Social Networks

Social Networks - The Pre-Targeted Channels of Marketing?

I am not sure where to start from. Probably with the obvious fact that I will have to explain the title of this post. May be everything started not with the start of the social networks and the way such a web sites are attracting the people, but with the assumptions , Google will start to penalize or even exclude some sites from the search results for overbidding them with link-selling.

The latter, seems to be almost over with the last page rank update, but the opt for advertising hegemony over the free market will not succeed as one of the main reasons for the start of Web 2.0 is offering even more possibilities - The Social Networks.

And it does not matter what kind of web site is this. I could be something link MySpace, Facebook or Stumbleupon , some popular sites like Digg or most of the valuable personal blogs. Does not matter which of these we are talking about because all of them have one thing in common that makes them highly rated and seen by the big companies and their marketeers - all these site target their audiences perfectly.

If such a site is popular, that means that it has lots of regular or even loyal visitors (may be its time to start calling them customers) and probably the same sum of accidentally came people, searching to be targeted, eventually.

What is the main purpose of the social networking web sites - they just put together people with common interests. Aside all the forums and discussions, the era of the new social contacts have may different features, options. The people going to such site are seeking for different things but all of them now have been all victimized by their own striving for the strange and diverse virtual environment - being together with fellow web adventure seekers.

This is just the first part of the puzzle. We need something that may drive the hunters to go and get the booties. The ways that internet offers for the companies who want to promote themselves are almost unlimited…but highly saturated and still not that expensive like the conventional ad channels. The possibility to express yourself and advertise on different places and different ways has made the ad presence on our screens nothing but part of the game.

All the consumers know well the price of a product and don’t mind anymore to see 1 or 2 more ads on the websites they visit.

Even more, we visit those ads, we click on someones google/yahoo ads or other CPC programs, just to help them make a living from their dedication to provide us with useful and well served information about our hobbies and interests. We don’t even bother to provide our “precious” personal information on most of those web sites. And it does not matter why we do this, as long as we do it.

If everything said can be combined and sorted, all I can say is that we have the puzzle settled except the last piece - the cause for going for the social networks.

Google banner the text links, the banners are kind of too colored and bright and sometimes is not worthy to advertise on a site with many colorful ads and finally - the website cannot guarantee on 100% that the ad will reach any specific targeted audience.

Social networking web sites can! People share who they are, what they like or not, what their interests are and so on… What better than having a complete profile of one group and then start generating ads all over.

But in the end I am sure that the people will continue to use social network sites even if they are full of banners and ad texts. It is only the advertising market map that will be some kind of revised.

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