While advertising on these networks is considered to be vital a new survey questions their effectiveness.
Gallup has recently released the results of a social media marketing study that has suggested that this advertising channel is not nearly as effective as some of the leading networks – such as Facebook and Twitter – would have companies believe.
The recent “State of the American Consumer” report from the polling firm showed that few feel these ads work.
The Gallup poll results showed that only 5 percent of Americans feel that social media marketing has a considerable influence over the various products that they purchase. That said, a massive 62 percent of the survey participants felt that these ads had no effect at all on the decisions that they make with regards to purchasing. The survey involved the participation of 18,000 consumers in the United States.
The social media marketing study showed that offline interaction with brands were far more influential.
Participants in the survey stated that they were more heavily influenced by interactions with brands that occurred offline, such as those that occur during in-store visits and that they see in retail display windows. They felt that these were far more influential than ads that they saw over social media such as Facebook and Twitter.
It is expected that those social networks – and others – will be quite surprised by the findings, as will the brands that are expected to spend a total $11.4 billion on advertising over those two leading platforms by the close of 2014.
The Gallup report suggested that Americans are using their favorite social media platforms in order to interact with the people they know, and not necessarily the brands that they like. In fact, the publication suggested that those site users have learned to tune out the ads that are displayed in front of them while they use those social networks.
The social media marketing report said that “These channels do not motivate prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others,” adding that “Therefore, if companies want to acquire new customers, their best bet is to engage their existing customers and inspire them to advocate on their behalf.”
A smartphone focused advertising network has now been launched by the social media giant.
At the F8 developer conference, Facebook unveiled and launched their new mobile marketing network that provides the ability to target users throughout the various applications that they use on their devices.
This also gives the ability to target them for advertising based on the data they have shared with the social network.
The new mobile marketing product has been called the Facebook Audience Network, and it gives brands the ability to place their advertisements on third party applications through the use of the intricate targeting data from Facebook. This network has been under testing by the social media giant since 2012. It will give advertisers the capability to use both custom units or the traditional standard form of banner ads.
This new mobile marketing network will place Facebook in direct competition with InMobi and AdMob.
It also adds a new way in which Facebook is competing with Twitter, as that other social media platform has already taken its own type of approach to smartphone based advertising after it acquired the MoPub ad network in 2013.
So far, though there have been many efforts and repeated high hopes regarding Facebook’s mobile advertising strategies, there have yet to be a great deal of large scale successes. This, despite the fact that the social media platform claims that there are one million advertisers currently using it to reach consumers.
The signature smartphone ad, which gives developers the opportunity to be able to promote app installations, currently makes up 59 percent of the ad revenue for the company as a whole. Last Wednesday Mark Zuckerberg stated that Facebook was behind a massive 1 billion application installations until now. He added that “I’m really excited about this Audience Network,” expressing that “This is really the first time that we’re going to help you monetize in a serious way on mobile.”
This mobile marketing network is one of a series of new Facebook features that are focused on providing advertisers on developers. It is also working toward a method that will allow one app to be able to link to another without having to use a mobile web page as a “middleman” along the way.
