Targeted Marketing on MySpace and Facebook-- Is it Really Worth the Hype?

I like research, and I like insight, and I always have. Marketing actions are always based on, or at least successful marketing actions, are based on facts and historical data. To easily keep myself in the know over the past few years, I have gotten email pings from various social media and SEO resources for a few years now. If you are interested in these email newsletters check out Marketing Sherpa's newsletter sign up page. You will see a plethora of publication and topics to choose from, however choose wisely or your email box will fill up faster than you can blink!

Today I was sent a notification from iMediaConnection, linking to an article written by Michael Estrin about Marketers using MySpace for 'interest' targeted marketing. MySpace has disclosed publicly that content of users pages will be searched and based on the interests listed, targeted ads will be deployed on a profile-by-profile bases. Estrin writes a well balanced article about both the positives and negatives with using these social networks as marketing tools. Any opinion I share is simply that- opinion and in no way a reflection on Michael Estrin's great piece.

It is only fitting that social networks leverage customer insights and interest to earn advertising dollars. Registrants fill in fields about their favorite: movies, music, books, interests and more. Each soical networking engine naturally gravitates to a specific audience, MySpace the younger generation interested in fashion, music and the like while Facebook has 'kept in real' in a sense by attracting professionals, journalists and other media folk.

However, in my own opinion that making MySpace and Facebook a case study, or thought leaders based on proposed targeted marketing plans, is inaccurate. AdSense is a application and advertising engine where Google utilizes proprietary search technology to place ads based on websites based on content, users locations, meta tags and other various criteria. AdSense was purchased by Google in 2003, and genuinely set the bar for targeted online marketing.

Both AdSense and the targeted marketing happening in the social networking space is inevitable, this information needs to be leveraged. On a more positive note, major players using consumer generated media (CGM) to garner insights on customers gives social networks and consumer generated media a deserved and overdue buzz. Maybe marketer and decision makers in some organizations will think twice about 'missing the boat' on gaining customer insights thorough CGM. Eventually I feel that online communities (either private or public) will almost replace focus group, formal surveys and other traditional market research methods.

It will be interesting to see what happens to my MySpace page once these changes are in order. As a plain ole registrant myself I've already seen ads on my personal backend page that are pretty irrelevant. After a bit of investigation I found that most of the information was really from the comments field of my public profile, very few of which have anything to do with what I would spend my disposable income on.

It will be insightful and telling to see how it all pans out-- not just in functionality but also pricing structure.