Clash of the Titans: Facebook vs Google Ads
By now, many social media and marketing professionals are very familiar with the major announcements of the F8 Facebook conference in San Francisco last week. One of the major announcements included the addition of a “like” button that businesses or developers can simply drop into their website to make sharing relevant content through Facebook as simple as the click of a button. Facebook users simply log into their account and then search the web. Once the user stumbles upon an article or webpage of interest and there is a “like” button available for clicking, they simply “like” the page and a link will automatically be added to their Facebook profile news feed. Additionally, if any of your Facebook friends view the same webpage, they will now have the ability to see that you viewed and “liked” the page.
Pete Cashmore, Founder and CEO of Mashable! recently wrote an article on CNN describing “How Facebook Won the Web.” At first read, I thought it was a bit bold and premature to state that Facebook had “won” the web. After all, social networking sites such as Twitter, Linkedin, and some would even argue, Myspace still have an active and competitive presence on the web. But, the article got me thinking about Facebook from a marketing perspective and how a move such as the “like” button could catapult Facebook past petty social networking sites and put them in direct competition with the ultimate web Goliath, Google. What could that do to web advertisements?
Let’s think about it from a business perspective. Google currently allows for companies or individuals to bid on certain search engine keywords in designated locations. But Facebook takes it further. You can not only bid on keywords in certain areas, you can target age ranges, gender, language, education level, work place, relationship status, even relationship interests! And let’s not forget – add an eye catching graphic to any paid advertisement to help catch reader attention.
Additionally, Facebook is adding to its search capabilities to provide its users with relevant search results based upon their own personal interests and that of their friends, rather than just key words that are relevant to various public websites. The improved search capabilities coupled with the expanded web presence of the “like” button will surely bring, makes it is easy to see that Facebook has aggressively changed their position from a simple social networking site to a complex and well strategized up-and-coming search engine.
I can tell you one thing, I am now heavily considering recommending more Facebook ads over Google ads to my client’s marketing mix now that they have robustly expanded their offering and reach.
What about you? Does your business actively advertise with both Google and Facebook? Have you been persuaded to invest more dollars in Facebook advertising over Google since the announcements of the F8 conference?
I did my Ethics paper on Facebook and how it has grown immensely over the past few years but I didn’t touch on the advertising piece of the equation. I like the idea that Facebook has become a “single point of failure” on the web and, unless they put some privacy/security features in place I think I lot of people might struggle with idea that their personal information is for sale. Personal info is already out there but with Facebook, people voluntarily provide more and more information. I think from a business perspective, Facebook has tons of momentum and might surpass Google in a fairly short amount of time.
I definitely agree that Facebook has access to a lot of private information through user profiles and think that people need to be aware and more careful than ever in regards to anything they put on the web. But on the other hand, think about how much information Google has? Let’s say you have a gmail account (like many). Most gmail users take advantage of other google services such as their searches, google docs, reader, chat, even google voice. That in itself is a platform where Google has crazy amount of inside information on your behavior, contributed content (private or public), and web traffic patterns. I just can’t see how that is any worse than Facebook.
I believe people in general should accept more responsibility when it comes to what they post on the internet or on social media. Follow the “grandma rule.” If you wouldn’t be proud of your grandma seeing it, you shouldn’t post it.