Ads with friends

Clearly reinvented social adverts will still be a key focus for Facebook, especially as it continues to monitor the increasing mobile use of the site. Integrated ads that show up in individual news feeds have been successful and allow advertisers to target certain customers. A 2012 study by Nielson revealed that social ads generate 55% greater lift in ad recall than non-social ads, indicating that when you see an ad or page that your friends liked, you are more inclined to like it too4.

Facebook users often express concerns about broadcasting too widely. The social giant has turned some users into adverts for products based on their ‘likes’, which can turn your ‘friends’ into unknowing shills for products and services. Concerns over how Facebook will allow third parties to use its gold mine of personal information to target its audience have been expressed, and whether this data could wind up in the wrong hands or be exploited in ways that the average Facebook user never even thought about.

Traditional spending on ad budgets is coming into question as big brands and small businesses alike analyse the return on investment of social advertisements. The good and bad news, depending on your point of view, is that digital platforms make it easier to capture analytics and data in a lot of ways that print and broadcast adverts simply do not offer.

However, the jury is

still out on what Facebook users’ tolerance to more and more ads clogging up their newsfeeds will be, and how they will react to more Facebook changes and complex features.

Why should aesthetic clinics care?

We need to care because at the end of the day, Facebook is all about people interacting and our patients have embraced it as a place to engage with each other and businesses they like and trust. Facebook has opened up the possibilities for deep social interaction over all types of content; text, status updates, photo-tagging and sharing, videos, and more.

web2By June 2013, Facebook had amassed 1 million advertisers, which is twice as many as the previous year. Yet Facebook counts 25 million small businesses with active company pages, accounting for only 4% of companies that are advertising5. These businesses, many of which are service businesses like airlines, hotels, restaurants, salons, and retailers, as well as medical aesthetic clinics and hospitals, consider maintaining a presence on Facebook as having value to their bottom line6. Clearly, we can expect more businesses and thus, more medical aesthetic clinics and hospitals, to set aside at least a portion of their marketing budget to dip a toe into Facebook’s social advert offering.