SocialTimes.com

Posted: 26 Aug 2008 03:47 PM CDT

Over the past few months I have been speaking with countless professionals in the social media space about the state of advertising within the industry. Over the past year I have attended countless conferences and spoken to countless individuals all of whom appear to have a firm grasp on what’s taking place in regards to social advertising. Over the past few months I have tried to articulate it on this blog but I don’t think I’ve succeeded at aggregating all of this information into a single post.

While this post is not an attempt to aggregate all the various offerings, I hope that it sufficiently articulates the dynamic between advertisers and social networks currently.

Poor Job of Advertiser Education

“Have I got an opportunity for you! Imagine being able to reach out to your exact target audience and influence their conversation about your product or service,” the social networking sales professional says to the brand manager. “How do I correlate these advertisements directly to my sales,” the brand manager asks.

“You can’t! This is a new form of engagement advertising which is changing the way your customers interact with your brand,” the sales professional replies. “Well I’ll tell you what,” the brand manager says cautiously, “since your name is Facebook, we’ll give it a shot with $5 million in advertising and see how it goes. If good results are produced, perhaps we’ll try it out again.”

While this may not be the exact exchange that takes place between the average social network sales team and the advertisers, this is essentially what’s taking place in the industry today. While it was a great day for the sales person that closed the deal, the sustainability of this type of advertising is questionable especially when the advertisers don’t understand what they’re buying.

Ask anybody what results they are producing from social advertising campaigns and the response is usually along the same lines: “We are getting great client feedback and many have returned to run new campaigns.” What was the rationalization of their clients decision to return? You’ve got me but whatever numbers are being produced they appear to be sufficient for a select few.

What types of numbers are being produced for those clients though?

Inconsistent Offerings

Companies from Meebo to Facebook to MySpace are all coming up with new types of offerings for clients in which engagement hold a high value. Some reports will count the numbers of conversations about a topic, while others will determine how many new “fans” a company attracted. Whatever the model, they are not traditional and they are not the same from one company to the other.

While there is the urge of the social media/social network expert to produce new types of metrics for clients, “Most every ad agency in the U.S. and Europe are still 100% attached to impressions and clicks” as Ted Rheingold of Dogster pointed out in the comments earlier this week. Ted continued with a great statement, “They are becoming less scared of non-traditional clicks (such as contests, Groups, virtual gifts, etc.) but that’s only because they can still tie it to a user and a click.”

There are currently CPM, CPC and CPA advertisements that the advertisers are aware of but there is no current metric that are used for “engagement ads” (which is what leading social networks are currently offering). In order for the industry to move forward as a whole, some sort of standard metric needs to be developed for social advertising. Otherwise, each service is simply competing against the other and the reality is that we are competing against search and traditional advertising.

Social Advertising Can’t Beat Search Anytime Soon

Absolutely everybody in this industry is looking to “revolutionize” the way advertisers interact with consumers. We all sense the increased connection that can be generated between brands and consumers via social media and social networks but most can’t seem to find the perfect solution. When Facebook reverts to “engagement ads” as their “new offering”, it becomes clear that everybody (even Facebook) is struggling to find an answer that will help advertisers better relate to this new form of advertising.

While I personally cannot answer whether better advertiser education or better offerings by social networks (and social products in general) is more important, it’s clear that advertisers still don’t understand what’s being offered. If those selling social advertising can’t even track the diverse offerings that exist, how can the advertisers?

If I was an advertiser looking into social advertising offerings, I would most definitely end up reverting back to my other advertising solutions (search and more traditional channels). That’s because for now, social advertising is inconsistent and overly diverse. The real question now is do we just continue down our own paths unassisted or is there a way for competing social advertising providers to work together?

The Social Web Economy: Communications & PR Professionls

Posted: 26 Aug 2008 10:29 AM CDT

This is a continuation in the series on “The Social Web Economy“

Communications and public relations professionals have one of the most interesting positions in the social web economy. The primary role of these individuals is to gain exposure for their clients and ensure proper image. In the past few years we have seen the emergence of a number of firms focused strictly on companies participating in the social web economy or simply looking to leverage the social web.

These individuals typically work for agencies or firms but a few have decided to go it alone, often times resulting in full-time, temporary positions in the companies they are consulting. On the social web, the emergence of influential blogs has transformed the dynamic between journalists and PR professionals.

New technologies have also made it easier for companies to engage directly with their consumers. All of these things have combined to transform the role of the communications and public relations professionals. From helping prepare executives to speak to the press, to engaging increasingly accessible journalists about a negative article, the communications professional's job is a challenging one.

While communications and public relations professionals are not directly tied to any sort of revenue generating activities, they help protect their clients' image so that revenue generating activities can go on as usual. The main source of tension for these individuals is with the journalists and analysts, as they are frequently the gate keepers of the client's image.

Next Post: “The Social Web Economy: Designers”

Facebook & MySpace Hit New Milestones

Posted: 26 Aug 2008 09:00 AM CDT

Yesterday MySpace announced a record breaking month, surpassing 122 million visitors “according to comScore”. That last part of the statement means that the statistics should be questioned. As Caroline McCarthy points out, comScore stated that Facebook reached 144 million visitors. Yesterday though, Dave Morin claimed that the company just reached 100 million users (as Venturebeat points out.

comScore has been criticized for highly inaccurate numbers in the past and the most recent set appears to confirm that. Additionally, having a reach of more than 100 million is significant but when you think about it in terms of the world population, there is still a long way to go! MySpace has been striving to highlight that growth continues internally as they prepare to launch the highly anticipated MySpace music service.

Some could argue that the company’s image has become tarnished as Facebook hogs the limelight as it has surged past all competitors to become the largest global social network. It’s no wonder that MySpace is concerned as all global metrics show Facebook trouncing all other competition. Just take a look at the following Alex chart:

Not everything is doom and gloom for MySpace and painting such a picture would be inaccurate. The company continues to grow abroad and domestically MySpace continues to dominate all the other competitors. When it comes to publicity, the name of the game is continued growth and both MySpace and Facebook have managed to do that is most regards.

While domestic growth has slowed for both, international expansion has provided both companies with a substantial opportunity. As the months pass, analysts and journalists will both be looking for both companies to post stellar growth abroad. Otherwise we could soon hear of the “global social network downturn”!

hi5 Launches Mobile Service in 26 Languages

Posted: 26 Aug 2008 08:03 AM CDT

Today hi5 announced the launch of their mobile service. The social networking site is now available on mobile in 26 different languages. According to a release, users will be able to easily “send and receive messages, update status, view friends’ profiles, share photos, find out who is online and add new friends.” The service has been optimized to run on phones including the Apple iPhone, Nokia, Motorola, Blackberry, LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

26 languages on a mobile service is significant as many competing social networks do not currently offer such a wide offering via mobile. hi5 is one of the top social networks globally but still ranks below Facebook and MySpace. The site is growing quickly though and appears to have a relatively large global reach with over 56 million unique visitors each month according to the release.

Mobile is going to increasingly become the center of discussion when it comes to the social web as mobile platforms become ubiquitous. Currently we are still in the early stage of the social/mobile revolution but competition is heating up. Today’s announcement by hi5 only emphasizes the ongoing race to the handset.

In contrast to a downloadable version of the site, the new hi5 service is available directly through mobile web browsers.