Authentic Buzz

One of the lovely things about Facebook has been its less intensive advertising. There’s been some banners but it’s mostly been more promotions based marketing where features (like Holiday Centre) have been sponsored or Groups that allow you to opt-in to connect to some activity (like the new JT film Alpha Dog).

Facebook has grown as a student network. Up until a few months ago you could only get on if you had a .ac.uk or .edu email address. This meant they were pretty much ignored by mainstream-media as no-one could really get on and have a look. However during this time they’ve signed-up millions of users and have an amazingly high penetration into the student market - all of which seem to love the service.

This more grass-roots approached allows them to embark on a micro-marketing opportunities. Users can buy ‘flyers’ for $5 which get you 10,000 impressions if you’re a student and 2,500 impressions if you’re not. These allow individual campuses to be targeted giving some interesting commercial opportunities to arise.

Trendcatching’s pointed out one company that’s taken advantage of these - Boso. Boso is an “online marketplace where students can trade their second-hand stuff with other students, quickly and easily.” They use flyers to remark on current news and entertainment stories to provoke reasons for students to sample their site. It’s a classic piece of brand building that gives the site a personality and encourage trial in a crowded marketplace.

Disappointingly though it seems that since Friday Facebook has bit the bullet and signed up to a number of ad-networks generating banners on every page. Disappointingly they’re not particularly targeted and have included those seemingly social-network standard-issue ones for smilies. Something that has created a Facebook group dedicated to “Get those fucking talking smileys off facebook!!” It will be interesting to see if this changes over the coming weeks and months.