Facebook & Twitter Advertising Is (Currently) Rubbish

Posted in Social Media | 13-Apr-2011 14:42

Ok heres the flaw in that argument - Facebook & Twitter arent ad platforms in the same way that Google aspires to be. Fair enough, why should they be? Having said that Facebook has an existing ppc ad model and Twitter is experimenting with sponsored tweets and more, so they are both appreciating and exploring the ad revenue model. Assuming, and we have to assume, that both these companies want to earn more money via ad revenue then why are their current offerings so goddam rubbish for businesses and SEO's like us?

Facebook PPC ads suck right now (Apr 11). Expensive cpc's, no accurate conversion tracking, doesnt work with Google analytics etc etc. Twitter has 'sponsored tweets' which arent targeted at any great granular level and are available to very few advertisers. It all seems a bit un-innovative and 20th century compared to the old stalwart Adwords and the constant improvements to Google's ppc model that make paid Google Advertising such an innovative, useable and scalable income stream for small and large business alike. 

If I was a Facebook or Twitter r&d/advertising employee heres what id be thinking:

Googles content network which matches businesses ads to relevant website content is a beautiful, wide scale and targeted ad medium which produces phenomenal results for advertisers and Googles bootom line. Facebook/Twitter is the ultimate online content phenomena which masses of unique, original content posted every second - wouldnt it be great to display relevant ads next to real time posts/discussions for uber targeted advertising? For example im a company selling AA batteries - someone tweets how their batteries on their TV control just expired - they get served with my ad for AA batteries at that EXACT moment. Pretty hard core targeted advertising right??

Ok heres what I suspect the counter argument is - the big T & FB arent 'search' engines, people arent looking for stuff but a way to communicate with each other. If people search for 'AA batteries' on Google its fair enough to serve them an ad for AA batteries right? If someone is bitching about their TV control just expiring is it still fair game to serve them an ad???? Well ok I get that argument but cant T & FB introduce 'opt in' ad options for users in exchange for 'something; i.e. Facebook credits (for games) or something else. My point is if Facebook & Twitter continue to experiment with ad models why not do it properly and without disengaging their audience for the benefit of their own bottom line, advertisers, and lets face it their users - their users you say? Well yes we dont have an outcry about ads being served on Google, they after all help 'searchers' with alternative/targeted search results right? If you see fit to complain about your TV remote dying on Twitter wouldnt you appreciate information telling you where to get cheap replacement batteries?

Twitter and Facebook, such incredible pioneers and innovators of how we live in the 21st century just seem unable (right now) to monetize their own system and profitize many millions of businesses who would sign up instantly for the kind of ad system ive just described and which Google seems to be the only business to operate so (very very very very) successfully.

 

 

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