My Life on Facebook as a Woman and Why Social Network Advertising Doesn't Work

http://www.centernetworks.com/social-network-advertising

by jmorin007 • 18 years ago

17 12 18 years ago

attack• 18 years ago

Doesn't work? This feels like revealing Santa Claus to a kid... Sex still sells. Really, really sells. Just how are you measuring advertising effectiveness from which you can say that these ads aren't working?

I guess you do have an interesting point about giving the users more control over the ads they see. This seems to be a semi-hot startup area right now, in case you haven't seen this.

bdr• 18 years ago

This post shows that social network advertising doesn't work (for the author), but doesn't say anything about why except to guess that Facebook's sales team sucks.

sanswork2• 18 years ago

The sales team probably sell very few of the ads on their outside of the huge corporate branding ones. The ones you see on the side of your profile are mostly paid for and targeted by individuals.

budu32• 18 years ago

I've always wondered that. Facebook not to talk about Yahoo know a lot about their users and yet their ads are really lagging behind. Maybe they are being held back by privacy concerns.

dangoldin2• 18 years ago

I agree entirely. First of, I am just seeing a very limited number of ads on the left hand side of the screen and they are all dating related - kind of disheartening - but this may come from being a young single guy.

Is anyone from different age groups seeing any different ads?

lg• 18 years ago

i sent a message to a friend about moving to boston, and got a boston real estate ad a couple pageviews later. I also get programming job ads (i'm graduating this year). But yeah, there's usually a girl with a come-hither gaze.

sanswork2• 18 years ago

Facebook doesn't target most of their ads the people creating them do. Go log onto facebook, scroll to the bottom click advertise then create an ad.

You can to target region, gender, age, and a few other things(keywords, status, etc).

bootload• 18 years ago

"... Since day 1 with Facebook, I've been shocked at how poor the ad quality is. For a company that has a $15B valuation, their ad sales teams plain suck. ..."

How many good advertising/marketing team members are technical & can code? That is a big hiring hurdle that Fb puts in front of new hires.

vesterr• 18 years ago

Why do you even look at ads?

http://adblockplus.org/

9oliYQjP• 18 years ago

By default, I block ads. If I find the site to be useful (the litmus test is "will I return?") then I unblock the ads. Why do I do this? There are far too many digg/reddit link whores that for all intents and purposes add no value to the Internet, but have tricked me into clicking on their links. The sites that are linked usually repackage somebody else's work into their template, and have manipulated the system into getting people to click on their links. In some cases, it is flat out copyright infringement. And if you load the ads on their page, they have won. In fact, they'd probably use the ad revenue to help legally defend themselves if the original authors of the content they copied were to sue them. It's quite despicable and that's why I can reconcile blocking ads. Like I said, I unblock ads on websites that I find useful.

If you find a website useful, I think it is much better to act in good faith and put up with the ads. If the ads bother you, then try to find an alternative website for that purpose, or contact the authors and present your dilemma. Perhaps they will offer a subscription service sans advertisements, or tone the existing ads down a notch.

My Life on Facebook as a Woman and Why Social Network Advertising Doesn't Work

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