Social advertising is a very different than traditional web advertising. The thing about social media advertisers, is users aren’t looking for a product. They’re already engaged in some activity, and don’t necessarily want to be drawn away from that. But that does not mean there isn’t value in it, it’s just a different form of value than search advertising.

When a user is searching from google, they are actually looking for something. They’re often looking for products, which is why advertising in its current form works great on search. It’s logical if a user is searching for shampoo, that proctor and gamble would want to pay to have their products show up on the right. This is vastly different from when I’m playing a racing game on facebook, and Ford shows me a commercial for their product, they’re not the same thing.

However there is still HUGE value in social advertising. Since you know so much more about a user you can target them even better, I can know, age, gender, music/movie preferenes, interests, hobbies, among many other things. Where this can help is branding, if there is a car game, and you can present a solid brand in places throughout that game I become brand loyal without realizing it. I don’t become disengaged, but I do take notice of it. It’s much like the branding that takes place in movies, or console games, with large negotiated contracts, however it needs to occur on a micro-level.