Social Networks & Free Advertising

There is a lot of talk these days about social networking and how it is changing the face of communications. Many small companies are trying to break into social networks for free or cheap advertising and promotion of their website or company. But for all the talk, is it any cheaper or any more cost effective than traditional advertising?

The problem with advertising and promoting on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Friendster or any others, is that you are hitting a market that is already saturated with ads on a daily basis and are very good at ignoring them. Look at MySpace for example. The site is jam packed with ads that cost a lot of money and for what? So people can ignore them and get down to what to they really want to see? I’m not saying the ads don’t work at all, but maybe they’re a little over rated. Facebook offers a free page for your company which is great, but you need to have friends to invite to your page or you need to advertise it. The advertising generally comes in the form of a pay-per-click and the suggested cost-per-click can be higher than Google costs. But maybe just being on Facebook is enough to make you “cool” so you may have a higher ROI. But is their any hard evidence to this? I would like to see it because I’m struggling with the decision of whether or not to adveritise on these sites.

I just launched a new website this week, www.as-seen-on-youtube.com. The site is an open forum for people to post links of cool videos they have found on YouTube, MySpace, Google, MetaCafe or any other online site. It is free and simple and I make money from Google Ads on my site. But to get people to the site in the first place I have to promote it. But I have a very small budget. (Basically pocket change). I am on Facebook and MySpace doing what I can for free and have set up Google ads and MSN AdCenter ads, but those only produce so many clicks.

Now this may work for me and may be enough for my site to grow (I hope) but that doesn’t mean it works for everyone. A viral campaign doesn’t work for every age group. I am working with some people on a launching a new product and they want to implement a viral campaign because it is cheaper and cooler than regular advertising. While this may work a little, the target market for this product is above the age of 35 and mostly women. This market is not online chatting and viewing pictures and videos. So if we were to go ahead with a viral campaign, the little money we do spend could be a waste.

But then again, the fastest growing segment of the social networking realm is ages 25+, but this is because anyone younger already has an account! What do you do? Does anyone have a suggestion? If it helps with promoting my site, I would be willing to pay for good ideas. How can I reach 20+ million people cheaply and fast? I don’t know yet, but if I figure it out, I’ll be sure to let you know!