Facebook Advertisement

facebook_ads.png

Advertisement can be found everywhere. It seems as if no matter where you go you are never able to escape ads. This is especially true with the largest social network out there, Facebook. Facebook uses many different ways to expose their members to advertisements. Harry Gold, founder and CEO of Overdrive, wrote the article, Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook, which explains the seven ways he found advertisement happening on Facebook. According to Gold, “If you want to immerse yourself on Facebook, the first and most important step is to set up a Facebook page.” He also mentioned to, “(take note that this is different from a Facebook profile, which represents an individual).” The next five things Facebook offers are Sponsored Stories, Sponsored Social Stories, Video Sponsored Stories, Box Ad Units, and Display Units which all fall under the umbrella of Facebook Ads. The last way of advertising according to Gold is through gift sponsorships. Gold also states that due to the fact of the ever-changing Internet he, “may be inadvertently omitting some because new features are being added. That is quite a bit of ways to advertise on only one website. 

I notice that there are a lot of ads on every page of Facebook. After a while I find that I do not notice the advertisements anymore which I think happens to most people. However the people at Facebook are aware of that and are always trying to come up with new and creative ways to get peoples’ attention when it comes to advertising. The two new features that are up and coming within Facebook are Engagement Ads and advertisements showing up in peoples’ news feed. Jeremiah Owyang, an Industry Analyst on Customer Strategy and Partner at Altimeter Group explains engagement advertisement in his blog posting What Facebook’s New ‘Engagement Advertising’ Means to Brands as, “Rather than clicking on the ad and being whisked away to a branded microsite, these ads allow members to stay within the contained walls of Facebook and their social community." It is a great way for people to get more information about a product that catches their eye while on Facebook while not having to leave the Facebook site. The video  above explains this new type of advertisement very well http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wHsfeWkXvM. If you did not think there were enough advertisements on Facebook, you are in luck. According to Shelly Palmer, the host of NBC Universal's Live Digital with Shelly Palmer, “Starting in January of 2012, sponsored stories will appear in your news feed on Facebook.  Advertisements will find their way in between your friend’s updates and there’s nothing you can do about it.” The act of blocking out the advertisements on Facebook is going to be a lot harder when the advertisements are intertwined with all your friends’ postings in your news feed. Facebook is doing a good job keeping up with how people are viewing advertisements and then adjusting the site accordingly.