The rise of social advertising

Social advertising is a form of marketing which leverages traditional offline social dynamics – such as peer pressure, one-to-one recommendations and other social influences. Although not a new concept, social advertising is rapidly gaining in popularity, thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

According to a recent survey of 800,000 people carried out by Facebook and Nielsen, social advertising is quickly rising to become one of the strongest and most cost-effective ways to market a business online.  Recent high-profile campaigns have included Marmite and Old Spice. Even though Facebook clearly has a vested interest in the results of the survey, it’s worth remembering that social advertising does offer a unique way for businesses to gain personal recommendations for their brand, hundreds of times over, across the globe.

One of the most popular forms of social advertising is to have a corporate Facebook page, which people can ‘like’. In doing so, they automatically recommend your business to everyone in their friends list, via the news feed. It’s estimated the average user has 130 friends – that’s a lot of potential customers!

It’s perhaps not surprising that personal recommendations are the biggest incentive for people to buy online, just as they are offline. However, the speed with which social advertising has established itself as one of the top routes to market is astounding, opening up a host of opportunities for companies who wish to reach a new and varied audience.