Livejournal's advertising sales pitch
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charmianhttp://www.livejournalinc.com/sales.php
There's a PDF linked on this page (unsure about the netiquette of linking a .pdf) which contains LJ's sales pitch to advertisers.
The document begins by claiming that LJ is the world's top "Community Media" site, and then says that LJ is unique because users connect not based on previous personal connections, but via shared interests. Communities are referred to as the "soul" of LJ.
So, in the minds of whoever created this presentation, LJ should be seen as a collection of enthusiasts about various topics, a break from the previous rhetoric about self-expression.
Interestingly, the chart on the ages of LJ users claims that there are three times as many 45-54 year olds as 12-17 year olds.
The document now begins talking about advertising targeting: interests are the mechanism for how this will work; they don't mean the actual LJ interests though, they mean that they will categorize existing communities to determine what users are interested in, then use this to serve relevant advertising to the users. Therefore they will target users based on what communities they belong to.
I'm not sure what the brand-safety page means.
"Contextual and semantic scanners send data back and forth between their own databases and LJ ad servers, and LJ staff patrol existing and new communities to preserve brand-safety, ensuring that ads serve on the most optimal pages."
I suppose this means that they have automated scanning of content, on the level of meaning? And that LJ staffers are also making sure ads don't appear on "brand-unsafe" pages?
Current Quantcast stats: http://www.quantcast.com/livejournal.com;jsessionid=00094C0AA6D50779F9702A24C4AAD525
There's a PDF linked on this page (unsure about the netiquette of linking a .pdf) which contains LJ's sales pitch to advertisers.
The document begins by claiming that LJ is the world's top "Community Media" site, and then says that LJ is unique because users connect not based on previous personal connections, but via shared interests. Communities are referred to as the "soul" of LJ.
So, in the minds of whoever created this presentation, LJ should be seen as a collection of enthusiasts about various topics, a break from the previous rhetoric about self-expression.
Interestingly, the chart on the ages of LJ users claims that there are three times as many 45-54 year olds as 12-17 year olds.
The document now begins talking about advertising targeting: interests are the mechanism for how this will work; they don't mean the actual LJ interests though, they mean that they will categorize existing communities to determine what users are interested in, then use this to serve relevant advertising to the users. Therefore they will target users based on what communities they belong to.
I'm not sure what the brand-safety page means.
"Contextual and semantic scanners send data back and forth between their own databases and LJ ad servers, and LJ staff patrol existing and new communities to preserve brand-safety, ensuring that ads serve on the most optimal pages."
I suppose this means that they have automated scanning of content, on the level of meaning? And that LJ staffers are also making sure ads don't appear on "brand-unsafe" pages?
Current Quantcast stats: http://www.quantcast.com/livejournal.com;jsessionid=00094C0AA6D50779F9702A24C4AAD525
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:32 am (UTC)However, given how much content there is on LJ, and how "undesirable" a lot of it is, I have to kind of wonder how they're going to do this. (Esp. with the locked content)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:46 am (UTC)I think they're right about comms being so important to their ecosystem, though. I hate to say it, but just look at ONTD - it's propping the place up these days. Appropriate advertising to niche groups still gets a good repsonse, which is how a bunch of magazines still manage to exist now :)
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:55 am (UTC)Also, if a lot of the content is marked as "adults only" or 'adult concepts" doesn't that meant that a lot of the content has been removed from the market?
I wonder if it is going to work out for them, whether they really can effectively/lucratively advertise. If they really can successfully slice LJ up into niche groups, get the advertisers to sign on, and then deliver (in whatever way they measure success), maybe they will have cracked the nut of advertising on social networks.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 11:09 am (UTC)I mentioned "in the context of the brand" for a reason - if your product is adults-only, you'll totally want to target a particular content level! Judging from the figures you posted, there's almost no reason to target children anyway. Parenting comms, on the other hand...
Facebook has already cracked that nut, btw! This challenge is more like running lucrative ads on an online forum.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 11:20 am (UTC)Hmm, I see, but I had thought that a lot of advertisers really didn't like seeing their products advertised next to out and out porn.
Ah, so you're saying that contrary to what some have argued, it actually is possible to make a profit through advertising on social networks?
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 11:59 am (UTC)The "adult concepts" level on LJ isn't out-and-out porn, though. It represents a non-explicit level of content that is of interest to ages 14 and up. Remember that an "advertiser" can merely be "who's paying" - plenty of people would like to spruik their açai berry juice scam, regardless of what it shows up next to! As an aside, I think being in fandom really skews people's concepts of LJ as a whole; Strikethrough affected a bunch of us but it's not like LJ is 99% hardcore porn. There are plenty of comms that have particular (targetable) interests and don't have to worry about locked content or adult concepts unless a spambot gets in.
An argument made about online advertising in 2008 is almost moot now - the landscape has changed incredibly in the past three years, and there's a shitload of stuff happening online and making money beyond CPC. Data mining (argh), context-sensitive/interest-based advertising (Adwords, Facebook), micropayments and social games are all starting to happen right now, even if the companies implementing them aren't all above board. But how much do we trust LJ again? O:D
Sorry for the wall of text - I've almost got my degree in internets.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 12:03 pm (UTC)No, thanks for this. This is really interesting, and I'm always glad to see more information. Seems that LJ has started some micropayments and social games (although I'm not sure how successful the games will be)... although I wonder about the data mining now.
repost
Date: 2011-04-04 01:50 pm (UTC)I told a friend who works for a pharmaceutical marketing firm, specializing in drugs for expectant mothers, that her company really should look into livejournal. She was skeptical because livejournal, to her, was a social site for white teenagers that stopped being relevant seven years ago. I told her that these days the site is like 70% women and that a lot of those women are older.
The problem with the site currently, though, is that it looks crappy, with lots of flashing ads and those kinds of games that people who don't know a lot about the internet like to play.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 06:55 pm (UTC)http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/29169,news-comment,news-politics,googles-romantic-view-of-bnp-website
Re: repost
Date: 2011-04-04 07:12 pm (UTC)Yeah, it does look pretty crappy. I wonder what they'll do about that.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-04 10:26 pm (UTC)