Steps
- Understand the audience of the site from many levels: demographics, pyschographics, technographics, geography, usage habits...whatever you can get your hands on
- Best bet is to conduct focus groups online and/or poll the audience of the site.
- Measure brand chatter on the sites. Don't only observe what is being said, consider it.
- Make sure that your brand is contextually relevant
- Assess advertising units available within given areas
- See if there are ad opportunities that are not as conventional as banners, buttons, text links and skyscrapers. Many social media sites have brand assets such as logos, apparel, accessories, skins, etc. within virtual worlds
- Social media is much like the Wild West. Watch what people are saying within those pages you've defined. You may not want to place your brand where foul language and negativity might arise.
- Conduct a test campaign flighting for about a month if the publisher agrees.
- Test multiple creative concepts and ad units
- Monitor, track, analyze and optimize more than clicks and click throughs. What other data points can you access? You may be able to see number of downloads, conversations, mentions and the like.
- Incorporate learnings to a full campaign.
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Tips
- Never sign a long term insertion order that you can't get out of within a 30 day window.
Warnings
- Do not advertise on sites without a clear privacy policy.
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