It all started in 2004 in a Harvard University Dorm room. It was this simple idea to connect students with other students at their schools with pictures and messages known as “wall posts”. Fast forward to 2011 and social media is legit everywhere. As of July 2011 Facebook has over 750 million users worldwide.
Long gone are the days of posting a few picture albums, writing on a few walls, and some innocent pokes here and there. Nope now its constant tagging, friending, mobile uploads, status updates, checking in- and all that’s just from your iPhone at lunch.
Facebook has made its way far beyond the college campus and users of all ages are logging in. While most people are logging in to connect with old friends, looks at friends photos, and just generally being nosey people don’t seem to realize what is also going on; advertising.
Facebook is actually a marketer’s dream. People sign up and provide them will literally anything they want to know. Age, sex, birthday, marital status, location, religion, where they went to high school, where they went to college, and even where they work. And that’s just the basics, then they give their interests, favorite movies, TV shows, and books.
Now all’s companies have to do is create short little ad banners to run on the side of the page and you they can select a specific group to target in your ads. Here’s the fun part. Is your favorite movie the Mighty Ducks? Do you ever see ads for Mighty Duck t-shirts? I know I do. No it isn’t a strange coincidence, you have been targeted. On Facebook you can zero in on their age, gender, location, or educational background. You can go even further and slice that group by language, sexual preference, and marital status. Then you can really get into their heads and target based on exact interest, movie, TV, and book matches. It’s really simple, pick an advertising package and pay per click or based on the number of impressions you receive. This is great because you only pay if it works and its easy to manage more than one. You can test different ads that target a whole range of people and see what works best for your products.
Comments