ADS THROUGH THE AGES
Advertisements have played an integral role in shaping history throughout the world. Companies and advertisers have used thoughtfully targeted ads to bring consumers closer to brands.
It is no surprise that with the changing behaviors and patterns of people today, advertisements too, are changing. With the growing social media trend and its conversion into mobile, advertisements are popping up on social media sites and are now being optimized for mobile channels.
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HOW ADVERTISEMENTS DIFFER PER PLATFORM
To make it easier for you, we’re breaking down the different advertising options on social media channels.
While Facebook is an affordable way of advertising, users feeds are being bogged down with ads more and more each day. According to the New York Times, “this year… roughly 1 in 20 posts sent to users’ news feeds were ads”.1 Facebook, the leader of social media advertising, has 3 different ways businesses can advertise on the social site: Suggested Posts, Sponsored Stories, and Sponsored Ads.
Suggested Posts can be found in the news feed and look like any other user posts, but are accompanied with “suggested post” written in grey, and a “LIKE” button featured directly on the post. (Note: there are different objectives when creating a Facebook ad, optimizing “LIKES” is only one example. Additionally, advertisers can choose to send users to an outside site as well.)
Similarly to Suggested Posts, Sponsored Stories are also visible in the news feed. The only difference between the two is that Sponsored Stories are ads that show up in a user’s news feed that also tell the user which of his/her friends have “LIKED” the page that is being advertised.
Sponsored Ads can be found in the right column. These ads can promote a Facebook page, or guide users to an outside domain such as a homepage.
Also rising in importance is mobile advertising, which accounts for 49% of Facebook’s advertising revenue.2 For mobile users, advertisements are seen in the news feed as Sponsored Posts, Sponsored Stories, and Suggested Apps.
With the simplicity of Twitter, the platform has advertising in three basic, but effective ways: Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends, and Promoted Accounts.
Promoted Accounts show up on the top of the left column in the section called ‘Who to Follow.’ Underneath the ‘Who to Follow’ section in the left column is Promoted Trends, as seen in the ‘Trends’ section. Promoted Tweets can be seen just like any other tweet in the right hand column which houses the user’s feed. Each of the different promoted advertisements are accompanied by a small orange box with a white arrow next to the word ‘promoted’ in a faint grey color.
Google+
Google+ remains 100% ad-free, which the giant can afford to do based on the revenue they make elsewhere. This ad-free platform however, does not have as many users as other platforms, which might add explanation as to why there is less of a need to advertise on Google+. Nevertheless, the lack of advertisements allows Google+ to remain true to the meaning of ‘social media,’ where users can freely share information to those who choose to follow them.
LinkedIn has ads that serve to target any of its 255 million members worldwide. On LinkedIn, advertising makes more sense, due the nature of the site. Companies can advertise availability within their company, and those looking for jobs can find them with the help of advertising. The advanced targeting of LinkedIn, paired with the nature of the product, make advertising on LinkedIn worthwhile, but only if the need is there. Unlike some of the other social media giants, only a quarter of LinkedIn’s revenue comes from ads, while the majority of revenue comes from recruiting.3
‘Sponsored’ ads show up in users feeds just like any other user-generated post would. ‘Ads By LinkedIn Members’ appear on the bottom of the right hand column. A last type of advertisement for LinkedIn, which is not pictured, is Sponsored InMail- a personalized message that goes to users inboxes, directly from an individual rather than a brand.4
While Pinterest does have plans to roll out advertisements, “Promoted Pins” are still in beta and have only appeared for few users by a select handful of businesses. What has rolled out however is a function called “Related Pins.” Related pins show up in the user’s feed like any other pin, but these pins have a small notice on the bottom notifying users that the pin is related. If the user hovers over the “i” info icon attached to the notice, it will tell users “This pin is from a board that has some of the same Pins as your _____ board.” The user can then control whether or not he/she likes the pin5. The “Related Pin” in red, appears in the feed as any other feed would. The “Promoted Pins” will do the same excellent job of blending in to users’ feeds.
Instagram began rolling out advertisements November 1, 2013. Michael Kors was among the first companies to run an advertisement on Instagram. The first ad, as pictured below, featured a watch in a way that was in-line with the way that users post photos on Instagram. The difference? A “sponsored” label in the upper right side, where the time stamp normally is. Users did not take to the roll out well, with most of the comments proving negative sentiment. However, data shows that promoted posts are showing 14 times more “LIKES” than those who are not promoted, which is translating into an increase in followers as well6. Michael Kors for example, gains an average of 54,000 new followers in the 18 hours after each advertisement is posted7. As of right now, advertising is not open to all businesses, only to very large businesses such as Michael Kors, Ben & Jerry, Lexus, General Electric and Levi’s to name a few.
HOW YOU CAN USE THIS INFORMATION
What all of these social sites have in common when it comes to advertising, is the use of ‘native’ advertisements.
Native advertisements can be described as those who can be seen within the content stream, and who resemble this stream, only denoting that it is an advertisement with a small, sometimes hard to see mark.8 In order to gain any attention, advertisements have to blend in with other user-generated content. These ads are not your traditional “$5 off your next purchase” advertisements. The ads need to blend with the appropriate content for the specific platform in order to appear relevant and to not seem “spammy” to users.
When utilizing social media advertisements, make sure that you pay close attention to the different audiences that you have on each of the different sites so that you can best target your audience and get more return-on-investment.
Working on a new website? Be sure to download these 6 simple tips to help you save time and money during the process.
1, 2. Goel, Vindu. “Mobile Ads Fuel A Jump In Profit At Facebook.” New York Times. October 31, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013. (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/technology/rising-mobile-ad-sales-propel-facebook-profit.html?_r=0).
3, 8. Martin, Scott. “LinkedIn Goes Wide With Media Content, Native Ads.” USA Today. September 25, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013. (http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/09/25/linkedin-navigates-native-ads-in-media-push/2853073/).
4. NewsCred. “The Social Advertising Cheat Sheet Every Marketer Needs: Comparing Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.” AdWeek. December 3, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2013. (http://www.adweek.com/brandshare/social-advertising-cheat-sheet-every-marketer-needs-154232).
5. “Freshen Up Your Home Feed With Related Pins.” Pinterest. October 29, 2013. Retrieved November 23, 2013. (http://blog.pinterest.com/post/65445559295/freshening-up-your-home-feed-with-related-pins).
6. Smith, Cooper. “Some Instagram Ads Are Being ‘Liked’ Hundreds of Thousands of Times.” Business Insider. December 4, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2013. (http://www.businessinsider.com/some-instagram-ads-are-being-liked-hundreds-of-thousands-of-times-2013-12).
7. Brustein, Joshua. “What Do Instagram Advertisers Actually Get For Their Money?” Business Insider. December 2, 2013. Retrieved December 7, 2013. (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-02/what-do-instagram-advertisers-actually-get-for-their-money).