Facebook's ad plans let marketers capitalize on friends
— -- Looking to turn its popularity with 50 million users into dollars, social-networking giant Facebook Tuesday announced new advertising initiatives.
"Pushing your message out to people isn't enough anymore," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told an audience of potential advertisers here. "You have to get into the connections and conversations."
What Facebook will now offer:
•Brand profile pages. Similar to how users build profile pages, marketers can create Facebook pages that tout their brand, make sales, have entertainment and offer branded applications, such as a ring-tone creator, that members can add to their own pages.
•Tailored ads. A Facebook user can sign up as a "fan" of brands that have profile pages. Then a message could be sent to his or her network of friends telling them of that new liaison — along with an ad.
•Partnerships with retailers. Facebook has signed 44 retail sites to broadcast member purchases to others. When a user logged into Facebook visits a site, they'll be prompted that unless they opt out, their action — such as a Caddyshack rental from Blockbuster — will be shared with their friends network.
Traditional marketing "is distorted," says Jeremiah Owyang, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Endorsements are now passed from trusted customers to prospects, not directly from the brands themselves."
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