Social: The Next Frontier of Behavioral Targeting?

Author:

Andrea Fishman

Source:

This year has never been bigger for social media. Facebook has more than 500 million active users, Twitter obtains over 300,000 new users a day, and YouTube exceeds 2 billion views per day. Devices designed to support social media, from Droids to iPads, are selling out before they hit the market. Even old standby brands like Old Spice are finding a new home in social media.
 
This evolving gateway into user-generated content is a behavioral marketer's dream. Social media users take great care to self-identify themselves in painful detail - from where they like to eat to the bands they follow and where they went to college. They have a growing propensity to divulge all of their likes and dislikes, and they share their feelings and perspectives (good and bad) with anyone who will listen, not just a small group of friends or family. Imagine any other data set giving you so much rich detail to help tailor your ads and offer.
 
The challenge is to find the appropriate opportunity for behavioral targeting, without seeming to be too invasive or acting like a virtual stalker.
 
Targeting The Big Three
 
Each of the big three social networks has unique characteristics that open the door to extensive behavioral opportunities - from campaign extensions to standalone social campaigns....