With all the hype that surrounds social media marketing our team decided to put out an article regarding Google (vs) Facebook when it comes to advertising.

As most people know, Facebook was never designed really for businesses, nor was it even an afterthought that it would become known as a great place to advertise. However it’s deep, intrusive, and very specific demographic targeting has allowed advertisers to put themselves in front of “targeted” prospects like never before.

Google on the other hand is a beast in of itself; developing perhaps the most influential and forward-powering tool in technology with its search engine, all while turning the tables up-side-down on how businesses market to consumers.

The debate over Google (vs) Facebook in terms of advertising really comes down to 2 seperate types of marketing.

ACTIVE (vs) PASSIVE MARKETING

Active Marketing involves an action (an active person actually doing something to trigger the marketing to take place).

Passive Marketing involves no action (you simply put the ad in front of someone, the better targeted, the better off you are).

Google is certainly a big believer in active marketing. It’s AdWords platform relies on one typing in a “key word phrase” in order for an ad to trigger. The advertiser does not pay at all for the “impression” (aka view by the user) and only pays if their ad is clicked.

What a fantastic transaction! Thank you Google. Roll back the clock and try to find a marketing method prior to search engine advertising that allowed the marketer to only pay if their ad was not only viewed, but also acted upon. This is a big reason why Google has become Google.

Passive marketing on the other hand involves the much more traditional style of advertising. Billboards, magazines, newspapers, flyers, mail advertising, radio, tv, and so on, are all members of the passive marketing category. Can you be successful with only passive ads? Of course you can! Businesses did this for centuries before big search engines like Google came along.

So what about Facebook? Facebook has figured out how to do passive marketing better than anyone. How? By relying on all the dirty little details they know about each and every single person.

Let us be clear in stating that Google certainly harvests data on users (just open Google Analytics) but they really are not selling it when you look at how active advertising works. Facebook on the other hand relies heavily on all the details they know about a user so that the advertiser can hone-in on their targeted client base like never before. It is a great form of advertising and in a perfect world being shown stuff you may be interested in really isn’t a bad thing right? That is a whole seperate issue of course.

Look at it from an advertising perspective though and ask yourself this:

- Would you rather only pay if someone is seeking out services you have directly, sees your ad, and then interacts with it?

(or)

- Would you rather pay to have your ad put in front of boat-loads of people, targeted, sure, but pay something regardless?

That is really what it all comes down to.

“Sure, Jamie the soccer mom might like to know that shin guards are available at a local sporting good store because her kids play soccer and she drives a mini van”

but I rather pay for my ad if

“Jamie said she was looking for shin guards from a local sporting good store and seemed to like what I offered”

This article was not written to put Google on Cloud-9 (above all else) nor was it a cheap-shot at Facebook. It was simply to present potential advertisers with the facts. Do both types of advertising work? Of course they do. Has Facebook targeted demographics unlike any other? They sure have. Do they offer a better primary source of online advertising for businesses than Google? In most cases, no.

If you are considering advertising online, starting with Google is typically the best bet. In some rare cases doing something social-media related first makes sense, but not always. Facebook after-all does have a pretty good word-of-mouth tool with the “like me” feature. We wonder how many people, places, and things would be “liked” if people realized what their simple-click actually results in.

For more information on advertising online or to discuss your business website with a consultant, please visit our main page or call us at 1-866-572-3434.

       I just read something on the Internet yesterday about website marketing and linking and how the way most websites have it set up now is a bad way to go about things. I don’t know what to think about it. I’ll tell you what I read first. Basically, the way websites go around and exchange links with other websites is fine and good but putting the links into a big directory that goes: name – link, name – link, etc. is an unprofessional and silly way to do things. The reasons that I read were justified. The biggest of them being that search engines are changing around how they count links and what they consider to be an actual solid link. The more content behind a link the better. I can understand that. Also that there are so many automated link farmers out there that website marketing or link exchanging has gotten to be kind of ridiculous. This was a lot to chew on for me.

       I’m on the fence about doing content filled links for a couple reasons. I like the idea about it because it would force actual people to write content for the people their exchanging links for. That way automated systems and stuff like that aren’t getting all these links without doing anything. It would be good to stop that. One the other hand, writing content for each link that comes in or that I want to connect to me would be time

consuming beyond belief! With all that writing I would have to have four computers and eight hands to type on them all. I feel like content links would not really be a benefit to smaller companies who don’t have the manpower to crank out all this content for links. Therefore, the big guys win again, who would probably have link content writer up the wahzoo. I also think that for link purposes no one is going to want to read the content anyways. You can write anything you want because in the end, who really looks at the links page? No one but people looking to exchange links, that’s why the way to get to the links is sometimes hidden so well even Sherlock Holmes couldn’t find it.

       So the real question is; is it worth it to have everyone write content for their links? Wouldn’t it just end up being the same way it is now, just taking up more space for all that content? I think so, because there would be people writing content for the larger companies like no other and they would end up being on top either way. Nothing changes and it never will. You can try to optimize the system as much as you want but there will always be people figuring out a way to get around the walls and bend the rules. It’s society.

       In the end I can’t make up my mind about this topic. I suppose that’s why the rules for website marketing and link exchanging haven’t changed. I think there’s a lot of people up here on this fence with me. If you want to learn more about website marketing go to DreamCo Design – Marketing. Want to know more about web design? Visit us at DreamCo Design – Web Design.