Social Advertising Changes: Facebook and Pinterest

Social media is getting an overhaul in terms of advertising.

For instance, Facebook announced several months ago that it was once again changing the way pages would show up in people's timelines, and have been reducing the organic reach of posts significantly.  Ogilvy and Mather posted a study on their social blog noting that in an "analysis of more than 100 brand pages, organic reach hovered at 6 percent, a decline of 49 percent from peak levels in October. For large pages with more than 500,000 Likes, organic reach hit 2 percent in February."  What does this mean for brands that want to reach a larger audience? More than likely they're going to have to go for paid advertising on Facebook, building relevant and interesting content so that users want to engage with the brand.

Also now getting into the paid advertising game is Pinterest, which has been mostly just curated content from its users, which does include brands. Similar to both Instagram and Twitter you'll see, "promoted pins" in your searches or when you're just browsing the site. But in keeping with Pinterest's aesthetic, they're asking brands to not be obtrusive and use ads that are both visually appealing so that users will want to pin, repin and promote them. Some brands have already been part of a trial for this, such as Wayfair and the Four Seasons, but they haven't reported on the success as of yet. The idea seems to be that advertisers will have the choice whether to buy ads as CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) or CPC (cost-per-click) basis. As we wait for the official launch, Pinterest has added a form to the site for businesses to sign up.