Make It Relevant

Prospectiv recently released results of a survey of nearly 800 users of social networking sites. According to their research, over half of the respondents are not being served relevant ads when on the social communities they belong to, and over half of the respondents feel the quality of their experience at the social community would improve if they were served more relevant ads. Jere Doyle, Prospectiv’s CEO, reports “…members of social networking sites are open to offers and promotions as long as they are targeted to their interests…the web publishing industry seeking to monetize their online communities (needs) to improve ad relevance…”

The Prospectiv research found that 58 percent of the respondents report seeing very few ads and offers on social networking sites that match their interests and preferences. And, another 29 percent of respondents said none of the ads match their interests and preferences.

Over half (or 56 percent) believe the quality of their online experience would be improved if social networking sites provided more targeted advertisements and offers tailored to their specific interests and preferences.

So what type of offers would the participants respond to? 62 percent would respond to one-off coupons and discount offers from brands and products they buy; 24 percent would respond to e-newsletters featuring coupons, discounts, news and tips about favorite brands; 14 percent would respond to invitations to join interactive e-mail groups, online forums and social networks for sharing and communicating.

85% of the respondents said they will be more likely to join a free social networking site that is supported by advertisements and offers targeted to their interests rather than a paid social networking site without commercial advertisements.

(Our approach at Sway when working with brands is to do research with the target audience to determine where they are spending time online and what content they are most interested in as it relates to a particular product category. We then work with niche social communities to place the content that will appeal to the users of the communities.)