Facebook. All the cool kids are doing it. Are you?

For advertisers, it’s a tough market to miss out on. So many people in one place at one time. Marketers see something like this and it’s like their dreams have come true. It has that sparkly, shiny exterior that seems to say, come to us. We have numbers.

Numbers are important in a marketing campaign. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. However, in the world of Facebook, some of those numbers have gotten them into trouble. The reason is that recently Facebook introduced a new advertising platform. A platform that brought together numbers that not everyone felt comfortable sharing.

Numbers and demographics. Demographic data tells advertisers who and where their potential customers are. When millions and millions of users register their personal information on a social site, demographic research suddenly becomes much easier than ever.

But if you don’t notify your users or give them the opportunity to opt out of the platform, there will be a lot of backlash. In the space of a month, the site can go from “have you tried it yet?” to “remember when everyone liked it?”

Online advertising affirms online development. We all understand this and, to some extent, we have all come to accept it. So much so that we hardly even notice it.

Here’s a quick thought experiment. Did you check your email this morning? Do you check it every day? It is a fairly common practice. Did you know there were ads around your message? We all know they are there. Bold, pretty colors or creative bold titles. They are always close…just on the periphery of our vision.

Now, do you remember just one? Do you remember what they sold?

My guess is that you probably don’t.

Online advertising is the epitome of selling at the moment. If the pretty colors or particular text catches your eye at the moment, you can click on it. But that means the truth is that there is as much reliance on pure momentum as there is on demographics.

Facebook is the latest in a line of platforms trying to provide the opportunity for targeted advertising. Isn’t that nice of them? We will use your personal information to deliver targeted advertising, because we need to advertise, so it could also be for things you’ve given us clues that you really like. Oh, and we might sell your information to others, so they can share in this opportunity.

But at least they gave us the chance to receive the ads we want to see.

Expect. us ads want to see?

Is personal information used to determine likes and dislikes?

Let’s be honest. Nobody wants ads. And implementing an advertising platform and promoting it as something beneficial to a user base does not fool anyone. And in the wake of the backlash from this platform, Facebook changed some of its policies and made it easier to opt in or opt out of the program.

So what about regular online advertising on social media like this? It is effective? Does demographics reduce momentum dependency? Or are users of social sites so focused on content that advertising doesn’t even register on them?

Studies have shown that common user trends lean toward the latter option. Click-through rates on Facebook (and other social sites) are extremely low.

It seems that people are too busy socializing to give in to impulsive clicks.

Does that mean you don’t need to consider social media in your online ad campaign?

No problem. While there are arguments about the staying power of Web 2.0 applications and whether we are on the verge of another bubble bursting, that is irrelevant to the current discussion.

In the here and now the community works. Ads may not, but advertising is not your only option on these networks.

The community works because users feel like you have their interests in mind, rather than just your own. Community is about communication, and that might be the best advertisement you could hope for.