Social Media and Advertising....

MediaWeek did a piece on FaceBook, and their attempt to target their user base base more effectively for advertisers - (hat tip: Andrew W.)

The MediaWeek piece is HERE.

"Facebook plans to unveil a new ad unit in the coming weeks that the company says uniquely harness the site's social networking dynamic. . . . .
When users elect to click on these ads, their entire network of friends will be automatically alerted and then given the chance to interact with that particular marketer's group.

According to Mike Murphy, Facebook's chief revenue officer, the new units are geared for advertisers that are looking to create customized offers for the Facebook community that go beyond standard banner messaging. "Up until now, most advertising on social network sites hasn't leveraged social networking behavior," he said. "This offers a viral opportunity that is unique for advertisers that is not disruptive."

My friend Rob Deichert, has said it better than I can...

From Rob's Blog:

"If I understand this correctly, I'm on Facebook I click on one of these ads and then all my friends will be alerted of the ad I clicked on.

Remind you of something?

Those great chain letters that you get from friends or those jokes you never want to read.

In my opinion this is not the way to leverage social networking.

Social networking data needs to be leveraged in a non-explicit fashion. There needs to be more relevance than just one degree of separation.

If "friending" is a true phenomena the relevancy of association is greatly reduced, thus increasing the annoyance factor of these, "hey I just checked out this ad alerts." The strength of each connection needs to be valued individually to determine the proper group to pass along a similar marketing message."

I agree with the above assesment.

That is why what my company is building, a "non-invasive" - and completely aggregated and targeting algorithym, based partly on DEGREE SEPERATION DATA, as well as many many other components inherit to social networks.

It seems that the entire FaceBook concept is based on the element of, DEGREES. (I could be wrong.)

When publishers choose LOTAME as a tool to help the monetize their inventory......the FACEBOOK solution outlined above is NOT what they will get.....

Facebook sees the value of their data -- from our perspective it's more about aggregating the information more efficiently, and then targeting it more optimally to increase results for advertisers.

That is the foundation of Lotame.