Late last year, Federated Media, one of the first blogosphere advertising publishers, announced a big move into Facebook. The centerpiece of the announcement was the integration of the Hewlett-Packard brand to the Graffiti application. This turned out to be a proof-of-concept for Facebook marketing, with HP’s brand and printer offerings integrated into the application workflow itself. For example, after a user draws a picture on Graffiti, users are shown Hewlett Packard’s branded “Print Button”, and taken to the HP website to print the images.

Along with other moves into what they call “conversational marketing”, FM has shown an aptitude for looking forward in a market in the midst of transformation. Their recent move to secure a second round of funding is no doubt a response to the large amount secured by Glam Media, and the precursor to a new era for online advertising, where companies will vie for the use of social networks’ targeted advertising to present their products to their precise target demographic.

While the many competing technologies (OpenSocial, Facebook, OpenID) that will be used to tie a user’s preferences and profile to an advertisement are still developing, demand will steadily rise. With attractive Facebook marketing strategies, like FinancialTimes’ recent campaign, sprouting up, more and more companies are going to question whether their existing advertising budget, locked in mass-market print & television ads, is properly allocated. And if they start looking to Social Networks, companies like Glam Media and FM stand to pioneer a new market.

Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network // Add Comment »