Search v. encounter – the Google v. Facebook dilemma

It’s official! Facebook gets more time spent on it than internet behemoth Google. So does this mean that the Google machine is broken? And what does it mean for advertisers? Do we need to switch all spend from search to social networks?

The first thing to realise is that both companies have brought about a revolution in marketing. With Google it’s already happened. Google allows marketers to intercept people at the point that they are actually searching for a product. It’s like being able to catch someone as they open the Yellow Pages (how old am I?), or as they flick through a trade-specific magazine trying to find advice on a particular subject. Google lets you start a dialogue with the prospect at the specific point they are thinking about buying. The advertiser can precisely control spend by the hour, and masses of data is available for comprehensive analysis.

Facebook addresses a different point (unless it manages to supplant Google for search eventually as well) and growing numbers are spending increasing parts of their lives on Facebook.

Here, the advertising model for merchants is more like traditional forms, with companies having the chance to display their ads while prospects are browsing Facebook. But there are two huge differences compared with traditional advertising.

Benefits of Facebook marketing

The first is cost. It’s much cheaper to display online ads versus anything physical.

The second is targeting. Unlike a billboard or even direct mail, prospects can be precisely targeted. For instance, a dating site can target ads at people that split up with their boyfriend that morning. You can even target things on people’s “likes”! The sensitivity with which adverts can be directed is an order of magnitude better compared with the old ways, and the results can be analysed in the same way as Google PPC.

So Facebook has the potential to catch the attention of a prospect who has not previously been looking, while Google enables you to capture prospects when they are already searching for something.

For a start-up, there’s a great opportunity to stand out, particularly if it is selling something new which people aren’t yet searching for. Advertising on Google has been available for many years, but on Facebook it’s still in its infancy, and so a combination of innovative product, Facebook advertising and ecommerce store (there’s a plethora of low-cost ecommerce solutions around, including Actinic Online from my company) is probably the best recipe around for building a successful small business.

Google and Facebook address different parts of the sales cycle. But both are fundamentally better than what came before, with better targeting, lower costs and more measurability. The savvy marketer will engage in both, understand their parameters, and use the right one at the right time.