In a recently article on Valleywag, the performance of advertising in social networks was discussed. Facebook ‘consistently the worst performing site’ – but this doesn’t come as a surprise at all.
Why would you click on a simple banner in a social network? A banner leaves behind what makes a social network so powerful: the social relationship. The banner just sits there, it might target the right audience, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the social interaction of people within a social network.
So, why not make the ads social to some extend? Then suddenly you move from an advertising to a recommendation, which should be of more value, both to the users and the advertiser. Instead of bulk advertising you would get mouth-to-mouth advertising, and we think both users and advertisers would be happier with that.
