Facebook recently announced that they would be delivering real-time ads based on wall posts, status updates and conversations. The key to doing this right is mixing this relevancy information Facebook already has about users in their profiles, such as location, age and gender.
“If Facebook can combine people — who they are, how old they are, where they live — with intent, it essentially becomes the most massive ad platform ever,” said Michael Lazerow, CEO of Facebook marketer Buddy Media. “There’s no other platform in the world where there can be 10,000 people a day saying ‘I’m having a baby’ or asking ‘Hey, what’s your favorite hotel in Turks and Caicos ‘”
One of the biggest differences between this ad servicing and what search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo do is the fact that posting on social networks is public, whereas searching is done in more isolation. “It’s different because searching is inherently an insular activity — it’s you and the search box and no one else sees what you see,” said Ian Schafer, CEO of digital agency Deep Focus. “On Facebook, you’re sharing something for everyone to see — your intentions are laid bare and it’s an opportunity to influence conversations.”
There’s also a privacy factor in this; consumers might not want to have an ad system that eerily reacts to their every post. “But this development is also fraught with all kinds of possibilities of invading into the user’s inner sanctum,” aid USC Graduate School of Business professor Hank Wasiak. “It’s essential to realize that everything you do may not be about a sale,” he said. “The companies that do that will be the ones that succeed.”
Source: Ad Age
