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Publications Online Marketing MENA Region Facebook - The New Frontier in Online Marketing
Publications Online Marketing MENA Region Facebook - The New Frontier in Online Marketing
| Facebook - The New Frontier in Online Marketing |
| Wednesday, 10 September 2008 00:00 | |
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Considering the exponential growth of Internet users opening a Facebook account in the last couple of years, it’s no wonder that this popular social-networking site has become prime (online) real-estate for advertisers in all forms of commerce. Though the majority of Facebook users are in their late teens and early to mid twenties, you will find that there is an increasing number of users ranging from young teens to their 60’s and older. I, personally, know very few people who don't have a Facebook account. Pretty much anyone can set up a Facebook profile. But people and companies looking for self-promotion can set up pages as well. Whether you’re an artist, musician, company, comedian or public figure, you can get one. It’s easy to sign up and it’s free. Setting up your page is very straightforward and you have the opportunity to get fans, upload photos and videos, establish discussion boards and so on. This is what makes Facebook a great way to network, build and maintain relationships with other users and develop branded connections. What makes Facebook all the more intriguing and effective is the plethora of information that can be found on its users… It is, after all, a place to self-advertise, in a sense. Users put up all types of valuable information in their profile; from demographic information to musical preferences and more; allowing advertisers to focus directly on their target market with much less effort than is needed elsewhere. Unlike many other websites, there are several different ways to advertise on Facebook. And as I’ve personally noticed as a user, the advertisers are quickly finding ways to infiltrate many of the applications that can be found within the site. Aside from these though, as well as setting up specific corporate profiles (which I am also noticing a lot more of these days), there are several ways for companies to advertise on Facebook. As a regular user of Facebook myself, I’d have to say that the display ads and the box ad units are the ones I tended to notice the most often when I first signed up. The display ads, skyscrapers and leaderboards, bought through the MSN ad center offer quite a bit of flexibility for the creatives since they aren’t limited by character count and body copy issues. Age, gender and DMA are the targeting parameters here. It is important to note that Facebook is currently undergoing a major design change and therefore there will be (as we will see in the following) some slight and some significant changes in the advertising that appears on the site. The box ad units appear to be similar but smaller. In the old Facebook format, they would appear on the left hand side of the screen, whereas with the new Facebook format, they are on the right. These appear all over Facebook (not just on the homepage) and either link to another Facebook page or to an external website. They consist of a title, body copy and an image. Another way to advertise on Facebook is through sponsored story – basic sponsored story, sponsored social story or video sponsored story. Sponsored stories and video sponsored stories are quite similar. Sponsored Story ads appear on the Facebook users news feed which is on the home page (i.e. the first thing they see after logging in.) They consist of an image, title and body copy that either links to an external website or another Facebook page. The main benefit with these types of ads is that it offers very accurate targeting that is based on the information in the users profile. So, you can either reach a mass audience or narrow it down to a specific target market. And since they are integrated well within the news feed they are much less of a nuisance to Facebook users as compared to the display and box ads. The same goes for video sponsored story ads. They appear within the main news feed, offer similar benefits but offers an increased user interaction with the ad since the video plays directly within the ad. These may also link to another Facebook page or an external website. Sponsored social story ads are slightly different. Whereas the two aforementioned ones are geared towards regular Facebook users, sponsored social story ads are only relevant to advertisers that have a Facebook page. The way these work is similar to the others in that they also appear in the user’s news feed but in this case, the ad features a Facebook user with pertinent information on them regarding what type of products they are interested in. As I mentioned earlier, advertisers are also beginning to infiltrate the network via various applications. There seems to be an endless amount of these added to the network on a daily basis and all offer interesting advertising opportunities. The most popular (as well as one of the oldest) application is “gifts.” With this application, a user can send a virtual gift to another user at the cost of $1 USD. The gift then appears on the recipient’s profile. Some companies will sponsor a gift (representing their brand), which is offered for a limited time for free. Facebook boasts over 100 million active users and according to ComScore is the 4th most trafficked website in the world. It’s no wonder so many companies are jumping on the bandwagon to make their presence known through advertising on Facebook. Here are some Facebook usage statistics in the MENA region:
A total of more than 6 million Facebook users in the MENA region. If this audience interests you, don't hesitate to contact us and it will be our pleasure to help you plan, implement, and follow-up your Facebook advertising campaign. Sources: |
By Nemr N. Badine 