The image above is a screenshot of my Facebook profile page from around 9.30am this morning. This was the time that the advert banner - down the left-hand side - appeared for '3 Mobile'. Right now there's one for 'Talk Greener' recycle, which is trying to persuade me (with a cash incentive) to recycle my mobile phone handset when I'm done with it. Do they know I'm currently having problems with my mobile phone handset and that I'm in the market for a new phone soon? Probably not, but Facebook system seems to have a spooky knack of showing you the stuff you want to see, and pointing you towards the people you're interested in.
That's in part because Facebook has been smart in cultivating its format to allow 'better' connection between brand and Facebook user. Ever since the site opened itself up to allow third party developers to build applications - which you add to your 'profile' page - the site has been a hit with advertisers. That's because the apps. are themes, or ideas which reflect your taste and personality. For instance, on my profile I have a 'visual bookshelf' which shows what I'm reading, a 'where I've been' world map, and there's a list of my favourite films and music. So other people, and advertising companies can see what your tastes are and target you accordingly. Allied to that, the clever thing about the apps is that they spread almost exponentially in popularity - everytime you add a new one, the system asks you to recommend it / send it to your friends. The situation this creates is akin to an ad-man's wet dream. Adverts can be tailored to your particular taste and directly targeted. So now, quite often, when I send a message to a friend, a little advert appears towards the bottom of the page, from Amazon or the like, advertising a deal they have on one of the books that's in my 'want to read' list on my 'bookshelf'.
So it's unsurprising to learn that this week Facebook announced that they were going to further open up the system, and create a situation where people could 'affiliate with' or 'recommend' products, services and brands. Effectively, individual Facebook users will be able to advertise a brand to all their friends, spreading the recommendation virally in a way which, one presumes, will mean that the amount of corporate imagery and sponsorship on the site will vastly increase.
The clamor from brands to get on board has been predictably huge. Coke, Microsoft and Sony are just three of sixty 'major' players already on board apparently. But what does this mean? Dean Best's comments are interesting. He counsels against brands becoming too pre-occupied with focusing on social-networking sites, for fear of creating totally fragmented campaigns. Instead he suggests it might be better for them not to loose site of traditional media sources, which reach everyone - namely TV and newspapers. But somehow I suspect that the brands aren't listening. For them, the opportunity to produce targeted campaigns at very specific user-groups is too good to miss, and having customers recommending brands to all their friends is the icing on the cake. And they may even be right to focus on this media source. Internet-based media is becoming the preferred source of entertainment and information in several age groups (replacing TV), but particularly for males in the late teens-to-early thirties age bracket that advertisers covet.
I personally believe that the greater risk here, is that a massively increased advertising presence will turn-off an audience that is savvy and dis-inclined to allow advertising to interrupt its entertainment time. Facebook's success in part derives from it's level of order, neat design appearance, and the clever way it updates you with - and communicates - information. It's subtle and deftly done. The risk for the site is that 'corporatising' will ultimately destroy the reason people are drawn in, and instead, push them away.
Related articles:
What Ford could learn from Facebook
Posted by Joseph Simpson on 16th November 2007, with thanks to the MacBook Pro which had a major strop and ingested the first version of this at 11 o'clock this morning!
Comments