Geographic targeting is key for social network marketers

New research from comScore sheds light on how social network marketers are doing and how they could be doing better in the online environment. According to the report, as with many other online marketing efforts, the right targeting is key.

by Kristina Knight

For social marketing, geographic targeting may be the most important factor, according to reports.

Traffic to social networks increased exponentially year over year, with giant MySpace attracting 72% more surfers, Facebook jumping 220% and Bebo seeing an increase of 172% more visitors in the past year. Smaller, niche networks like Tagged saw even greater increases in traffic. Traffic at Tagged.com increased more than 700% year over year.

"Social networking has really taken off globally,” said Bob Ivins, executive vice president of international markets. "A fundamental aspect of the success of social networking sites is cultural relevance. Those doing well in certain regions are likely doing an effective job of communicating appropriately with those regions’ specific populations."

Geographically targeting advertising campaigns within the various social networking hubs, then, is as important as targeting for specific age groups, income brackets or education levels.

First advertisers need to know which networks appeal to which geographic areas. Once that information is known it is a simple step to target that specific area of the population. Networks like MySpace and Facebook skew toward the North American population by more than 60% each while networks like Orkut skew toward the Latin America demographic, Friendster appeals to the Asia/Pacific regions and Hi5 appeals to the European regions.