As social media marketing becomes an ever-more lucrative channel, which formats are likely to enjoy the most growth this year? Will Ashton, Managing Director at Alchemy Social, looks at the social media trends in 2012 – with particular focus on sponsored stories.
As brands look to harness the power of social networking sites such as Facebook to engage with their customers, 2012 will be the year the ‘Sponsored/Featured Stories’, ad format truly takes off. Sponsored Stories launched in 2011 and have thus far been somewhat limited in their scope.
However, with the launch of custom verbs at last year’s F8, their potential has been opened up. It’s no longer just about ‘liking’ – brands will soon be able to run adverts within Facebook which mention ‘reading’, ‘listening’ or any of a number of other verbs that fits with the brand in question.
The wider roll-out of ‘Featured Stories’ last week is a big milestone for advertisers – brands can now utilise their existing connections from their standard Facebook page, creating tailored adverts for users that encourage engagement like never before. The fast-paced nature of Facebook has traditionally given brands a small timeframe with which to promote pages or campaigns, before quickly falling to the bottom of the newsfeed. Featured Stories offers advertisers a bigger opportunity to attract its target demographic through more prominent placement on the Facebook homepage.
Such developments will make ads in 2012 much more social and relevant, push up response rates and help Facebook provide even more value for brands. The launch of Timeline to replace the old profile page gives users more scope for adding additional information which advertisers will be able to leverage. It will also encourage more sharing and therefore generate more opportunities for sponsored stories. Facebook has always offered the ability to communicate with individual users that other channels simply cannot deliver, and the opportunity to communicate directly with customers that leave comments on your page unveils huge potential to harness the value of Facebook as a customer engagement, retention and services tool
The rise of featured stories will mean that 2012 is the year brands, advertisers and agencies realise that social, and Facebook in particular, needs to be treated on its own merits and no longer as an add on to search and/or display as has often been the case to this point.
By Will Ashton
Managing Director
Alchemy Social
http://alchemysocial.com/
