On February 29, 2012, the company’s first Facebook Marketing Conference (fMC) is taking place. It is speculated that Facebook might reveal more details about mobile ads at the marketing conference they are hosting in New York.
The Facebook ads are rumored to roll out anywhere in the first week of March 2012 for which Facebook signed a deal with Bango Plc a mobile payment service provider company headquartered in London UK.
This company provides the technology that powers commerce for businesses targeting the growing market of internet enabled mobile phone users. Bango products collect payment from mobile users for on-line content and services, and provide accurate analytics for mobile marketing campaigns and sites.
Although the concerned management at Facebook is tightly lipped over the issue with no official words but still some speculations suggest Facebook is testing its ads with various top notch mobile apps like Facebook for iPhone and Facebook for Android. Certain sources suggest Facebook to be testing ads in a status update format within the news feed.
Brand promotion through mobile ads may still be passing its development phase with only Google Adsense seriously dipping into mobile advertising business but sooner the largest social network Facebook is all set to launch it Targeted Mobile Ads that gonna help business promote their products to the active Facebook mobile users.
On an average around 50% i.e 450 million users access Facebook through mobile devices so displaying mobile ads is a lucrative opportunity for business entities. According to an estimate Facebook is expected to achieve a turnover of around $1.2 billion annually through mobile ads campaign.
What This Means for Business
Mobile Marketing is an untapped avenue that needs to be explored with innovative ideas, Statistics depict the users who search for a business on a mobile device are highly likely to convert into regular customers.
Although Facebook Mobile Ads provide the business organizations with the opportunity to promote their brand/product but at the same time raises some serious concerns over the dwindling levels of user experience.
You will be optimizing your website for mobile viewing. You can also use a resource that Google developed for this purpose to make your site look better on a smartphone or a tablet.
Displaying ads in the mobile devices where the short screen size makes content a bit congested resulting in poor levels of user experience, if mobile ads are introduced they will further push the levels on the downside.
Facebook is likely to take a few pages from current mobile advertising on other platforms and from companies that localize ads based on the viewer’s location. The possibility for Facebook to do this with its large user base may be a unique selling point for its mobile ads. Being able to pinpoint businesses on a map is already a selling feature for Google Mobile Ads through integration with Google Maps and Google Places.
It is in the news spotlight since the start of 2012 earlier for its plan to enhance market capitalization of around $100 billion by filing an IPO and now the launch of Facebook Mobile Ads.
The decision to pursue a new revenue stream may seem to be a failed idea especially in today’s internet climate where user experience has pivotal importance. Facebook may have launched this service to satisfy stockholders concerns but may end up irritating its user base by first introducing spammy Facebook Timeline and now inundating the mobile users with Facebook Mobile Ads.
Let’s wait and see the actual outcome of this decision by social network giant.
