Facebook: The best advertising choice?

Within the realm of social media Facebook has taken its position as leader of the pack. It is safe to say that the majority of the United States either has a Facebook or uses Facebook to track others without obtaining membership to the site. Companies are well aware of this and are willing to pay to have their name advertised across multiple Facebook pages.

However, you will not be seeing the same advertisements on each page of Facebook. Space for company advertisements would be severely limited if the same advertisements appeared on each unique Facebook page. Facebook can generate more revenue by allowing the maximum amount of people to advertise on their website. How is it decided what advertisement will be on which page though? One unique aspect of Facebook is the use of a “Like” button that allows the user to supply their opinions on people’s comments, companies, or even politics. This “Like” button also gives the system some background about the user and their interests. This tool is then used by Facebook to place corresponding advertisements that would best suit the interests of the user. This method of advertising allows the maximum number of advertisers and advertisements to steadily increase as new Facebook pages are created each day.

For instance, you may be an avid fan of the Carolina Panthers. You could pull up the team’s Facebook page and hit the corresponding “Like” button. Now all of your friends will be able to see that you are a Panthers fan and they may “like” you just a little bit more. , then while you are cruising around the website you will see advertisements wanting you to buy Panthers jerseys or tickets. It works with many other things as well such as music, clothing, and your location. This is an extremely helpful new way to advertise online because you already know your target market and can show them your product.

From a business perspective, advertising through Facebook appears to be the most cost effective way to advertise. Facebook offers a variety of payment plans as well as a lifetime and daily budget. Facebook offers two strategies- the cost per click (cpc) and the cost per one thousand impressions (cpm). The CPC is currently going for $.01 and the CPM is going for $.02. We are not sure of any other advertisement outlet going for pennies- please correct us if we are wrong. They also allow you to set up a maximum for each strategy and will not bill you past the maximum that you set, which is great because you have no control over how many clicks or impressions you will receive. For each campaign you will set either a daily budget or a lifetime (of campaign) budget and Facebook's system will essentially take care of the rest.

There are even companies that have thrived by being an advertising intermediary between companies and Facebook. One of the most popular of these companies is TBG Digital. Check out their website here and see what they are all about. They might be the right choice for your growing business: 
http://www.tbgdigital.com/

Contrary to the many advantages of using Facebook, the disadvantages are mirrored through the Facebook users. Facebook creates a digital dashboard for these previously discussed advertisements. For the campaign, Facebook tracks every single user click. Facebook keeps notes on who has clicked, percentages related to clicks, target audiences of the advertisements, and everything in between. This creates a complete marketing analysis for both Facebook and the company paying for the advertisement. Although this is great for the business owner, it can also eliminate an entire marketing team. Advertising on Facebook could be viewed as a disruptive technology. With everyone moving to the digital age, this method of advertising could essentially take the place of traditional marketing. A true reliance on technology in the marketing field will soon be realized. 
So, what do you think? Will Facebook’s online advertising technology change the way business’ conduct advertising completely?

Introduction

 An Introduction to Online Advertising

In this blog we will introduce the various aspects of online advertising. We chose online advertising because it has a big impact on the business world and the IT world. It is very apparent that IT networking and businesses go hand in hand these days.

Some of the topics we are going to cover are advertising in social media, trends in online advertising, along with the multiple shortcomings of online advertising.

Most people have some form of connection to their friends or family through social media, such as Facebook or Twitter, and it seems that advertising through these networking sites is rampant. It is impossible to visit anyone’s Facebook page without noticing the online ads on the right hand side of the screen. However, these ads do seem to be relevant to the user’s interests.   

Another aspect of online advertising that we are going to discuss is trends in the business community with advertising, such as privacy controls and heavy advertising.

 Although there are many advantages to businesses switching to online advertising, there are multiple disadvantages that seem to get the most attention; due to their annoyance to the general public. As college students we experience these aggravating disadvantages on a daily basis. We get on Hulu or Youtube to catch up on a television show or we pull up Pandora internet radio to set the mood for our studying. We can’t even catch up on the news without being overwhelmed by advertisements. We are literally forced to watch these ads. You will see more ranting on this matter in a later blog so we will ease up for now. Throughout the next few weeks, we are going to look into these techniques and discuss how effective they truly are.