| August 23rd, 2012 by Judith Aquino |
Facebook launched two new additions to its advertising offerings this week while continuing to face criticism from Wall Street. Similar to Google’s ads that appear on top of search results, Facebook launched yesterday its “Sponsored Results”—ads that show up when users search for a person, page, or app in the social network’s search bar.
If you type in the word “King” for instance, an ad for “Galaxy 2: Best Sci-Fi Space Game” may appear on top of your search results.
The ads were first reported by TechCrunch, which announced they were initially being tested by a small number of advertisers, including Zynga, and EA. “Sponsored Results” is now available to all advertisers. They can now purchase the ad units in the Power Editor tool or API.
Advertisers can create 70-character messages that appear on top of search results, and they can be placed alongside Facebook Pages, places, apps, and subscribe-enabled users.
To help advertising agencies leverage the social network’s ad offerings, the company also debuted this week its new Facebook Studio Edge. Described on the site as “a social learning and recognition program” Facebook Studio Edge offers 10-15 minute “how-to” type videos on topics such as apps, Pages and ads.
The site also includes a gamification feature which awards users who complete each module with a recognition badge that is displayed alongside case studies of their accomplishments which also appear on the site.
Since its rocky IPO, Mark Zuckerberg and his cohort have yet to convince investors and analysts that the behemoth social network has a viable plan to increase profits. And although neither of these new tools is ground-breaking, they provide a logical way for the company to attract more advertisers.


