Last week (or the week before) Instagram created a hullaballoo by saying they were going to sell ads next to users’ photos.

They, of course, are owned by Facebook, that is constantly trying to get us to overshare and then sell ads next to our personal moments, or use our name to let others know we “like” a brand and so should our friends.

Yesterday, while reviewing a new blog post on our company blog, I noticed that Disqus, the 3rd party commenting plugin that we use, was serving up “Recommended for You” links to off site sources. 

I have to assume it was paid content, since the post on our web marketing blog was about Link Building and the “recommended” offsite links were for “Emma Watson As You’ve Never Seen Her Before” and “Kristen Stewart’s Astounding Black Lace Jumpsuit Turns Heads on The Red Carpet.”

Needless to say, if I can’t shut off this feature, we’re kicking Disqus to the curb.

What do you think? Is advertising killing social media, or is it a necessary evil…or something in between?

@rich-brooks I agree with  @amyhallbiz about the freemium exposure. It seems like the balance keeps wavering back and forth between helpful and annoying. I believe that people’s reaction depends upon demographics, mood, context, etc. We will probably be discussing this topic in some way at our April conference. Luckily Hispanics seem to be a bit more receptive to advertising than other cultures (based on research I’ve read).

@rich-brooks @amyhallbiz @kc_kreative @dhsllc

Any unsolicited ads, to me, are unwanted ads.  We see this in main stream media all the time – on TV programs and of course the moving ‘tickers’ for many news programs.

Commercialism of the web has been growing stronger since FB gained so much popularity, because they are all about the money and not about the members, per se.  And really it was the big box companies coming into the online world for sales that pushed search engines into so many more ads, which btw, they were not opposed to, as of course, that’s also more money for them by way of ads.

NO, social media won’t be ‘killed’ by advertising but it will need to find an avenue that does not depend on ads for revenue. 

OH!pinion — many of the ‘free’ items may need to go the way of becoming ‘paid’ services to avoid the ads.  I personally don’t think this is a bad idea. I would not mind paying a small amount each month to have automatic social media on websites.

Flip Side — With Chrome and other SE’s having so many add-on apps to share website information, many of the SM sharing platforms of today could go by the wayside to avoid the ads that so many people find distasteful. 

I don’t use many of the ‘freebie’ sharing software packages anyway.  They can be distracting and when they stop working, you have to fiddle around with them too much (sometimes) to get them working again.  I find a physical link to profiles to be more of a “here it is if you want to see” to be more unobtrusive than many of the free sharing packages out there. And because that is unobtrusive and does not suggest “likes” or “+’s” (or whatever) that I get more responses when people are left to think for themselves. 

Eileen 

Hello @dhsllc  

Unfortunately this is what “plumber Joe” and many more average people want – to make money on the web without knowing anything or even without caring who is bothered by it.

We may see the rise once again of private forums in which gatekeepers will be paid to keep the spammers at bay.  OR we will need to join clubs for a price to keep the ads (of all kinds) out of sight so we can at least discuss business without the distractions.

Who knows? Surely, I don’t have a crystal ball.  But I do know that those of us who spend a lot time online and know which emails are not worthy of a peek, have to hang in with the crowds of folks who DO know something to get a handle on what to do next to keep ourselves clean from the spammy ads.

Eileen

Hi @mitch-rezman —  side note

Thank goodness someone can say “NO” without all the wordiness (like me). 

Perfect answer.

I like how @mitch-rezman said it.