Impact of Third-Party Ad Restrictions on Social Marketing

Yesterday Twitter announced that it will be following in the footsteps of Facebook in terms of restricting third-party advertisements being injected into a user's feed.  Facebook was one of the first social networks to implement such a restriction, when it explicitly added a clause to its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities back in August 2009 to prevent an individual from using his personal account for commercial gain (see section 4.4), and LinkedIn provides for similar protection from unsolicited advertising (see section 10.B.28[f]).

It is not surprising that Twitter has made this announcement, in that the entire industry, not just Twitter, is concerned with preserving the "the integrity and relevance of the timeline" or stream.  Stream integrity is maintained by ensuring that a user is responsible for and has taken ownership over the information that they promote to their network.  Injected advertisements corrupt the feed for a user by creating additional noise that his or her network must filter out, and detract from the value of a meaningful stream of information.

Users should only promote information that they have a genuine desire to share with their networks.  For this to happen a user must have full awareness and control over the message that is pushed to his or her networks.  While this recent news will definitely have a negative impact on services such as Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly, it serves only to underscore the value of using a system such as SocialToaster.

SocialToaster is unique in the industry because it promotes a philosophy of simply enabling users to share content that they would otherwise already be sharing in an easier fashion.  SocialToaster complies with Twitter's Automation Rules and Best Practices in that Ambassador's, people registered to promote content using SocialToaster, have full control over the content that they actually share on any of their networks. This control also ensures that users are complying with the rules of other services, such as Facebook. 

The impact of this announcement on the world of social marketing is pretty significant, in that Twitter was really the final holdout for fully automated advertisement injection. This maneuver will force the industry to search out mechanisms that actually facilitate genuine recommendations and endorsements by individuals, and SocialToaster is poised to be one of the leading solutions capable of providing this service.

Advertising has taken on negative connotations, with advertisers forcing content on an unwilling audience. The restrictions that the social networks have placed on how advertisers can leverage their members will create a fundamental shift in this existing paradigm, whereby advertisers must now ASK for the support of their audience in order to promote their message. This shift can only help to ensure that the advertising information that people are subjected to moving forward will be more likely to be something that they are receptive to, coming as recommendations from trusted friends and sources.