Facebook “Flyers” A Complete Waste

July 28, 2006 on 11:05 am | In Facebook, advertising |

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!

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  1. […] With Facebok Flyers you pay by impression rather than click. This was actually a big disappointment, obviously I’d have no problem paying more for a click, but they decided to go with the cost-per-impression model. The first thing I would think of when someone chooses the CPM model, is that users really don’t click on a lot of ads, which makes sense to me. When you are using Facebook, you are in the mindset of communicating with friends, updating your profile, and reading about what your friends and family are doing. You are not in any mindset of wanting to click any ads or purchase anything so really, if Facebook went the cost-per-click model (CPC) they’d probably have some really bad click-through-rates (as noted here Facebook Flyers a complete waste). […]

    Pingback by AdWords vs Facebook Flyers for Advertising | JarrodGoddard.com — August 25, 2007 #

  2. […] If those sleazy looking ads (I saw a lot of these the last time around) are a reflection of desperation, then no thanks. Back in 2006, when competition was less severe, those Facebook Flyers seemed like a “complete waste,” even then. Hmmm, make sense? […]

    Pingback by Trying to understand Facebook — October 9, 2007 #

  3. […] I wrote a post titled “On Campus, the Disruptive Facebook Flier” for the Portfolio.com tech blog about Facebook fliers back before students’ brains started ignoring the left-hand sidebar. Back when HackCollege was first starting out in late 2006, one dinky $5 flier gave us thousands of visits. Those numbers are 1/100th of that these days and people are frustrated, especially organizations already strapped for cash. […]

    Pingback by Student Leaders: Implementing Twitter and Mozes (Part 1: Twitter) | HackCollege — January 24, 2008 #

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Facebook “Flyers” A Complete Waste

July 28, 2006 on 11:05 am | In Facebook, advertising |

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!

3 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

  1. […] With Facebok Flyers you pay by impression rather than click. This was actually a big disappointment, obviously I’d have no problem paying more for a click, but they decided to go with the cost-per-impression model. The first thing I would think of when someone chooses the CPM model, is that users really don’t click on a lot of ads, which makes sense to me. When you are using Facebook, you are in the mindset of communicating with friends, updating your profile, and reading about what your friends and family are doing. You are not in any mindset of wanting to click any ads or purchase anything so really, if Facebook went the cost-per-click model (CPC) they’d probably have some really bad click-through-rates (as noted here Facebook Flyers a complete waste). […]

    Pingback by AdWords vs Facebook Flyers for Advertising | JarrodGoddard.com — August 25, 2007 #

  2. […] If those sleazy looking ads (I saw a lot of these the last time around) are a reflection of desperation, then no thanks. Back in 2006, when competition was less severe, those Facebook Flyers seemed like a “complete waste,” even then. Hmmm, make sense? […]

    Pingback by Trying to understand Facebook — October 9, 2007 #

  3. […] I wrote a post titled “On Campus, the Disruptive Facebook Flier” for the Portfolio.com tech blog about Facebook fliers back before students’ brains started ignoring the left-hand sidebar. Back when HackCollege was first starting out in late 2006, one dinky $5 flier gave us thousands of visits. Those numbers are 1/100th of that these days and people are frustrated, especially organizations already strapped for cash. […]

    Pingback by Student Leaders: Implementing Twitter and Mozes (Part 1: Twitter) | HackCollege — January 24, 2008 #

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