Mobile – 2012: Facebook’s ‘clever’ mobile ad strategy

Facebook’s Sponsored Stories are a clever way of launching advertising on mobile, according to panellists at the MediaTel Group Mobile – 2012, The Year of Reckoning? event last week.

Mark Halliday, head of mobile at Manning Gottlieb OMD, supported Facebook’s mobile strategy, which saw the network “holding off from bombarding users with ads on mobile at first”. Sponsored Stories are a subtle, clever way of introducing brands as they are the “least offensive” form of advertising on the social network, according to Halliday.

“Facebook has around 400 million mobile users – and people are spending more time on their phones than their desktops, so it’s sensible to introduce marketing. The best thing about Sponsored Stories is it fits in with what people are doing on the app – sharing content – you can see what your friends like – so it’s not invading users’ personal space. Something like banner ads would not have worked,” Halliday added. He also spoke of the premium environment Facebook offers, particularly in terms of dwell time.

Helen Keegan, mobile specialist at Beep Marketing, agreed with Halliday on Facebook’s new initiative, although she commented that it is frustrating when users click through to brands and are not taken to a mobile specific page.

Tim Hussain, head of platform development and partnerships at BSkyB, revealed that the broadcaster’s Facebook page sees “huge traffic during Saturday day-time and on match nights”. BSkyB has a number of Facebook pages, including Sky Sports, Sky Atlantic and Sky Arts, and buys advertising on the social network. Hussain said it’s important to be involved but also to “keep a close eye” – referring to the idea that Facebook ultimately controls your pages (and data) and can change its policy at any time.

For Hussain, “Facebook is a 10-tonne gorilla in the room that hasn’t flexed its muscles yet”. Although he expects this to change once the company “has IPO’d” in May. Facebook’s initial public offering could raise as much as $10 billion and value the eight year old company at $100 billion. Facebook made $1 billion in 2011. It has 845 million users globally.