Social Ads

Artwork by: Urs Steiner (stoneysteiner, on Flickr)

A whole new ballgame: Social Ads

The other type of Facebook ad is even more different. In fact, they are relatively unique among online ads in general. You don’t write an ad like you would with market ads, AdWords or other ad types.

Instead, postings that you make to the wall on your corporate page feed dynamically to the ad and become the ad’s content. So you buy ad space but the ad format and content are dynamic, based on activity on your wall.

Not everything you post on your wall automatically drives to your social ads. You can designate whether something stays purely on the wall or is free to appear in ads.

These new social ads can follow multiple formats: text only, text plus photo, video (with or without accompanying text), events and calendar entries (such as upcoming sales or the launch date for a new product), polls and questions.

Artwork by: Urs Steiner (stoneysteiner, on Flickr)

Capitalizing on the social nature of Facebook, when a user sees one of your social ads, they will also automatically see the names of any of their friends and contacts who have Liked your corporate page. This acts as a sort of tacit endorsement. Another feature is the ability for users to interact with the ad itself. There is a comment feature right in the ad and anything users write in the comment area will post both to your wall and to theirs (and be seen on the walls of all their friends).

As of this writing, there is no way to restrict or turn off this feature so those who are concerned about people posting negative comments may wish to avoid using social ads.

On the other hand, if you have a quality product or service and are targeting your ads properly, social ads have the potential to be a breakthrough in online advertising effectiveness.

Imagine being able to share bits of news, product updates and the like easily in your ads. Or buying flexible ad space but having the ability to update your ad’s content any time and as often as you like. Or to use your ads to ask your prospects what they want to see in the way of new features or new product releases. Imagine having your prospects endorse you to their friends and even spread your advertising message every time they comment.

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