concerned that advertisers may have access to too much information about people’s activities.

I think that Facebook has come up with an amazing opportunity for interested companies. Unlike television, radio, and print ads today, advertising on social networks disables the option of skipping advertisements. Users will be forced to see the ads because they will show up as soon as users log in, and, until they click to go to another page, they will see it continually.

For users, I think this is a campaign of only minimal concern. There is no hurt in seeing an ad every once in a while showing up in your newsfeed. However, there is a potential problem that in the future, users will not see an ad every once in a while, but instead they will be bombarded with ads whenever they logon. Facebook needs to ensure users that they will keep a watchful eye on the amount of advertisements we are seeing. If too may ads start appearing, people may get frustrated with the network, and discontinue their membership all together.

This post is in response to an article found at http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/social-networking-dont-you-mean-social-advertisi.asp/4215/