Welcome to that awkward moment when the advertisement on YouTube takes longer than the video. Or that time you changed your relationship status on Facebook and the next time you logged in all the ads were changed. When people started turning to online sources for their news and entertainment advertisers had to get more creative in how to reach their audience. Advertisers have started to saturate social media with their presence. Businesses now use social media as their advertising. They have started reaching out and connecting. Their siren call telling you to like on Facebook and follow on Twitter. So does advertising using social media really work? Are we influenced by the ads on websites or the pictures of products on Pinterest? Or is it just easily ignored background? And if this form of advertising does work is it more or less effective than old forms?
16 comments:
Since I am no advertiser, the only way that I can really gauge how well social media does at "getting the word out" or advertising is through a few local friends of mine. Back home in Boise, I have a friend who has been going through chemotherapy but prior to this struggled greatly with finances. Through Facebook, she was able to detail everything that was going on with her health and recovery and had friends who hosted a series of fundraisers for her. All of this was advertised through Facebook and now as I see her pictures in the hospital as she is getting better, I realize how much of that was done through social media and "getting the word out." An old high school friend of mine wanted to try out for The Voice. She sings like an angel, but didn't have the means to get herself there. As her friends on Facebook, she sent us all links to a donation site where people could donate $5 to $200 to help her get to the auditions. Needless to say, her cause worked and she was able to fly out and audition. these are things that don't warrant a news clip on or a column in the newspaper, but through social media, are able to reach the target audiences and accomplish their goals.
I think that localized event planning type of advertising is ideal for the Facebook platform, but for national brands to try and increase sales or brand awareness, Facebook's model of advertising is completely ineffective. This inefficiency has been reflected in the companies that are pulling out of Facebook advertising (General Motors) as well as the amount of money that Facebook stocks now cost as compared to when they first went public.
I believe it is more effective, customizing your advertising is a great idea. Social media is an excellent way of directing your target market. I know that ads on YouTube and such are annoying. However, what's more annoying is being bombarded by Viagra advertising too. If I'm going to be advertised to, I rather it be adapting to my interests and not boring me. Who knows, I might actually like what I see and buy. We can't get to mad, the Church does the same thing. Preach My Gospel stopped with rehearsed lessons and completely changed it to adapting the lesson to your target market. Think about it.
Personally I don't see that the little sidebar ads work especially well online. Everyone just ignores them. There are multiple programs one can download that will block all the ads, if one so chooses. This is why it has proven so difficult for news sites to maintain the huge profit margins they once had when advertising was largely print-based.
Part of the problem could be the decreased effectiveness of advertising in general. Few people pay attention to ads any more. Most resent them. So advertising needs to adapt if it hopes to continue raking in cash.
I rarely ever notice the ads on the side of the facebook feed, HOWEVER, every now and then, one catches my eye and I click on it or I go to a website related to what I saw. Even more so, Pinterest. YES! The pictures on Pinterest DEFINITELY affect what you decide to buy! I've bought groceries, crafts, clothes, and other products because I've gotten ideas from Pinterest. There's new combinations and recipes that sometimes I would have never imagined. So when a company puts something good up, and you see it on pinterest, your buying experience is definitely going to be affected.
I believe that this type of advertising can be the most effective. The reason I say that is because it is geared towards the interest of the consumer. Pinterest is a social media that is only looked to open the door for influence. Users search for things that interest them, and get ideas and recipes. Those then influence their home, whether it is what ends up on the dinner table, or on the wall above the couch.
I don't know if it is more effective than older forms of advertising, but the advertising world is changing with the times. It is embracing social media and using it as an opportunity to get the attention of consumers everywhere.
I think that advertising in social media is by far the most effective for our current generation. We spend most of our time on the computer, smartphones, iPads, etc., therefore giving advertisers the easiest route to reach their audiences. I would say that I am personally affected by ads heavily. If something catches my eye on the sidebar of Facebook, I will click on it because it is only a click away. I don't think advertisements can be easily ignored when it is there when you don't even realize it. Pinterest is businesses' best friend when it comes to free advertising. Girls go on Pinterest and can be hooked for hours. By the end of a "pin sesh" they already know they need new boots from Nordstrom, have a wedding in the Carribbean, and ingredients from the store to bake goodies galore. Advertising doesn't just come from the advertising company but also from the celebrities they endorse, who will promote for them over social networks. I constantly see blurbs about make-up, clothing brands, charities, etc. promoted by the famous people I follow on Twitter. Just like the Internet itself, advertising has no limits. It is a constant and endless stream, and considering our reliance on the Internet nowadays, social network advertising is here to stay.
I think social media has improved the way companies advertise. For example, if you follow Old Spice on Twitter you know that their tweets are just as funny and enjoyable to watch as their commercials on TV. It kind of goes along with the discussion we had about establishing a culture with your brand. Old Spice has established a bizarre kind of culture with the way they present their product.
I'm not a fan of the way Facebook advertises on the sidebar. I have never clicked on those ads and wouldn't really expect anybody to do so.
