Okay so by this point, most people between the ages of 5 and 55 who use a computer at least once a week have probably heard of social media and social networking Web sites.
Even if you aren’t on Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard about it. You’ve probably heard your friends, co-workers or kids mention Facebook too. And MySpace continues to make the news thanks to sexual predators. Facebook has also dealt with its share of predators on its social networking site.
Social media and networking sites have been around for a while, but like with many things, it sometimes takes time for the general public to adopt them.
It can also take some time for advertisers to adjust to the hottest new social media site too. Twitter has been around since 2006, but it’s only recently (think Ashton Kutcher versus CNN, and Oprah) that the real mainstream has embraced it.
When Facebook first started, it was only for Harvard students. It then expanded to Standford and Yale – then to most colleges. Now anyone can have a Facebook page: individuals, companies…even television characters.
There is a definite correlation between mass adoption of social media sites and the amount of spam and advertising that appears on these sites.
Of course, you say – that’s logical. The more people on a site, the more reach an advertisement has. Duh.
But there also appears to be correlation between the arrival of mass advertising and spammers, and the decline in popularity and reach of social media sites.
Let’s start with Bebo. I personally have never used the site, but I know it used to be very popular. It never reached MySpace or Facebook popularity, but there was a point in time – 2006 through early 2008 - when the site had a respectable global reach.
This is what the Bebo homepage looked like in January 2006.
It’s clean, simple, and the call to action for members to join, build a profile and log in are the main focus of the site. There’s virtually no advertising on the homepage, and the focus is on the members who make up the site.
This is what the Bebo homepage looks like in July 2009.
Whoa! It looks like Bebo took a page from the MySpace playbook and made their entire homepage a branding opportunity for advertisers. While this particular advertiser (the anti-smoking campaign Truth) has a good message, it’s still advertising nonetheless. The focus has obviously shifted from users to advertising dollars.
Enter the decline in popularity.
Unfortunately, the Alexa stats only go back to late 2007 on this graph, but it’s quickly apparent that Bebo is losing market share. Oops!
How about MySpace? That site certainly took right off, didn’t it?! The site has had well over 120 million profiles created and at one time it was the most popular social site on the Internet.
This is what the MySpace homepage looked like in October 2007.
It’s fairly clean and has mostly member-related content on the page. There isn’t an over-burden of advertising on the homepage – just a trailer for an upcoming movie and the MySpace Music section. Again, the focus is on the members.
Fast forward to July 2009.
This is actually an improvement over their total-page branding that they were doing a few months ago, but there is still a large amount of page space dedicated to advertising. The World Poker Tour online eh? Didn’t the US government just freeze a bunch of online poker assets?
Enter the decline in popularity.
Whoops! The decline in MySpace popularity and profitability has been widely documented, largely because of the corresponding rise on Facebook.
NewsCorp bought MySpace in 2005, and many users blame the large corporation for turning its attention from users to advertising dollars.
Now let’s look at Facebook. It’s now the most popular and highly visited social networking site, after taking the crown from MySpace in 2008. While MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp in 2005 for $580 million, Facebook has been valued as high as $10 billion!
This is what the Facebook homepage looked like in October 2007.
It’s obviously very clean, crisp and simple. There’s not a lot – or any! – clutter, and it’s a simple portal for users to access their accounts. The focus is clearly on the users.
Here is Facebook in July 2009.
Not a whole lot has changed. They’ve added a snazzy global image, but other than that, it’s still a very clean, simple homepage. There isn’t any advertising or branding on the page. There isn’t the latest movie trailer on the page. The focus is still on getting the user to their account.
Guess what? Facebook is still booming! There are over 200 million users, and despite some issues like the click fraud that they’re dealing with, Facebook shows no real signs of slowing down.
Twitter is the next obvious site to target, but it’s a little different than the others. Rather than being a place to post a bunch of pictures and share your favorite “I love my sorority sisters” gif, it’s a micro-blogging service.
You can find plenty of individuals, businesses and advertisers on the site, but thus far, Twitter management has resisted putting actual advertising on the site.
Users are free to decorate their page however they like, and I have yet to see a movie trailer on the login page.
That’s not to say that there are spammers on Twitter. In fact, it’s a growing problem. But we have a choice in whether or not we follow the spammers. We don’t have to be inundated with spammers if we choose not to be. The focus is still on the users – not the advertising.
So what can we take away from all of this? It’s pretty obvious that so long as a social media and networking site maintains its focus on the user, they’ll be okay.
But the moment the attention turns to growing the advertising revenue, the site starts to lose appeal. And in turn, advertising revenue starts dropping.
Isn’t irony fun?
By: Zack S.
