In-Tweet Advertisements Break The Social Advertising Equation
As a result of this New York Times article, the buzz in social advertising this weekend was all about in-tweet advertisements: To cash in or not to cash in? To unfollow or continue following those who participate? The debate is nearly as heated as Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.
Social Ads Improve Users’ Advertising Experience
At SocialMedia.com we are familiar with the arguments of using social media in advertising. In fact, using real people to spread brand messages is something we’ve been thinking about for awhile. In June 2008 we first introduced social banner ads which give users the opportunity to interact with a brand and share that interaction with a friend. If the user chooses to engage with the ad, we then display that choice to their friends in the same ad.
As SocialMedia.com co-founder, Dave Gentzel, explained in 2008:
The fundamental reason people dislike advertising is because they think it takes advantage of them. This is especially true when individuals are inside ads. But, our goal is not to put people inside of ads as a gimmick, as gimmicks die and provide little value to anyone. Instead, we want to facilitate real conversation and interaction around certain products and brands.
Our approach simply and easily makes existing display advertising more relevant and more engaging — without disrupting or invading your usual online experience. This is why we are excited to be developing the first social advertising platform that helps publishers make any online ad social, anywhere on the web. Here’s one example:
Social Ads Also Perform Better
Last year SocialMedia.com conducted the first-ever social advertising research study in partnership with Dynamic Logic, establishing that social ads perform better than their non-social counterparts with regards to purchase intent, online ad awareness, and brand favorability.
…But Paying Consumers to Create the Message Breaks The Equation
So we’ve come to the conclusion that social ads are better because:
Real messages from real people = higher brand awareness, purchase intent, and favorability.
But, when adding monetization to the equation, the equation falls apart:
Paid messages from real people = confusion, distrust, and annoyance.
Here are more highlights from the debate. What do you think?
AGAINST
- Robert Scoble was quoted in the NYT article that in-tweet advertising “interferes with your relationship with your friends and your audience.” He expands on this in his blog post, arguing that “if Twitter or Facebook becomes infested with instream ads it will piss everyone off and we’ll all leave, so any investment in building audiences in those systems will be destroyed by the greed of other people.”
- Paul Carr also comicly struggles between right and wrong in his recent blog post, ultimately deciding that “Following people on Twitter is like organising the world’s largest cocktail party – we’ve decided who’s opinions we trust, and we’ve invited them to come into our homes and talk to us about things they are genuinely interested in. The moment people start screwing around with that principle, the whole system collapses.” After wrapping us his long-winded epiphany using the cocktail party metaphor, Carr bravely declares “Give me ad-free conversation, or give me death.”
FOR
- Mark Suster (of the firm GRP Partners that funds Ad.ly - a startup that powers the monetization of in-tweet advertising) argues that in-tweet advertising is good for consumers here and here. Based on the assumption that some form of advertising must be perpetuated, shouldn’t those who create the content (tweets) be the ones making money from it? Moreover, in-tweet advertising still bestows users with the power of choosing who they follow and thus, who they receive in-tweet advertising from. Suster also points out that in-stream ads expands the reach of the brand message, as they would appear on third-party apps through tweets, where banner or side ads could only live on Twitter.com.
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