Facebook Ads, the new Facebook advertising platform, has now officially launched. The new advertising platform from facebook has been in the pipeline for quite a while now and it’s eventual arrival yesterday comes hot on the heels of the news that MySpace will also be launching a targeted ad network.
Facebook’s official press release reveals some interesting details. The statement describes Facebook’s new offerings as, “an ad system for businesses to connect with users and target advertising to the exact audiences they want.” The official launch announcement was made in new York where Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went on to say:
“For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do.”
In terms of the technical make-up of the new Facebook ads network there will be three major components:
- Business Pages – A facility for businesses to build pages to allow connectivity with their audiences
- Beacon/Social Ads – Viral social ad inventory offering
- Insight – An account interface allowing businesses to measure activity
As with most major social networking launches of late, facebook are going to hit the ground running with a nice stable of foundational corporate advertising partners including Blockbuster, CBS, Chase, The Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft (no surprises here), Sony Pictures Television and Verizon Wireless.
The speed at which these new social media advertising technologies are being released is almost mind blowing. I suppose that this is due to the fact that organizations such as Facebook need to start making good on the hype that surrounds the discussions around their true value as a business.
As a committed online marketer myself, I have found the last few weeks to be real challenge. Running my day to day responsibilities as a consultant in this area whilst trying to keep up with everything that has been going on has resulted in some long hours.
