Week 6 - Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

So here is another article that makes you question how companies are even making any money on the internet other than selling the tangible and intangible items. This article is old (end of 2008), but I have a feeling that Facebook still has the same issues. Advertisers want to be where the people are so that the people can see their product and want to buy it. People can very easily ignore the ads, especially on Facebook. The only advertisements I have seen on Facebook that are Facebook sponsored are the banner ads on the side. There is so much information on a single Facebook page, and users know where the important information is, so people can easily block out the ads.

I thought it was humorous when the NY Times article brought up the example how an 11-month Fan page campaign P&G was doing with Tide on Facebook generated only 18 submissions. It might have had many "fans" join for a contest or something, but there were only 16 (minus the P&G submissions) or even 15, or 14 (minus The Onion's submissions) for the actual campaign. I have definitely become a fan of a particular company or brand on Facebook just because of a drawing or a free give-away. It is effortless, but if I never remember to remove my fan status I continue to get emails from that company for future promotions, etc. Maybe the Facebook presence does work after all. In that scenario, the company theoretically didn't have to pay Facebook any advertising dollars to run that promotion. It sounds like the online advertising in social networking sites might be a highly debated topic in Marketing department for years to come.