Last week at Ad Age’s Digital Conference, an audience poll reveled that attendees believed that Second Life was the most over-hyped digital trend of 2007. The combination of gobs of press, huge advertiser interest and tiny consumer reach and interaction was the winning trifecta for Second Life. One quarter into the 2008, I’m wondering if Facebook applications may not be headed for the same fate. Of course, Facebook itself does not share Second Life’s audience problem—there is a huge and growing number of people who spend tons of time on Facebook every day. The problem is reaching those folks in significant numbers.
Advertising on profile pages is certainly one effective way to do it. At this point, Facebook Applications probably aren’t. Despite a few exceptions such as this, most companies are not generating much user interaction with their applications. In fact, according to one Facebook executive, 98% of the 20,000 plus current applications have fewer than 100 users. That’s not the type of scale that most CPG companies are looking for.
3 responses so far ↓
anon // March 30, 2008 at 8:33 pm |
does interaction equal engagement or purchase intent (or actual purchase?) could those 100 users of an application be exactly the correct target for that application and therefore finding immense value in the interaction? i’d imagine – and i’m in no way an expert on this – that the opportunity to specifically target audiences would be a key differentiator on facebook, right?
Mick O'Brien // March 30, 2008 at 9:58 pm |
It is certainly true that the 100 users could be the exact target, and find the application extremely useful. The issue, I think, is one of scale. For most consumer packaged goods companies, it is necessary to reach many more people–thousands, hundreds of thousands or even millions–for an investment such as creating a Facebook applicaiton to really pay off. And as far as specifically targeting an audience goes, Facebook is coming out with a Hyper-targeting service that will let you serve your ads to people based on very specific criteria. It doesn’t guarantee engagement, but if your creative is really good, engangement could follow…
Mo Eriksen // March 31, 2008 at 7:43 am |
Second Life still experiences rising user numbers. Over-hyped? No way. In fact the same people who hyped it without knowing it, later condemned it – still without knowing it. I give you my word, that Second Life – i.e. Web 3D – will survive FaceBook.