Sunday, March 9, 2008

Advertising on Facebook

I found an article discussing how Facebook is the worst performing site as far as advertising goes. Many Facebook users are college students who use the site to connect with friends and are immune to advertisers attempts to lure them with banners and ads. College students also usually don't have a lot of disposable or discretionary income, making them a poor target for advertisers. The clickthrough rate, or the percentage of times Facebook users click on ads, is .04%, or 400 clicks for every 1 million views. The clickthrough rate on MySpace is 2.5 times greater at .10%.
I think that the clickthrough rate on Facebook may be so low because of the nature of the site. Facebook is a platform for people to connect with friends in their networks. Profiles can only be accessed if users are in the same networks. On the other hand, MySpace allows access to all pages as long as individual users choose not to set their profiles as private. When people go on MySpace, they are likely to click on a page, see something that interests them, and then click on another page. On Facebook, users are more limited in what pages they can access. Myspace users have more of an open forum and seem to be more open-minded as to the content they view. On Facebook, most people have an agenda: check messages, check pictures and friend updates, stalk people they are curious about. MySpace has more options such as browsing music, celebrities, etc. This "browsing" nature of the site may be the reason banners and ads are more affective on MySpace. What do you guys think?

1 comment:

Kristyn-Anne said...

I think a good point is made here - not only are we as college students averse to banner ads, but we are also very low on disposable income. That combination is a deadly equation for advertisers on a site that is mainly comprised of that demographic. I am not surprised to learn of Facebook's poor advertising outcome and would be somewhat less than disappointed if there were a decrease in ads on the site.