News Home > Online Advertising
Facebook set for advertising boom
Numerous top brands are rumoured to be lining up advertising deals with the hottest property on the web at the moment - Facebook.According to the Times, industry-leading firms such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Conde Nast, General Motors and Nike are jockeying to sign up to display adverts on the fast-growing social network.
This follows the website gaining further respectability among the big players in advertising due to Microsoft's recent purchase of a 1.6 per cent stake of the firm in a deal which valued Facebook at £7.3 billion - more than British Airways - despite not having yet made a profit.
However, this may soon change as eMarketer predicts that this year some £450 million will be spent on social network advertising in the US and a further £167 million by firms in the rest of the world.
This is based on the hope that advertisements will be accurately targeted to those who may be interested in a product or service, having identified them as a target using the information on their social network profile page.
A recent Ipsos Insight study added further fuel to attempts to monetise the precious consumer data on social networks by profiling the average social networker and finding that they are typically more likely to own technology, consume more digital entertainment and own more mobile devices.
Although Carlton Cribb, the digital buying director at London ad agency Zed Media, told the Times there are still kinks to be worked out in creating a reliable ad targeting system for social networks, the interest from major firms may help Facebook and other social networks such as MySpace open up to advertisers in a bid to cash in on their detailed user information.
Online Advertising news posted on 30 October 2007
