Five reasons why Facebook Ads is a bad idea

By the time you’re reading this post, Facebook would have undergone a huge transformation – from a social networking site to a social media cum advertising network. But then, if you have a user base of around 50 million active users, this kind of transformation is always around the corner.

Now, you must have read a lot of blogs and sites stating that Facebook can be the best target for advertisers, the click through rate will be high, blah, blah, blah. But I’m sorry to say – I differ from all of them. I personally think advertising on Facebook could be a bad idea. It could even be going the MySpace way – from a neatly designed social networking site to a spam-filled site which has ads by the dozen. Why, you ask me? Allow me to present my reasons.

  1. Facebook is a social networking site meant primarily for students. Agreed, it has opened up to everyone now, but a majority of their user base is still students. So, as an advertiser, you cannot target them as they don’t have a regular disposable income.
  2. The click through rate (CTR) of Facebook is just around 0.04%, the kind of stat you don’t want to see as an advertiser.
  3. As of now, Facebook’s biggest strength is its spam-free, neat design which makes for a great networking tool. In fact, this is what separates Facebook from MySpace and other networking sites. By placing ads in there, Facebook could lose its USP and become just another social networking site.
  4. The majority of Facebook users are university students, who are intelligent enough to not get sucked up by dozens of ads that pop up from the screen – a fact which is clear from their click through rate.
  5. Last but not least, I, as a Facebook member, do not want advertisers to know about my likes, dislikes, preferences, and other things, at least not without my consent. If someone wants to know my personal info, they should get my permission. If I feel there is something valuable that the advertiser can offer me by knowing my personal info, I might think of giving him that. But, you just can’t expect people to say yes to advertisers using their personal info whichever way they want.

So, ladies and gentlemen – this is why I think Facebook ads is not so great an idea as it seems to be. I know a lot of you might agree with me and a lot of you would disagree with me, hell, some of you would even want to flame me. You’re welcome to do all that. Just go to the comments section and do whatever you want.

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Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

7 comments.

Julie Sheppard

Comment on November 15th, 2007.

Great ideas-more please!!

ishgradar

Comment on November 15th, 2007.

The only way i see facebook ads working is when advertisers are building a breand. I admit, the clickthrough rate is poor, but the ads do get noticed. VISIBILITY within the target market buiilds confidence & future sales are realised when it’s right for the facebook member to buy. The member will remember the logo and enter their high street shop or visit the website when they’re ripe to buy. I agree with you, it’s not appropriate for the small business, but big brands or hopeful big brands should make a move onto Facebook.

Kris

Comment on November 16th, 2007.

Hi Julie, Thanks for the kind words. Will be back with more of them. :)

Kris

Comment on November 16th, 2007.

ishgrader - I agree with you on the visibility issue. But then it’s not necessary for the big brands to gain exposure via Facebook, coz they are already popular and whatever move they make is noticed by millions of people already. May be for the wannabe-big brands, these ads might work out. Thanks for your opinion. Keep ‘em coming. :)

nimrodjo

Comment on December 2nd, 2007.

I agree with the #1, #4 and #5. With this point, i think it is not much for advertising in FaceBook…

Kris

Comment on December 5th, 2007.

Nimrodjo, I still think Facebook is not the best advertising medium for internet marketers. But then, there are quite a few people who are hell bent on proving me wrong. I shall wait and watch the game. :)

Pubstudent

Comment on April 2nd, 2010.

Here is why your wrong: 1. You can target students because even if they don’t have an interesting income, they are the most superficial of all… 2.The CTR isn’t important on Facebook because cost are calculated by clicks on it 3.Facebook welcome page will not get ads on it because Facebook doesn’t want to look like it wants money so that page will always be just full of your stuff. 4.I don’t know where you hold that statistic from, but it’s not as if I cared. The universitary students aren’t necessary smart people first of all. Secondly, they know that they need advertisments so they can get stuff for free and as they want to keep it free, they consider publicity as their friends. 5.To give your personnal informations to companies, YOU HAVE TO USE APPLICATIONS, and everytime you do try to get a new one, they tell you they will use your information. So they actually ask you to do it.

And I guess that’s good enough for you right?

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