So three days before Facebook's IPO General Motors announces that it is ceasing all paid advertising on Facebook; claiming it's not working. OK fine...maybe so, social media ads is a tricky business. Remember though, Facebook has 800,000,000 active users that, if I remember hearing correctly, an average of one third of that population is logged on at any given time. Then yesterday, the day of the Facebook IPO, GM announces that they will not buy ads during the 2013 Super Bowl. The reason? "It's gotten too expensive."
Ok, hold on. The Super Bowl is the single largest television advertising EVENT of the year. It's widely known that many people watch the game not even for the game...but for the commercials. Couple that decision with GM withdrawing ads from what everybody knows is the largest registered online audience on the face of the planet...Facebook (it's kind of a big deal) and something just doesn't sound right.
In my opinion, what GM's decisions say is not that Facebook ads don't work, and that boo-hoo advertising is too expensive...it says to me that something is wrong at General Motors. Something is definitely wrong.
What about Ford? The only other American auto company that anyone really cares about, and didn't take any bailout money. What is Ford's take on Facebook advertising?
..."We've found Facebook ads to be very effective when strategically combined with engagement, great content and innovative ways of storytelling," Ford spokeswoman Kelli Felker said in an e-mail.
Pssst hey...GM...do that!
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