Social Network Advertising Tips: Google+ May Never Become the Largest Social Network

Google+ May Never Become the Largest Social Network

We all love Facebook, and more of us are starting to enjoy Google+ too. Social networking is now part of most people's daily life, and it is rare to go a day without checking your notifications or seeing how many crops have withered on Farmville whilst you were at work.

The largest right now, as we all know is Facebook. Almost a billion users, and Google+ stands at just under 200 million according to recent statistics released by the company.

So, what's the big deal? Well, Google+ is a decent social networking platform. Of course, people keep complaining about the huge amount of white space that exists on each of the pages, but the majority of people are enjoying the simplistic design and the fact there is a lack of advertisements, considering Google can make its money elsewhere, such as with it's AdWords platform.

It would seem Google is going strong, but competing against 1 billion people is no easy task. The majority still, and most probably always will see Google as a search engine. We all Google stuff that we need or want to know, and when we want to socialise what know with our friends, we don't go onto Google+, we log straight back onto Facebook and put it as a status update.

Google+ has some great features too, but in terms of games for users to play on the Social Network, there is a lack. As most of you know, games like Farmville and other Zynga top titles are extremely popular. In fact, just yesterday Farmville 2 was actually announced at an Unleashed event at the end of a press conference, so we can see that towards the end of the year, millions will be logging into Facebook not only to socialise, but to play a great social game that they can play with their friends, whether they know them in real life or not. Google+ seems to be going more for the Flash games approach, with titles that are popular as quick fixes for users to stay happy, including Bejeweled, Plants Vs Zombies and other popular Flash based titles. But, at the end of the day we know that the social gaming isn't everything, and as long as Facebook can continue to stay social in every way, Google+ may not stand a chance.

Of course, like MySpace, Bebo and countless other Social Networks, they all die eventually, but will Facebook hold out long enough for Google+ to die with it?

This article was written by Ashley Pearson, Editor in Chief at Suck My Trend. http://suckmytrend.com/ - Are you following us on twitter yet? @suckmytrend

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What Is Social Networking?

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Social networking is the grouping of individuals into specific groups, like small rural communities or a neighborhood subdivision, if you will. Although social networking is possible in person, especially in the workplace, universities, and high schools, it is most popular online.

This is because unlike most high schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with millions of individuals who are looking to meet other people, to gather and share first-hand information and experiences about cooking, golfing, gardening, developing friendships professional alliances, finding employment, business-to-business marketing and even groups sharing information about baking cookies to the Thrive Movement. The topics and interests are as varied and rich as the story of our universe.

As I'm sure you're aware, there are dangers associated with social networking including data theft and viruses, which are on the rise. The most prevalent danger though often involves online predators or individuals who claim to be someone that they are not. Although danger does exist with networking online, it also exists in the real world, too. Just like you're advised when meeting strangers at clubs and bars, school, or work -- you are also advised to proceed with caution online.

Once you are well informed and comfortable with your findings, you can begin your search from hundreds of networking communities to join. This can easily be done by performing a standard internet search. Your search will likely return a number of results, including MySpace, FriendWise, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, Facebook, Orkut, and Classmates.

Social network advertising is a term that is used to describe a form of Online advertising that focuses on social networking sites. One of the major benefits of advertising on a social networking site (facebook, myspace, friendster, bebo, orkut...and many others) is that advertisers can take advantage of the users demographic information and target their ads appropriately.

There are three major classifications of Social Network Advertising:

Direct Advertising that is based on your network of friends - This can be the most effective format but also causes the most controversy. An example is the Facebook beacon project.[5] Based on an action your friend has taken, you might see a message in your news feed saying 'Bob has just bought a 'RadioHead CD from MusicWorld'. This can be an extremely effective mode as often people make decisions to purchase something or do something based on their close group of friends. However, there is also a lot of controversy surrounding this as it can be considered exploiting the personal relationships you have with your friends and also raises privacy concerns.

Direct Advertising placed on your social networking site - This is a more traditional form of web advertising that is minimally effective. Just like you see banner ads on many other sites, this is a similar concept, except on a social networking site. You can see these - for example - as a brick in the top right of MySpace pages, or as a banner on the right of Facebook profiles and so on. There are two differences however - One is that these social networks can take advantage of demographic data on your profile and hence target the ad directly to you. Secondly, these types of ads can also be placed by individual developers on their application pages through ad networks. They have access to the same data and can generate income for application developers giving them further motivation to create apps and giving advertisers a more engaging way to reach out to these social networking users.

Indirect Advertising by creating 'groups' or 'pages' - This is an innovative marketing technique in which a company will create a 'page' or 'group' that users can choose to join. They will use this to build up 'subscribers' or 'fans' and use this to market a contest, a new product, or simply just to increase brand awareness. These groups can quickly grow in numbers of subscribers which can become a very effective marketing tool.

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