Facebook sells personal info for ad revenue...
It had to happen, didn't it?
Paid advertising is going big time on social networking sites. Wednesday news sources gave major play to news that Facebook would be dipping into personal information people put online so that advertisers can use this information to make sure that when Sally buys a new Sony TV or Tom enrolls in a University of Phoenix online course, that information is sent along to everyone else who is a friend of Sally or Tom.
The strategy, we are told, is to take advantage of word-of-mouth references on the assumption that if you like something, a significant number of your friends will also like it.
Marketers are going to pay major dollars to take advantage of this. And, despite the NY Times headline below, Facebook isn't falling over backwards to make it easy for individual people to keep this from happening. First, you'll have to opt out rather than give permission for this to happen. Second, according to the USA Today story, Facebook is waiting to see how many people are upset by this practice. If there are lots of them, the "We'll react quickly to that" according to the head of Facebook.
Each of the stories below is worth reading, in part to see the differents spins people are putting on the event. The AdvertisingAge story will give you the best peek at just how the new system will work.
And there's absolutely no reason, of course, why colleges and universities might not take advantage of this as well. You'll have to create your own brand space on Facebook and after that you'll be free to play if the ad rates and expected returns justify the investment. Let's watch and see if University of Phoenix, the largest online education advertiser by far, moves into the new arena.
MySpace, of course, is working on its own expanded advertising opportunities. The USA Today story notes that MySpace, at 110 million users, is still far larger than Facebook at 40 million people. In short, stay tuned for the Clash of the Social Networking Titans.
Visit these stories for more information:
- New York Times
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/07/technology/07adco.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
- "Facebook Is Marketing Your Brand Preferences (With Your Permission)"
- Advertising Age
- http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=121806
- "Facebook's Big Ad Plan: If Users Like You, They'll Be Your Campaign"
- USA Today
- http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2007-08-26-facebook_N.htm
- "Facebook plans to offer targeted ads"