29 August 2008 Spanner Ads

Using banner ads is not social media marketing.

They are simply a traditional, interruption media attempting to use a old practise that doesn’t work in this new space on the Interwebs.

The only factor that makes them better than spam for enlarging my penis is how they can be somewhat targeted on social networking sites like Facebook. So when I state on my page I am a fan of Arrested Development, I receive ads selling Arrested Development tees. Unfortunately technology is not at a place to realise I would never wear an Arrested Development tee, even if I love the show.

So when Switched on Media describes social media as using banner ads, I’m going to have to call them out. If you truly practised social media, then you’ll respond to this post and we can work on your strategy, or at least redefine that page to not include the words “social media”.

Posted by Zac Martin
No Comments
  • Matt
    Posted at August 29, 2008 1:19pm, 29 August Reply

    Hmm, not very switched on are they…

  • Jye Smith
    Posted at August 30, 2008 1:22am, 30 August Reply

    This is what we need to be taking a stand against – the complete miss use of terms. THis just creates noise – not targeted communication.

  • Laurel Papworth
    Posted at August 31, 2008 12:19am, 31 August Reply

    They are confusing social network marketing ( marketing into social networks) with social media ( using social networks to help create media). One is content based – lets have the social network create stuff. The other is distribution based (lets have the social network pass OUR message around). I’m a bit of stickler for Create, Distribute and Communicate – otherwise it is just passing around ‘viral’ videos or slapping up a banner ad.

    By the way, New/Digital/Interactive Media is NOT Social Media might help your discussions. 🙂

  • scot ennis
    Posted at October 9, 2008 11:18am, 09 October Reply

    Guys – thanks for calling us out on this one. We agree. If you can imagine, we drafted our website copy for this page some time ago and it’s in need of an update. It’s been interesting watching social media evolve. Initially, I was quite excited by facebook advertising, I thought the targeting available would become more sophisticated and I believed it represented a good opportunity for our clients. Since then, I’ve been very disappointed by the quality of the ads shown on facebook and and I’ve been disappointed by the lack of quality results in the few facebook advertising campaigns we ran. More importantly, the distinction between advertising in social media and engaging in social media is becoming clearer, we certainly agree, facebook advertising is purely advertising, and certainly not what we now consider engaging. We need to update our website, as we’ve moved away from facebook advertising a while back and are now learning and experimenting more with other opportunities, that are closer to engagement and developing a two way dialogue vs. just pushing an advertising message. Thanks again for your feedback – again, we do agree with your comments and do intend to update our website. Thanks for the invite to respond to your post and we welcome any comments you have on our social media strategy, needless to say, it’s evolving rapidly and can only benefit from input. Thanks again – Scot

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