Pinterest does a good job of bringing products to the consumer because a majority of things posted on Pinterest require someone to purchase something.
As far as Facebook ads really working... I've heard through many different sources that they really aren't all that effective. While I love the idea that each ad is supposed to be personalized to each person I still find ads on my page to be completely unrelated to what I am interested in. As well I don't think I have ever seen a "big time" company actually advertising on Facebook. Its usually what I would consider spam ads on other sites. Facebook ads = totally useless.
Pinterest on the other hand is a whole other animal. I have never used Pinterest but almost every girl I've ever met does. Not only do they use it but they are constantly using what they find on Pinterest. My sisters whole wedding reception came from different Pinterest ideas and the last party I was at almost every goody brought by a girl was from something they found on Pinterest. I'm sure many businesses are making lots of money off of Pinterest.
I think we can all agree that using social media is one of the easiest, if not the easiest, ways to reach consumers. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and other websites have all worked their way into our daily routines. There are almost 1.5 billion social network users worldwide. While some companies can brag about their millions of friends, fan, and followers their reach is worthless if their content is irrelevant.
I don’t know about you guys, but rarely do I have ads on Facebook that are relevant to me. Looking right now on my newsfeed, the ads include: showerheads, water slide rentals, getting a new domain name, and pets. I have zero interest in any of those products and ads.
Facebook could have a low inventory of ads and they just cycle through the ones they have. Facebook could have an ad targeting model that is flawed. Or maybe advertisers are clueless and don’t know how to optimize their targeting. Whatever the case may be, their advertising isn't effective.
Personally, I feel like social media is a very powerful advertising tool, but I don’t think advertisers have fully invested their time and money into it.
I think a lot of people would agree that they don't pay very close attention to the ads that appear on the side of Facebook, Pandora, etc. I have always been one of these people, but the more I think about it, I realize that these ads don't always go unnoticed. For example, I always seem to notice the "Meet LDS singles" ads, probably because I find them to be kind of ridiculous. I have never clicked on any of these ads, but just being there makes us think, for at least a quick second, about what is being offered. That could be considered a success for the companies paying for the ads, but I think the real success comes when social media users "like" something enough to "like" it on Facebook. This moves the ads to the main news feed, the very place that they logged on to see! As far a Pinterest goes, I think it is brilliant for advertising. The fact that you can click on the pin to see the origin is inviting users to make purchases without feeling like they are necessarily giving in to advertising.
I use to be that person that got annoyed at the ads on facebooks. And then I got engaged. And then I realized I had no clue what I was doing. And then those ads were less bothersome and more ah-ha moments. I found my photographer off of facebook. But now that I am married and I don't need a photographer anymore I am again annoyed.
It is moments like those that advertisers wait for. When the target market is vulnerable and able to be influence. I think it is easily ignored if you are not looking but If you ARE looking, it is an ingenious venue for advertisement. Just as affective as old ads.
I believe social media is effective. All depends who you are trying to advertise to and if the target market of a brand is in the internet all the time or a noticeable amount of his/her time. Also you can choose your ads are only shown to your target market.
I believe that it works but when so many other people are advertising the meaning becomes lost. I believe it's a smart idea to advertise to meet the wants of the people. A little while ago I was really into working out and I had clicked on a few workout ads and suddenly I had so many workout ads and different kinds of product. I decide to go buy some protein for my workout and I ended up buying the same on on the ad even though it was little more expensive. However ads aren't what they use to be, some ads are entertaining. What they are trying to do is to get an idea in your head so that next time you go to the store you will buy Jimmy_Dean sausage, or red bull. I got into drinking red bull because the commercial spoke my language and that i needed red bull to function better. Ads work and you tube ads longer than the video are great as well. However companies kill certain sites with ads, and therefore have to move to the next big thing.
I feel that social media advertising doesn't work as well as people think. What people want to have happen is for a product or something to go viral. No one has figured that out yet though. The best form of social media advertising is word of mouth. People trust their friends and what they recommend. If advertisers can get people talking about them that is far more effective then the ads along the side of the page. We have learned to tune those out and ignore them. Even with 5-7 impressions of those ads we don't remember them and don't use them.
Internet marketing and Social media in my view, will be the most effective marketing tool in the world. The history of the world is based on relationships. At this point though, as many other posters stated, these mediums are using their tool sets poorly. They are not leveraging people to talk about what they love enough and include links; instead they are forcing people to follow the company instead of being influenced by each other- which following a company gets old. I agree with Natalie, social media is the easiest way to reach consumers, but reach that is poorly directed as the TV mass marketing proves, still doesn't make any money.
But these marketing companies lack the most effective way to get interest and action. It is all about interest and action, and if they are failing to get that out of us, it just becomes an annoyance rather than something we want. If it becomes annoying enough, like MySpace- eventually we all move on to the next big thing. So in my view, to be successful they have to leverage the relationships that are built to have us market to each other rather than a computer trying to randomly hit something that might interest me based off the fact I'm married or in a certain age group.
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