Must-Read Article: Why Social Ads Don’t Work

Although the title of his article is a bit misleading, Joshua Porter’s Bokardo blog entry today on social Web ads offers some good insights into ways of thinking about online advertising. His title is misleading because he’s not really saying social ads don’t work, he’s saying they don’t work as well as other online ads, like Google search ads.

There’s been lots of talk recently about the ineffectiveness of advertisements in social media properties like MySpace and Facebook. During their recent quarterly earnings results, Google explained that they are not making as much money from ads on social network sites as they had predicted. Even though this was a blip on an otherwise stellar quarter, Google’s stock took a serious beating.

Why is this so? Why is it that Google monetizes so well on Search while having a hard time on social properties? Given an equal amount of views on Google vs. MySpace, shouldn’t they be able to get about the same number of click-throughs and thus ad revenue?

The difference, of course, is that when people go to Google, they’re actively looking for something. That something isn’t on Google. They are performing a search activity. Thus their task will be to click on a link that seems to promise what it is they’re looking for. It may be the organic results, or it may be an ad that seems close to what they want.

When people are on MySpace, the activity they’re doing isn’t search. It’s something akin to “hanging out” or “networking”. Their task is almost the opposite of search. They are already on the site they want to be on. They don’t need to click on links to take them where they want to go.

In other words, the context is entirely different. When you’re in search mode, you are playing by different rules.

Social ads don’t work as well because people are being social, not searching for something. Read the rest…

Born on Facebook

In the 80s, kids were born with a mouse in their hand. In the 90s, they were born surfing the Web. In the 00s, they’re born with Facebook accounts. Sometimes they have them before they are born. There are baby profiles out there that are updated daily with more friend connections than I have. If you’re still not convinced that social media is an important part of the university media mix, it’s time to think different.

The Application Bubble

First, it was the “secret shoppers,” students who stealthily visited our college Web sites, learned what they needed to know and applied to the school without traditionally inquiring. Admissions reports showed a drastic decline in inquiries with steady increases in applications. Admissions marketers were quick to take credit thinking their efforts had led to a more targeted inquiry pool thus increasing inquiry-to-application yields. They were wrong.

Now there’s a new gremlin wreaking havoc on the admissions funnel. If you haven’t heard the news, college applications are up  all over the country, many by double, even triple, digits. And just like the secret shopper story, people are lining up to take credit for it. I hate to be the one to burst the bubble, but the recent surge in applications has nothing to do with early action deadlines or efforts to build relationships with prospective students. The answer is much simpler than that.

Two phenomena have come together to produce the perfect storm of application proliferation — the largest high school graduating class in U.S. history and a record number of high school seniors applying to multiple schools using online applications. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 3.3 million high school diplomas will be granted this year. And the National Association of College Admissions Counseling reported that freshmen applying to seven or more schools increased 18 percent in fall 2006 and this trend is continuing as schools adopt universal Web applications, waive online application fees and eliminate paper applications.

Think about it. There aren’t enough new students out there to account for so many schools having double and triple-digit increases in their application numbers. Census data shows that an estimated 3.2 million high school diplomas were granted in the 2006-2007 school year versus an estimated 3.3 million for 2007-2008. Admittedly, I was excited to hear that our applications were up 32 percent this year. But when I heard that our competitors were experiencing even larger increases — some as high as 100 percent — my excitement turned to suspicion. The reality is, students are cross-applying.

This represents a huge challenge for admissions officers. With so many students cross applying, the likelihood of accepting the same top students will increase dramatically. Students can also apply to more safety schools than ever before, throwing a wrench into the whole admissions process that could trickle down into the state school systems.  At the end of the day, there may be more losers than winners this admissions season.