Facebook ‘needs more sensitive ad approach’
An expert has claimed that advertising outlets on social networking sites should be handled with the utmost care.
Tim Gibbon, co-founder and editor of Social Media Portal, said that when Facebook brought out its targeted advertising system, Beacon, there was a user outcry and a sense of intrusion into a social space.
Nielsen Online recently reported that after Facebook had suffered its first ever drop in user numbers between December 2007 and January 2008, prompting concerns that marketing campaigns were damaging the site’s appeal.
Mr Gibbon said: "They are going to have to be a little more sensitive to the way that adverts are targeted at people and how they interact with them.
"They can send advertising that’s more targeted to them but advertising’s still advertising. If it’s too much, if it is not communicated in the right way, if the people are getting plagued with it then they are going to switch off."
He tipped Facebook to scale down its applications and tone down its advertising, should the network conclude that it was losing users as a result of intrusive marketing.
