Search Engine Optimization News Blog

The main search engines have almost perfected ad targeting; displaying ads relevant to the viewers and geared to their interests.

Why can’t social sites do the same? Surely they have more personal information about their viewers right at their fingertips.

A recent poll survey by Prospectiv (a company providing acquisition fixes to top brand names as well as operating a lead generating platform) showed that consumers do not feel that many ads on social networks are relevant.

There is really no excuse for it. It’s not like it can’t be done. All the information is right there, so why the hold up? Many companies still don’t seem to get the concept that the social network medium and the more traditional content sites work quite differently from each other.

Prospective ran the poll on 800 users who frequent networks like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 and Friendster. A whopping 87 % said they while they did not object to ads being shown on the social sites, they felt that ads often failed to match their needs or interests. 58% went so far as to say that in their opinion, NO ads they saw were relevant to them, and that they never respond to any ads on such sites.

Perhaps it is just going to take time for marketers to figure out how to approach consumers in this area. If you are planning on buying ad space on a social network site, take note of the surveyed users’ comments on what grabs their eye:

– Discounts and coupons for brands they know and trust.

– E-newsletters featuring the same, or news and tips about such items

– Invitations to join interactive groups for sharing and communicating.

This may discourage companies trying to break into the market with their own products. However, if targeting is carefully implemented, there is a huge untapped market among social net users. A wedding photography agency specifically targeted profiles of women who listed themselves as engaged, offering a chance to win a photo package sweepstakes, and boosted their business there by a wide margin. Several major chain stores have managed to target the musical and fashion niches in the social networks and reported huge performance increases.

Learning how to approach social network users is expected to be the next big step in the world of online ad targeting, and small website owners who derive a large portion of their traffic from blog or forum links are encouraged to take notice.