We just did an assessment of advertising placed on social networking sites and were surprised to find that nearly 20% of all ad spending is by local businesses. Our assumption going into this research was that commercials on social networks were almost purely national. We’re estimating that local advertisers will account for about $641 million of nearly $3.3 billion this year trying to reach consumers via these sites.
In the scheme of things, it’s still a drop in the bucket. The total is less than 3% of all locally spent online advertising. If we estimated it for individual local markets (we usually don’t do that until an advertising segment reaches $1 billion), it would equate to a few hundred thousand dollars or less in most markets.
Before you rush to create a networking site for Oklahoma City pet lovers or Duluth skydivers, consider this: 57% of all that local social-networking advertising is going to two sites, Facebook and MySpace. They are the only two sites generating more than $100 million from local advertising placement. We’re seeing quite a few local ads placed either through Google or Yahoo’s contextual placement program – probably through an intermediary and not by the advertiser directly.
We’ll be studying the full list of social networking sites and their local ad dollars over the next several days and offering more insights. The relatively small amount may not seem like much, but the swift growth of these networks appears to be causing a corresponding upswing in local ad placement. Keep an eye on Facebook. It is the biggest share-getter. In fact, 74% of its ad revenues are from local businesses.
Download a detail of Social Network ad spending.
Tags: Facebook, local advertising, local online advertising, Media, MySpace, social networks

I missed your post before having ESP this morning. Social net targeting strategies are starting to leak out into the Open Web. This trend may too.
http://blog.lookery.com/2009/07/13/random-to-me-manga-image-via-wikipedialocal-advertising/
i thought it was “tweeted”
Interesting post.
I am sure that local ads on social netwerks will surely rise in the furture. Where else is it possible to target the ads so specifically to “interests” + “locations”, while also reaching a remarkable number of users….
We have been recommending our clients use the social networks for local ads. It’s good to cover every avenue as much as possible.
You can have a very successful ad campaign on Social Sites if done correctly. The key is building relationships. Here is a video interview with Giovanni Gallucci who is rated #1 on Google when you type in Social Media expert.
http://yates11.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/social-media-works-but-dont-sell/
Keep up the great research and analysis. I recently read your SEM June 2009 report. It was extremely informative.
The fact that we’re seeing local advertisers on social nets at this $ is really interesting. It is an early sign that ppc on soc nets might be as important as ppc on SEs some day. At HubSpot, we advertise nationally on facebook for our keywords. A big reason is because we were able to try it self-serve and measure that we got a solid return, not to mention all of the free brand advertising that comes with a lower cpc. I can imagine that self-serve brings a lot of local advertisers into the fray, just like it did initially for SEM/PPC. Do you think? Also, the targeting to geography is obviously critical.
I wonder how many of the local advertisers on these sites are also using the free capabilities of the site to attract traffic too?
Were you able to measure soc networking ads through services like SocialMedia.com?
OK – I “get” that local businesses are buying Web 1.0 banner ads on Web 2.0 social sites. And hey, if it works, why not?
But soon the advertising will be the network, not just a banner. The word-of-mouth that occurs in actual relationships will be harnessed to benefit not only trusted businesses, but consumers and their communities as well.
Further to Tim Tracey’s post, about advertising becoming the network – take a look at RepairPal.com.
Did you see any regional differences for local advertising on Social Media?
Good for you
) I did it with my company and this moving in social networks really work, we make like 30 % local ads and we have a veri big progress
Excellent site,Thanks for this great post – I will be sure to check out your blog more often.Just subscriped to your RSS feed..
How do You explain Twitter number? You know, they have no advertising at all in their web site. How do You calculate 288 mil $ revenue for 2009? Thanks
So, Facebook is getting 74% of its advertising from local advertisers. I wonder if this is because they have a self-service system like Google Adwords. The local advertisers aren’t forced to call a sales rep who would rather be talking to a national account.
