Social Networking Adveritising Not Working
As reported in BusinessWeek, social network users are spending less time on sites like MySpace and Facebook in an effort to avoid advertising. “The average amount of time each user spends on social networking sites has fallen by 14% over the last four months, according to market researcher ComScore. MySpace, the largest social network, has slipped from a peak of 72 million users in October to 68.9 million in December, ComScore says. The total number of people on such sites is still increasing at an 11.5% rate, but that’s down sharply from past growth rates.”
“MySpace and Facebook recognize the issue but say increased targeting and other innovations will spur users to pay more attention.”
We will see what happens, but maybe online games are the new social networking sites when it comes to hot places to advertise.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Matt Hanson
Comment by Matt Hanson — February 17, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
This is a provocative point that flies in the face of most Web 2.0 predictions.
It is difficult to argue with the data; however, I wonder about three possibilities that may explain the data:
1. if the universe of social networking consumers has plateaued for the time being, and/or
2. if the social networking consumers are finding new need-specific social networking sites beyond the generalist sites like MySpace and Facebook (consider a specific site like Wesabe), and/or
3. if consumers are creating their own social networking sites and, thus, relying less on a generalist site provider and more on their own ingenuity.
I am in the camp of “all the above” with an emphasis on the third option. Your blog, its tags, links and this correspondence are all a case in point.
As for advertising not working on these sites, I would agree. As for consumers going to other sites because of this advertising, I would agree, too.
But I wonder if the reason they are going to other environments to “escape” the advertising is a result of the content quality rather than the vehicle. Said differently, an interesting message, regardless if it is an advertisement or a piece of entertainment, always wins. I would argue that most brands that advertise online, on MySpace and on Facebook still operate from a pre-Web paradigm rather than a one-to-one, conversational approach. Thus, the consumer exodus.
Here is an example of a company/brand that I think has done a good job recently of creating a quasi-social networking environment on its e-commerce site: Burton snowboards (which is mentioned in your list of innovative companies). Check it out: http://www.burton.com/Default.aspx
Comment by iv whitman — February 28, 2008 @ 6:32 am