Social networking is great. People spend hours together on websites like Facebook and so it is a great platform for advertisers to reach out to their target audience. However, unlike Search Engine Marketing, where there is a strong “call to action” (people are searching for a keyword and a contextually targeted ad only begets a click), social networks are more like a place to hangout and so advertisers have always been skeptical about the return on their investments.
As a step towards improving the ability to measure the ROI on social media marketing, Facebook has recentlyannounced a partnership with media research agency, Nielsen in the latter unveiling a new product targeted at the advertisers. Nielsen Brand Lift, as it shall be called, will study parameters that the advertisers will be interested in – like brand visibility, brand recall, etc. among Facebook users who have viewed an ad and among those who haven’t, with the help of polls. This will help an advertiser gauge the strength of the social medium in getting their communication across.
These surveys will be seen on the sponsored messages section of the Facebook page, and while the answers to the polls shall be gathered, user information shall not be collected. Nielsen is expected to announce similar partnerships with other social networks moving forward and the information gathered will only be available to the Nielsen customers.
This is a great step for Facebook and other social networks towards reaching out to more advertisers. In fact, arecent study shows that 75% of the advertisers were planning to increase their advertising spend on social media in 2010. But what worries me is if this would eventually turn out to be an anti-climax in the social media marketing story.
Let’s be honest. Facebook, or for that matter any other social network, is not a place where I would go to know about the best camera or airline. People spend hours on social networks and there are lots of people at that – but this is no reason why advertisers should take to social media marketing. Advertising is as much about reaching the target at the right time as it is about reaching the right target. And advertising your product when your target is poking friends online is not the right time, in my opinion.
The big question is – Is Facebook so sure about the advertisers’ ROI being high enough? What if the Nielsen surveys show social media marketing as a useless expenditure for the advertiser? It could well spell the doom for all social networks’ monetization strategies.
