Content Scares Advertisers Away From Social-Networking Sites

from the this-offensive-content-is-brought-to-you-by... dept

Mon, Aug 6th 2007 2:30pm — Carlo Longino

Thanks to the extensive use of ad networks and other middlemen, it's common for companies to not know each and every place online where their advertisements appear. For instance, a lot of big companies claimed ignorance when their ads showed up through adware products, saying that they had no idea they were supporting the practice. Last week, a number of British companies became alarmed with their ads on the Facebook social-networking site appeared on the profile pages of the British National Party, a far-right wing political party that's generally seen as racist and fascist. The companies yanked their ads from the site, and now the British government says it won't advertise on user-generated content sites for fear that its ads would run alongside contentious or undesirable content. This is a serious concern for many businesses, which don't want to be seen as supporting or associated with certain groups or types of content. But it's a potentially bigger problem for Facebook and other social-networking and user-generated content sites. These sites' major challenge is figuring out how to monetize the massive amounts of traffic they get, and their poor click-through rates are already one factor that holds down the rates they can charge. Couple those low rates with a dearth of quality advertisers scared off by the sites' content, and it sounds like a vicious cycle for social-networking and UGC sites.

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Filed Under: advertising, social networking, user generated content
Companies: facebook

13 Comments

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Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased), 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:00pm

???
Ads? What ads?
Thank you AdBlock.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:10pm

I've yet to find an 'adblocker' that truley blocks all advertisments.
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- Mark, 6 Aug 2007 @ 7:20pm
  
  Re:
  peerguardian works ok, but it does take the sites longer to load. Not a full adblocker, but does pretty well.
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 2:27am
  
  Re:
  Because nothing could possibly automatically block 100% of adverts without any manual intervention.
  
  However,I use Firefox with NoScript and AdBlock and I have to manually block a new advert or two every month. Pretty damn good if you ask me.
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Rick, 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:28pm

It's amusing how Google has no problems dealing with this issue. CONTEXTUAL advertising is and always will be the primary source of advertising for many social networking sites and forums. They're the only 'major' ad network that utilizes this both for the benefit of their advertisers and the ad viewers. Imagine the higher returns, prices, and satisfaction if more multimedia ads were served in this fashion?

I've always assumed thats what Google intended to do with Doubleclick. They didn't buy it just for the user data...
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- Anonymous Coward, 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:34pm
  
  Re: contextual ads
  That doesn't eliminate the phony contextual ads that show up in the right column of Google. You could search "genital herpes" and the tag line would say, "get your genital herpes on eBay". I fact, I think that's where I got my dose.
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  - wnyght, 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:53pm
    
    Re: Re: contextual ads
    You could search "genital herpes" and the tag line would say, "get your genital herpes on eBay".
    
    now this is just disappointing. I googled "genital herpes," but it didn't give me the ebay option, that sux!
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GoblinJuice, 6 Aug 2007 @ 3:33pm

The few times I actually visit a SNS, like MySpace, I've never paid attention to the ads - I was usually looking for a specific person.

Hell, the last time I clicked on any ad - intentionally, that is - was for something related to The Simpsons Movie. The event stood out in my mind because I couldn't think of the previous time I intentionally clicked an ad.

Oh, yeah, I block most ads... so... yeah... I'm sure that isn't helping the situation. =D
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Jeff, 6 Aug 2007 @ 5:52pm

Simple solution: fire people
My ads for my businesses don't show up anywhere that I don't want them to be. Why? The advertising agency that I pay knows what the fuck they're doing...
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- Anonymous Coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 7:42am
  
  Re: Simple solution: fire people
  The central point of the problem here isn't so much the ad-agency sucked in placing the ad. they just placed the ad on Facebook in general. They had no real input on what profiles it showed up next to. Therefore, they removed the ad from Facebook completely. That's the central problem in this article. People aren't placing ads on social-networking sites specifically so ads don't show up where they don't want them to. We're focusing on the problem that Facebook is facing (no pun intended... well not at first anyway), which is how to overcome this issue.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 7 Aug 2007 @ 5:48am

Re #1 & #9
Amen to the Firefox with AdBlock. =)
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anonymous coward, 7 Aug 2007 @ 9:36am

firefox with scriptblock, adblock+, flashblock, and CustomizeGoogle.

i haven't seen an ad in over a year...
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Ikey Benney, On Social networking ads, 8 Aug 2007 @ 5:19am

Content Scares Advertisers Away From Social-Networ
Hello:

I believe this is a legitimate concern for any business that truly cares about its image, brand and reputation.

It is called "guilty by association" syndrome.

Your ad appearing by the side of an unsavory content can affect the reputation and image of your company.

Ikey Benney
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