Facebook and the Age of Engagement

Facebook launches beta of Engagement Ads programme

Facebook will launch its Engagement Ads beta programme in the UK from 1 September ahead of a full October roll out and will move all users to the new Facebook platform during the test period.

The Engagement Ads advertising programme, an evolution and addition to the existing Social Ads programme, will allow users to comment on targeted brand adverts, with the resulting actions being placed inside their and their friends news feeds. Each time the ad is then served to a friend... The appearance of Engagement Ads will see the end of the sponsored stories ad placement inside the news feed. The ads will initially come in three formats covering video, fan and gift services allowing brands to become part of user's conversations.

In the Revolution will not be Televised in 2003 – I wrote

Up until now, advertising has always relied on Interruption. Whether travelling to work, reading their favourite newspaper, watching TV or just generally going about their daily business, consumers are constantly interrupted by advertising messages. But the power of these interruptive messages is waning, simply because there are so many of them around us and they cost so much to do. More TV channels, more magazines, more billboards, more door-drops, more email spam means more and more ads - interruptive advertising is beginning to become as much of a headache for marketers as it is for the poor consumer. The more interruptions there are, the more clutter there is - and consequently the less power any individual message has to stand out and get noticed. Moreover there are grumblings from the client side that all is not well in the marketing communications industry.

No wonder that marketers are waking up to a new way to build their brands. Not by Interruption, but by Engagement. Engagement Marketing is about brands, becoming, for example part of the fabric of entertainment - enhancing it, not interrupting it. Put simply, it is about getting out of the ad break and into the world of content, assets and properties.

Brands that create engaging content are being welcomed by consumers as enhancing their daily lives rather than interrupting them. And with the explosion of new technologies, in particular digital TV, web and mobile phones - there is an ever increasing array of new tools with which marketers can surround their consumers
with new types of engaging content. But do not think Engagement is purely about lowest common denominator entertainment. Far from it.

The new engagement communications tools include...

1. Branded content or Brand related content
2. Entertainment, Info-tainment, Edu-tainment properties
3. Media properties
4. Meaningful brand experiences
5. Information Service brands that specialise in edited choice
6. Embedded sponsorship vs. passive sponsorship

These front-end properties assume that there is a value equation for both businesses and customers. They are also premised on the fundamental principle that marketing should be conversational rather than a top-down, one-way interruptive message which de-personalises the relationship and becomes a barrier to communication, the very opposite of a conduit to valuable customer relationships.

Ad spend on UK social networks to top £100m