Online Advertising Meets Social Networks

The online world of social networks continues to evolve and the number of people joining social networks has exploded in the past two years. There are literally tens of millions of people who are utilizing social networks every day and the reasons they frequent these sites is varied. Some people like to socialize, while others are seeking information, research, products, and services. Many people turn to social networks to make buying decisions.

Social networks such as FaceBook, YouTube, MySpace and others are fertile ground for online advertising. They offer an incredible opportunity to promote your business and your website to an audience that is hungry for information on virtually every topic and subject area imaginable. The networks have created online advertising options that focus on targeted advertising so you get the most benefit from the visitors who click on your ad.

As an example, FaceBook offers an opportunity for online advertising that enables you to create and optimize your advertisements. FaceBook reaches over 130 million active users and you can create image and text-based ads. They also offer a variety of options and specific criteria that allow you to target a specific market and audience so you attract those people who are most likely to make a purchase or who are interested in your niche market.

For example, among other things, you can designate:

Age category

Gender

Geographic location

Social networks such as FaceBook provide you with data so you know how many people match your advertising criteria. You’ll know exactly how many people you can potentially reach with your advertising strategy. They also provide other types of reports and statistics so you can evaluate your campaign effectiveness.

Fees associated with social bookmark advertising vary but you can estimate the cost of your advertising to ensure it fits within your budget. For example, as you create your ad, you are able to bid for cost per click (CPC) or cost per thousand impressions (CPM). By entering your targeting criteria and completing a few basic steps to ad creation, you’ll be able to estimate the cost of your ad.

Once you run your ad, you are charged based on the method you chose such as CPC or CPM. Your ad is displayed to the side of the pages or under the banner. Social networks utilize algorithms and historical data to determine which ads are most likely to be successful on a particular page. Keywords are used to help target ads to the best pages. For example, keywords can be based on books, movies, sports, hobbies, or other criteria. You choose the keywords most relevant to your website so you attract targeted traffic.

With social networks, you usually have the option to advertise a particular web page so users can be directed to that site when they click your ad. That provides you with instant traffic to your website and it helps you capture visitor information that can lead to future sales and the creation of long-term relationships.

Before you jump into the social network advertising arena, check out the most popular networks, evaluate their advertising options, and determine which ones best meet your business and financial needs. Keep an eye on the metrics to evaluate effectiveness and tweak your campaigns as needed to optimize the use of your advertising dollars.