After GM Kiss-Off, Facebook Comes Up With Data Tool To Get Advertisers To Spend More
Clever, Facebook, very clever. The social networking giant is throwing more data at advertisers in hopes of making them spend more. The move seems like a direct response to General Motors‘ announcement last week that it was pulling the $10 million that it had been spending to promote content on Facebook.
Page owners can now see metrics directly on their Timelines letting them know exactly how many of their fans saw a post, and how many of those views came from paid promotion. This data was previously locked up in a metrics page. Via Inside Facebook:
This gives page owners an at-a-glance understanding of how many fans they are reaching. Or, more likely, make them realize how many they aren’t reaching… By showing reach percentages on Timeline rather than requiring page owners to visit the insights dashboard to see them, the social network can subtly encourage page owners to consider spending money on Sponsored Stories or Reach Generator, a premium offering which guarantees that a page reaches at least 75 percent of fans within a month.
When GM pulled the $10 million it was throwing at Facebook to promote its content, insiders suggested that GM was “doing it wrong,” and didn’t understand how to use paid promotion properly to get its content seen. A tool like this one will make the advertising process that much more transparent. Facebook’s hope is that it will make advertisers throw more money at promotion to fill in those empty heads above. Of course, it could backfire if a company sees disappointing returns after investing in Sponsored Stories and the like.
Of course, what does it really mean to be “reached” by an ad? Unless Facebook were to somehow install “eye tracking heat mappers” in all of our computers (which are amazing, by the way), it’s hard to tell advertisers that Facebook users are actually paying attention to their content. You could say that “Orchard Supply Hardware” ‘reached’ Doc Searls here, but I doubt it did the brand much good.
Still, data is empowering and I’m sure advertisers will appreciate this easy-to-use tool. In fact, I think normal Facebook users would love something like this as well. Imagine if Facebook told you the reach of every status update and photo that you posted: how many people looked at it, the percentage of your friends you reached with it… I’m sure that’s a feature some users would pay for.
And if the number of people who looked at your vacation photos was lower than you would like, you could pay $2 to give them a boost.
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