Social Media: “Trust is paramount”
“Trust is the key” when it comes to social media advertising, according to David Pugh-Jones, brand strategist at Microsoft Advertising.
Speaking on the panel at the Media Playground conference in London yesterday, Pugh-Jones said: “Trust is paramount… Consumers don’t mind adverts and brands if they are relevant.
“Ads need to be something people want to see, they are entering someone’s personal environment so they need to be engaging and not intrusive.”
However, Sharon Braude, fellow panellist and head of social media at MPG, flagged up the importance of not misleading consumers or misrepresenting brands.
“Advertisers have to be careful not to misrepresent brands. They need to engage with users in a personal way but they also need to make it clear that they are a brand,” she said.
Nathan McDonald, co-founder of We Are Social, agreed: “There’s a law to protect consumers – advertisers can’t pretend to be an ordinary consumer when they’re representing a brand on social networks.
“Advertisers need to be up front and honest about what messages they are trying to get across.”
The IPA’s research director Lynne Robinson spoke out from the audience: “The issue going forward is about self-regulation. Online advertisers need to regulate the content of adverts so the government doesn’t do it for them.”
Robinson said the industry is trying to get self-regulation on the internet, in a similar way television.
Other members of the audience felt that advertisers need to be more wary of over-burdening consumers and Harris Interactive suggested they use the readily available information to focus on relevant ads.
In response, Karla Geci, marketing director at Bebo, explained – “it’s about working out what the users will allow”.
Pugh-Jones added: “Advertisers need to pick up on more information to achieve targeted ads. We need to be a bit more clever about what we can do and how we do it. Online advertising is still in its infancy in terms of what we can do but it’s coming.”
McDonald reiterated Pugh-Jones’ earlier thoughts: “It’s about trust. Social media is constantly evolving and so will what people will allow. Younger users in particular are willing to trade privacy for their five megabytes of fame.”
John Cole, managing director at Adknowledge, added: “People are trading data more and more, social media makes it particularly easy to share information.
“The amount of data that’s out there is terrifying. The huge problem is how to use it.”