There was some buzz today in the tech blogosphere about Facebook Flyer ads and their ability to access Facebook's social graph to target advertising.
Techcrunch had a post; Valleywag had a post too.
Meanwhile, I think it's interesting to note that NYTimes.com ponsted a story about the doubts surrounding online advertising metrics.
The story indicates that "the growth of online advertising is being stunted, industry executives say, because nobody can get the basic visitor counts straight."
There's an opportunity here. And it's not just for Facebook. It's for any site that knows its community. In particular it's an opportunity for media sites to adopt the social network paradigm. In traditional media, advertisers pay for position within a section of a print publication or during a specific broadcast for access to a demographic segment they're seeking to reach. With social graph targeting, advertisers get direct access to the identified segment.
The basic idea in the Facebook Flyer program is that you can choose to target your flyer ad to specific traits including country, city, gender, age range, political views, relationship status, education level, workplace affiliation, and keywords that someone would use to his or her interests.
It's still not a perfect system. User profiles can be fudged. We know it happens. Especially on sites where the main interaction is between the user and the company. On social networks, the connection is between the user and the community. People could still give false info, but what would be the point? If you're joining a community, you want to connect with people who have similar tastes and interests. Clearly, the stakes are higher to provide the right info.
And that's the pivotal point here â€" the social paradigm creates stronger demographic profiles. And let's face it, communities are easier to count than daily hits, which should make advertisers happy.
While not yet a huge revenue generator, Facebook Flyers are definitely worth monitoring. Connecting people (interest and demographics), communities, and advertisers is a powerful combination.