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 by Neil
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I, like thousands of other Facebook developers, have come to the realization that nothing is going to happen overnight. Facebook ads are not going to pour from the sky raining cash on applications far and wide. The money just isn’t there yet.And this post is in response to the discontent and negativity pervading the blogosphere upon this realization.

Just like when eBay, Yahoo and Amazon started their ascent, things are unpredictable. People aren’t really going to bite until there is a proven use and revenue stream for social networking applications. Why advertise on Facebook when click through rates are sub par? Why advertise when you’ll be featured on a small banner alongside “John’s Pants Corporation”. There’s no glamour and in fact at this point it could damage your brand. Blah.

Can revenue be created? At this point, the money is still in the air, but you can secure yourself a future in one simple way. By adding value for your user. I had a short discussion with Jamal Ashraf, founder of 12-million Facebook App-install powerhouse Esgut.com, and among other things, he pointed out that the economy of Facebook is yet to be decided. Every aspect of Facebook, in fact, is under transformation. The only consistency is the number of users, and the consistent amount of time per day (~20 minutes) that people spend connecting. There are 50 million+ users, and if you provide them with value, they will engage. The focus needs to be on something that will enrich their lives in some sort of way.

Why bother if there’s no money? Because $0.00 is the future of business. Large corporations and basement-bound two-man development teams are on the same playing level. Whoever can generate the most creative way to integrate useful products into popular applications will be the winner: Companies that market to and understand social networks and application developers who attract users.

It’s not easy, but seeing the creative ways in which Graffiti plans to fuse with Hewlett-Packard, I think we can all agree that the potential is there. An HP sponsored comment board and the HP sponsored “What Do You Have to Say?” segment. IMHO, that’s integration and positive branding in the social networking world.

Reading the article, we can see that Federated Media also plans to get involved with the massively popular “Addicted to…” series of applications, which all focus on specific TV series or cult followings.

In my opinion, if you want to win out here, stop crying about low click through rates, and start pounding on vendor’s doors, promising them a fantastic way to reach a completely new market.

Tags: Advertising, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network by Neil
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