Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Social Networkers less receptive to ads

A latest report by IDC, an international subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), says that Social Networking Users are spending more time than ever on these fora. Also, that the end users have become increasingly resistant to advertising on Social Networking Sites.

The press release by IDC says:

In fact, users are less tolerant of SNA advertising than the best tolerated forms of online advertising. Ads on SNS have lower click-through rates than traditional online ads (on the web at large, 79 percent of all users clicked on at least one ad in the past year, whereas only 57 percent of SNS users did), and they also lead to fewer purchases (Web: 23 percent; SNS 11 percent).

It goes on to say...

One of the potential benefits of SNS that the advertising industry has discussed is whether peoples' connections (i.e., whom a user knows or is linked to) could be used for advertising. For instance, publishers could show a car manufacturer's ads to a user's contacts because that user's online behaviour has indicated that she is interested in a particular brand of cars. Anecdotally, there has been some indication that this "social advertising" might be more effective than behavioural targeting.

A thought debated globally but its execution remains hazy!

Here is where conversational marketing looks to score a point over banner and click rate based online advertising strategies. The need to be a part of the global digital tribe in order to gain acceptance and provide real value to users interested ion brand by utilizing social media tools needs to be go beyond lip service and planning. Demanding clients primed in online advertising space look to implement these solutions as it is much more convienient, precise and less demamding on time, monies.

The necessity of being a part of the community "paticipant-observer" rather than a cultural voyuer" was brought home while I was reading one of Brian Solis's works. And I not forgotten this edict since as I beleeive this is what would provide true value.

The US based study may not be relevant if corellated to Indian scenario. But as it is observed with social media technologies, this trend may follow at phase 3 of adoption in India.

AnyIndia specific data on such trends? Do let me know and comment on this study.

IDC press release [Link]

Update 1 (Jan 13 2009) 1:40 pm IST

A related article from Mashable which quotes an e-marketer survey which suggest that Social Networking Sites still the number 1 growth area in online marketing



Coupled with a resistance to advertising on Social Networking platforms, it makes conversational marketing and online PR a formidable force in the digital space.
Mashable article [Link] - Social media still the #1 growth area in online marketing

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Feel like you have something to say!