We’ve advertised on Facebook for some of our clients. We expected click through rates would be extremely low compared to search and they were even lower than we expected. At this point, we haven’t found it to be effective in marketing local service based businesses.
We have experimented with Facebook ads and had little success. Facebook seems like a good option if you are trying to target a very specific demographic because of all the data they collect from each person. We got a lot of impressions but very few clicks.
Localized ads on google maps have been very beneficial to our clients. Adding the social component is even more targeted. Great stats in the article.
you can see that there is a massive growth in online advertising these days, google paved the way on ppc ;*~
When 1 conceives the concern at hand, i have to agree with your finishes. You distinctly show cognition about this subject and i’ve significantly to find out after reading your post.Quite a few salutations and i will come back for any further updates.
I have experimented with Facebook ads and had little success. Facebook looks like a great way if you are trying to point a most specific demographic because of all the data they collect from every person. i got a many impressions but less clicks.
I’ve been browsing online more than three hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all website owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the web will be much more useful than ever… odnoklassniki
Magnificent goods from you, man. I have understand your stuff previous to and you are just extremely magnificent. I actually like what you have acquired here, really like what you’re saying and the way in which you say it. You make it entertaining and you still take care of to keep it wise. I can’t wait to read much more from you. This is really a tremendous website.
With so many people keeping their profiles private on social networking sites. I doubt that it helps to post ads or seo into these sites. Plus all your going to do is make people think of you and or your company as a spammer. Go figure, it could hurt you more than help.
Although this subject can be amazingly touchy for most people, my opinion is that there has to be a middle or prevalent floor that we all can uncover. I do recognize that youve additional related and intelligent commentary proper right here though. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing information with , I will return every week to read more.
Mr Santorum which sounds more insane Pesident Kennedy saying in 1962 that he wanted to land a man on the moon in less than 8 years when we were still inventing the technology for the “Color TV’ or having a moon base and with the technology to do so….MJ
Hi there to all, for the reason that I am in fact eager of reading this webpage post to be updated daily. It includes pleasant information.Nike Air
Hi! I simply would want to give you a enormous “thumbs up”. . . for the wonderful info you have got right here. I am returning to your web site for much more before long.
Unquestionably believe that which you said. Your favorite justification seemed to be on the internet the easiest thing to be aware of. I say to you, I definitely get annoyed while people think about worries that they plainly don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top and defined out the whole thing without having side effect , people could take a signal. Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
I think the most influential man is celeb Tom Truong.
bettingplay.net/online-gambling/ online gambling
I think the most influential asian actor is Tom Truong.
To learn about roulette betting at casino visit: bettingroulette.co.uk
Good evening! I was surfing arround on Google and came across this blog. Some good information in here! I also have a website . Please feel free to leave a comment there.
pop over to this website, I found your weblog site on google and check just a few of your early posts. Proceed to maintain up the superb operate. I just further up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. In search of ahead to reading more from you in a while!…
check out here, This is the precise weblog for anyone who wants to seek out out approximately this topic. You understand a lot its nearly hard to argue with you (no longer that I truly may want…HaHa). You undoubtedly placed a new spin on a subject thats been written approximately for years. Great stuff, just great!
Thanks for the various tips provided on this site. I have observed that many insurance companies offer prospects generous special discounts if they prefer to insure a few cars together. A significant volume of households include several vehicles these days, in particular those with elderly teenage kids still located at home, as well as savings in policies could soon mount up. So it makes sense to look for a great deal.
I ran across this. quite interesting and you ought to look it over. This is a great source of facts on waterproof iPhone 4 cases
I was sharing this with my boy the other day. Do you have any more references?
Hmm it looks like your website ate my first comment (it was extremely
long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly
enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog
blogger but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any helpful hints for newbie blog writers? I’d genuinely appreciate it.
Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and I in finding It really useful & it helped me out much. I am hoping to give something again and help others such as you helped me.