As MySpace co-founder Brett Brewer arrived in Australia last week, he came weighted with a sense of foreboding as the US financial markets tumbled, yet for Brewer now the chairman of international social networking ad serving network Adknowledge, his faith that digital will ride through the storm is unshakeable.
“I said it in 2005 when selling to News Corp and I still say it now, I have zero fear that this revolution in social media that we have created will go away.”
His belief is predicated on the fact that the youth demographics’ social existence is entwined with social networks. “If your entire social fabric has been built online you are not going to stop communicating that way and move back to sending snail mail. It’s not the type of thing that will ever go backwards. Obviously it will continue to evolve but social networks and this whole way of communicating is far superior to previous ways and consequently it is not something they will choose to stop doing.”
Brewer first came across Adknowledge when he was involved with Intermix and MySpace becoming the companies first online media client. “I am a huge believer in social media having seen the power of what it can do when people are really given the tools to create and interact from the user side.”
From the advertiser side, however social networking has now evolved to a point where marketers are being given the opportunity to engage with eth consumer in the most targeted way.
”I am reminded of 1997/ 98 when companies were very reticent to advertise online and only a few like ebay and Amazon were willing to embrace the unpredictability and consequently build multi billion dollar businesses. The same thing is really happening today in 2008. The difference is that its social media that advertisers have been a reticent to engage in. But I really think that the winners that will emerge are those that embrace this, harness it for their brands and build multibillion dollar businesses while most of the advertising public sort of waits on the sidelines.”
Nielsen research director Melanie Ingrey concurs stating that social media is “ the most dynamic area of online growth, not only in the way consumer use online media but how they engage with each other and the brands that are out there.” The ad spend for online social networks worldwide is expected to double, reaching $2.2 billion by the end of next year. MySpace and Facebook are expected to reap around 70% market share.
Emitch General Manager Media Operations Lachlan Brahe comments “social networks are cohesive rather than adhesive, by that I mean the participants of these network have a relationship with other participants rather than a relationship with the platform itself. And that means we have to be agile in our planning and marketing activity we have to move quickly to follow consumers and follow the threads of conversation to remain relevant and current to audiences .and initiate ways to leverage social media to achieve what has been executed by the humble “post it note” and that’s to write the exact message we want and place it exactly where it needs to be.”
Ingrey adds that "it is very important to keep in mind to have a dedicated strategy to the platform. There is a lot of talk from advertisers about wanting to get into social media but they are unsure how to do it. I think often times if you go into that without a strategy it can only do detriment to the brand But if you keep it vibrant and use the tool as a platform people will be talking about the strategies that you have put in place through social media."
Facebook users are spending 35-40% of page views on engaging with applications. Brewer said that the fastest growing areas for Adknowledge is the social media space gaining 12 billion impression a month and 1100 applications. A statistic that has grown from October 2007 when it was 5 apps doing about 30 million impressions. “The reason it is growing so quickly is the demographic data and being able to leverage it. Basing advertising on behavioural targeting and monitoring the adoption and inventiveness of the application is the first time we can get really good data.”
Brewer nominates Facebook’s launch of open platform applications as the circuit breaker for the sector. “Beating MySpace to the punch it was really a game changing move in the lifespan of social networks.”
While search continues to garner the lions share of advertising dollar, estimated at around US$20 billion versus social networks US$1.3 billion, Brewer contends that it the level of engagement which will see social networking change the balance. “The level of engagement is different, while search advertising is extremely valuable. The difference is that application you are focussed on is recreational, you are not actively engaged in a specific search. For a brand it’s a fantastic time to try and engage with that consumer, and build a message.”
