WIRED -- Mar 27 -- MySpace\'s membership has ballooned from 20m people in 2005 to 225m today, an average annual growth rate of 513%. Rival Facebook grew at 550% a year during the same period. LinkedIn\'s rate was 182%. Social networking was supposed to be the Net\'s next rocket to riches. But many social sites are having trouble capitalizing on their audiences. Lookery, an ad network specializing in social media, offers display ads on MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo for only 13c CPM. Yahoo\'s average CPM is ~$13. Video ads on MySpace reportedly fetch just $25 CPM. LinkedIn has a CPM as high as $75. The site caters to professionals, making it easier to target ads.

Mark Brooks: Throwing banner ads to the wind does not work. SNS users are especially good at tuning out banner ads.  In my experience, the performance of untargeted ads on social networks sucks.  Ads on social networks need to be highly targeted to perform. And the ads need to drive traffic to communities on social networks rather than to the advertisers site. i.e. ads on MySpace for xyz brand should drive traffic to the xyz community on MySpace. Social networks are a great place to harvest and encourage brand ambassadors and evangelists, and open discussion about your brand. Encourage those that might be ambassadors in, give them special treatment, listen to them, and THEY can turn your social networking ad campaign into a success. Easier said than done. Please let me know about your successful SNS ad campaigns at mark@socialnetworkingwatch.com.

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