Investigation: Digital advertising.

Over the last couple years, we have seen a tremendous increase in digital advertising and I would expect this trend to continue as the internet continues to grow. One aspect of digital advertising that I find interesting is the way in which local businesses use sites such as facebook and google to reach a market in their geographical area as well as key in on certain demographics. For example, local businesses can go through google to advertise through their search feature. If a user in Sherman searches for such things as a bakery or pizza restaurants, google automatically uses your location to bring up bakeries or pizza restaurants in the area. This has been an effective way of expanding local businesses and helping them create an identity, especially with google allowing for user reviews of the business. Facebook creates millions of dollars in revenue through their digital advertising and in a way it is much more effective than google. Not only does facebook use a similar gps system as google for location-specific advertising, they also incorporate what a specific facebook user "likes" and use that to present advertisements that pertain to an individual's interest. Also, when an individual on facebook "likes" a local business' facebook page, it is displayed on the user's page, allowing for additional advertising opportunities. In contrast to other forms of digital advertising such as youtube ads or pandora ads, I believe the way in which facebook advertises local business and businesses that tailer to an individual's interest is much more effective and as this form of advertising becomes more and more popular, I think you will see an increase in the amount of this type of digital ads. Facebook plans to double their revenue from advertising between 2010-2015 and they are on track to do so, with many local businesses seeing facebook and other sites that use location-specific advertising as a great opportunity for expansion

Sources:

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/03/04/thousands-of-new-cities-now-in-facebooks-performance-advertising-tool/

http://allfacebook.com/local-facebook-advertising_b6790

http://www.wizmarketings.com/blog/5-ways-local-business-benefit-facebook-advertising/

http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/buyingadvertising/a/adwords-local.htm

http://www.searchengineguide.com/richard-ball/google-adwords-1.php