Advertising on the Social Web
I talk often about how important it is to engage with social media as a marketing tactic, and most often I’m referring to using social platforms to communicate with users. I’m a strong believer in the power of communities and word-of-mouth marketing, not least because I’ve seen DailyLit’s userbase grow through these channels and know other people, like June Publishing Point speaker Gail Horwood, EVP of digital at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, have seen success that way too.
However, recently I heard David Kidder of Clickable speak, and he discussed another important element of social media strategy: social advertising. Here’s some of the statistics he shared (via the Clickable blog):
- Of $22.7 billion total U.S. online ad spend in 2009, 50% went to search advertising and 35% went to display (source)
- From display’s $8 billion in spend, an estimated $800 million went to Facebook and MySpace (source)
- Americans received 1.1 trillion display ads in Q1 2010, a 15% bump versus year-ago, led by Facebook (source)
- Facebook now is the largest publisher of ad impressions (source)
- Time spent each month on search engines: 1 hour (source)
- Time spent each month on social networking sites: 6 hours (source)
Compelling numbers, made even more so when you remember that Facebook ads can be targeted by demographics, location, and more. And given how much time users are spending on social sites vs. search sites, these display ads offer very valuable real estate indeed (and six hours is definitely lowballing it, at least in some demographics.)
Engaging with social media gives you a lot of face time and influence with your customers and targeted potential customers. I’ve said before that it’s critical to think about your social media presence as part of your overall marketing strategy (i.e. don’t just create a Facebook page and wait for something to happen), and it’s worth thinking about how user engagement and social media advertising fit into your plan.
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