Facebook’s recent redesign–a move that it made it more Twitter-like among other things–is top-of-mind for writers on the social media beat.
Brian Morrissey notes how FB is also working to provide a seamless place for branded messaging.
Facebook is dead set against having ads overwhelm the experience so they’re weaving them into the experience, which is centered around the news feed. They want to make advertisers part of the stream of conversations.
I firmly believe advertising messages will get more integrated with content experiences. The adjacency model increasingly looks broken, from newspapers to magazines to display to broadcast TV. Ideally, marketers will earn their way into the stream be doing something remarkable, but they’ll still need to buy their way in sometimes. How this is done in a way that makes people comfortable is the big challenge.
All of which begs the transparency question. I don’t want to pitch or be pitched in the dark. Do you?
Having said that I’m all for inserting brand-sponsored content into the lifestream. When it’s opt-in. If people don’t opt-in it’s an invasion. Brands have spent enough time invading one’s space.
For me the entire question today is how does a brand get invited in? That’s the puzzle that needs solving. Not, how do brands sneak in?