Facebook “Flyers” A Complete Waste

In early May of 2006 Facebook launched a new feature, “Facebook Flyers.” The idea behind this was that any Facebook user could buy a small block of text on the left sidebar of Facebook. This block would appear on every student’s page who belonged to the chosen college/university. The cost of this service is a mere $5.

Looking at Boston Universities “Current Flyer Board” there are only 7 advertisers who spent the $5. In reality, when using Facebook, the average user sees more “sample flyers” made by Facebook than real flyers made by the students. As of right now, this marketing tool is completely useless to students since anyone can simply make a group or an event to advertise what they want… for FREE. Not only would this service be free, but effective.

Just to make sure this notion was true, I tested the “Facebook Flyer.” I bought a spot to see how many visitors I could send to a popular Hip-Hop site my friend owns. I put up the $5 flyer, and posted it at the University of Houston. The results? 2 unique visitors in a 24 hour span. Facebook rules!