In many ways, social media advertising continues to be in its infancy... but you can find firm signs that its now growing up. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has now created measurable standards; mainstream companies have become around it; nearly all the key social support systems not merely contain it, but have made several speedy shifts just within the past year or so. Facebook changed its privacy policy (secretly at first) so it may do whatever it wanted with feed, content and photos posted by users; then changed it again after their actions came to light. Twitter is just announced that it is moving towards paid advertising.
And, of course, now that it's an adolescent, there's all sorts of rucus and strong opinions flying around, as people debate whether or not social advertising is apt to be successful.
Predicting the Future of Social Media Patterns
Both sides have used persuasive arguments: Noticing the shift to where companies are spending their advertising dollars is the best indicator of what's going on. And yes, spending on social media advertising has been increasing extremely quickly over the last number of years. So much so that eMarketer has moved all its former predictions on social advertising's future forward to this season - 2010 !.
It doesn't take a psychic to observe that social media advertising could have an enormous affect on local business too. With geographically targeted ads, local businesses can be in on the act too....most notably Facebook. It's its imperfections: it's not for sale in many countries; and on Facebook, if you reside beyond your US, you are able to target only by country, which might make this approach less viable, but its likely that this will change in the near future.
Some Things Never Change
Social networking and trends in social advertising will continue steadily to develop- however there a simple principles that remain exactly the same: Namely:
1. Social media advertising is worth it, even though the percentage of engaged viewers continues to be small... because for every single one active social media viewer, you will have anywhere from 6-14 brought to the fold by that single person. Consider that exponential increase factor - targeted viewers or readers earned for you personally by members of your personal market.
2. If you are unsure whether the user base is more male than female, or once you learn both sexes are represented equally - market to the women. Not merely do women nowadays have 80% of the buying power, according to many net sources, men will often be influenced by the significant females in their lives. A man will often head into the store and buy exactly the same soap he's bought for the last 7 years; the woman is usually the one who will attempt something new - particularly if you produce a personal connection in your advertising.
3. Tracking, of course, continues to be very important. Whatever social network you're considering using needs to have some type of tracking facility. Or even, create them yourself or proceed to a far more comprehensive network.
4. Don't your investment double-edged sword of word-to-mouth recommendations in social advertising. Be sure you deliver everything you promise - and if you have unhappy customers everyone will know about it too. (Best to acknowledge it with the consumer, fix the mistake and take a proactive stance of your reputation management.)
5. Remember that usually the one critical factor that the ads all need is a social context. Make sure they are preceded by and associated with social network pages, videos, groups, content. Give your fans a location to combine, converse and share information. Hold contests and polls, look for feedback, offer virtual gifts. Engage. If your ads don't blend in the content and type of your website, they'll be regarded as annoying banners and will undoubtedly be ignored.
6. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater: Meaning... don't neglect your entire other advertising choices - email, offline flyers, website banner ads, AdWords - and track and tweak them all. Social media advertising is most beneficial used to compliment these other campaign components, most of the time.
Follow these six tips, and you'll start to see results while others remain finding out how to get going.